Other stuff – Page 25 – Attestation Update

E-book to help CPAs cope with massive change available today free

Leave a Comment / Other stuff, Pondering / Jim Ulvog

Just got my copy of Look, Lead, Love, Learn: Four Steps to Better Business, a Better Life – and Conquering Complexity in the Process written by Bill Sheridan of the Maryland Association of CPAs.

Mentioned this book last night at this post.

Today only the price is $0.00. A bargain at $5. Even better at today’s price.

I’ve read the first 20 screens or so. Great stuff.

Starts with a pertinent quote –

You better start swimmin’

Or you’ll sink like a stone.

– Bob Dylan

If you want a short read to help you cope with the massive change going on around us, check out the book. Grab it today so you can read it this weekend.

E-book to help CPAs cope with massive change available today free Read More »

Great book to help CPAs cope with all that change available for great price (hint – $0 on Friday)

1 Comment / Other stuff, Pondering / Jim Ulvog

I’ve mentioned the blog of the Maryland Association of CPAs quite a few times. Bill Sheridan has an e-book available at Amazon – Look, Lead, Love, Learn: Four Steps to Better Business, a Better Life – and Conquering Complexity in the Process.

Only five bucks and a far better price tomorrow, 5-17-13.

If you aren’t subscribing to their blog, you really should.

Here’s a quick description of the book: …

Great book to help CPAs cope with all that change available for great price (hint – $0 on Friday)Read More »

Great book to help CPAs cope with all that change available for great price (hint – $0 on Friday) Read More »

Internal control, 1860s edition – safes

Leave a Comment / Accounting, Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

(All photos by James Ulvog are from the Wells Fargo museum in Old Town park in San Diego.)

There are a few basics of internal control you will always hear from your CPA. The concepts have been around a looooong time.

Things like split access to the safe. Also, use storage containers that would reveal any unauthorized access.

Those concepts were used on the stagecoaches in the 1860s as shown at the Wells Fargo Museum in San Diego.

The strong boxes used to transport gold and currency were extremely rugged. You can see pictures above and below that I took while touring the museum last year. Several things are quite visible.

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Internal control, 1860s edition – safesRead More »

Internal control, 1860s edition – safes Read More »

Professional referrals

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

I frequently get requests from colleagues for names of other professionals who could assist with particular client needs.

As a public service to the wider CPA community, I thought it would be helpful to publish a list of the firms I mention most often.

Attorneys: …

Professional referralsRead More »

Professional referrals Read More »

Lighten up on the IRS training videos

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

The political class is in horror that videos are used in training events and that it costs money to produce training videos. How frightening! How wasteful!

The furor coming from DC and the media would have you think spending 60 grand for two videos is the crime of the century.

If you’re looking for waste in federal spending, search the Internet for 60 seconds and you will find dozens of examples each of which is thousands of times bigger than this fabricated fiasco.

Time to lighten up folks.

Check these out:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxU6n4pAnrU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBq8yzLObGg]

(links – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxU6n4pAnrU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBq8yzLObGg)

Is the Star Trek video roll-your-eyes and groan out loud funny? Yes.

Is it an entertaining spoof of the Star Trek series? Yes.

Cheesy? Yeah.

Campy? You bet.

Are the inside jokes good? Yes. Very good.

At the same time, is it a lighthearted way to open a training session for a few hundred people per event? Yes.

…

Lighten up on the IRS training videosRead More »

Lighten up on the IRS training videos Read More »

Internal control, 1860s edition – sealed containers

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

(All photos by James Ulvog are from the Wells Fargo museum in Old Town park in San Diego.)

It’s not a new idea to seal containers so tampering with the contents is obvious. In the Wells Fargo Museum in San Diego, you can see how that idea was used in the 1860s.

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Internal control, 1860s edition – sealed containersRead More »

Internal control, 1860s edition – sealed containers Read More »

To end the Too Big To Fail syndrome, require banks to have some serious amounts of capital

Leave a Comment / Books you might enjoy, Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

That is the core point of a new book, The Bankers’ New Clothes, reviewed by John H. Cochrane in the Wall Street Journal – Running on Empty – Banks should raise more capital, carry less debt – and never need a bailout again.

