Just the process of putting into words what you are thinking will produce tremendous growth. Actually thinking about what is going on around you, in your industry, or in the wider world will stretch you like nothing else.
Do it for yourself!
I have grown tremendously from writing on my blogs. Check out Seth Godin and Tom Peters making that point:
Thousands upon thousands of needed health procedures were canceled in Ontario, Canada in order to make room for the massive surge of coronavirus patients which never arrived.
New study in Ontario estimates that 35 people are dead because their heart surgeries were postponed. There were 12,200 surgeries and other procedures postponed each week.
The New York Times has a great article introducing Evernote as a storage tool for all the stray web articles, spreadsheets and photos that don’t have a logical home otherwise.
I have not read the full 137 page report, and don’t plan to. As I browsed the first 28 pages, what struck me is the large number of observations in the report that are actually fairly major criticisms of IFRS and reasons not to adopt it.
Found some more comments from coverage of the sentencing for Scott London that change the perception of the hearing. At least it changes my perception. Mentioned this earlier here. Wish I had been in the sentencing hearing.
The rules for work have radically changed. The work world that existed when you started college, even if you graduated this spring, is gone.
If you are working, you need to take charge of your career and your reputation. This applies to brand new staff, experienced audit seniors, and especially partners. People at every level of employment need to absorb that lesson.
Been a while since I tuned into the shenanigans at Wells Fargo. A mere 100 million here and another 100 million there just doesn’t break into the headlines. Well this time is 3.7 billion. Yeah, billion with a B.
Range of issues includes “illegally assessed” fees and interest on car loans and home loans. Overdraft fees were improperly applied. Some