Federal policy guarantees essentially all bank deposits. That creates moral hazard, which means banks can take extreme risks and depositors don’t care. The feds are on the hook for any failure, so why should bank management or depositors worry about risk levels? To mitigate risk, the regulators have thousands of pages of rules on the asset side of the balance sheet. Check this out: …

To end the Too Big To Fail syndrome, require banks to have some serious amounts of capitalRead More »

To end the Too Big To Fail syndrome, require banks to have some serious amounts of capital Read More »

Leaks: 3 more big banks may settle Libor manipulation cases by end of summer – also good infographic

Leave a Comment / Accounting, Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

The Wall Street Journal reports Regulators Hope for Libor Pacts.

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Leaks: 3 more big banks may settle Libor manipulation cases by end of summer – also good infographicRead More »

Leaks: 3 more big banks may settle Libor manipulation cases by end of summer – also good infographic Read More »

Check out Evernote for storing articles, ‘net resources, and lots of other stuff

1 Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

I’ve been using Evernote for about two months now. It is a great tool to store internet articles, PDF documents, and other files.

It gives you a great way to store, access, and search those interesting web articles you would like to look at again.

Charles Hall, at CPA-Scribo introduces Evernote for CPAs:

Evernote is a game-changer for CPAs.

It is every bit as useful for someone in the NPO world. Mr Hall continues: …

Check out Evernote for storing articles, ‘net resources, and lots of other stuffRead More »

Check out Evernote for storing articles, ‘net resources, and lots of other stuff Read More »

Does too big to fail, too big to punish, and too big to manage mean you are too big?

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

George F. Will suggests the answer to the question is “yes”: When banks get too big to fail, they are too dangerous to leave intact

One of the U.S. senators on the left end of the political spectrum thinks it is time to break up the too-big-to-fail banks.

Look at the concentration of assets in the TBTF range and the long history of TBTF: …

Does too big to fail, too big to punish, and too big to manage mean you are too big?Read More »

Does too big to fail, too big to punish, and too big to manage mean you are too big? Read More »

RBS settles LIBOR manipulation case with $610M fine and one guilty plea

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

Royal Bank of Scotland will pay $610M in fines. Their subsidiary in Japan will plead guilty to one criminal count of fraud in the U.S.

This parallels the settlement UBS reached, which I discussed earlier – UBS settles LIBOR manipulation claims for $1.5B and one guilty plea.

Summary findings from CFTC press release PR6510-13: …

RBS settles LIBOR manipulation case with $610M fine and one guilty pleaRead More »

RBS settles LIBOR manipulation case with $610M fine and one guilty plea Read More »

‘Tragedy of Fraud’ in e-book format – soon to be released

Leave a Comment / Accounting, Audits, Books you might enjoy, Fraud, Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

(Cross posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned will be released soon in Kindle format. This is a compilation of blog posts about the damage caused by fraud. It will also discuss the fraud triangle.

The sections of the book are: …

‘Tragedy of Fraud’ in e-book format – soon to be releasedRead More »

‘Tragedy of Fraud’ in e-book format – soon to be released Read More »

Running a simple website using blogging software – The why behind the idea and an illustration

Leave a Comment / Other stuff / Jim Ulvog

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update. This idea might be useful for your firm or one of your clients.)

If you only need a simple website, think about setting it up using blog software to save time and cost.

Why?

Websites can be very expensive to set up, if you contract it out. Making any changes requires coordination with your contractor and takes time.

If you use a simple website that provides standardized templates, like GoDaddy, the cost is low but it still takes a fair amount of time to maintain. In my experience the software is very slow. It is also cumbersome to ‘publish’ every time you want to make any change.

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Running a simple website using blogging software – The why behind the idea and an illustrationRead More »

Running a simple website using blogging software – The why behind the idea and an illustration Read More »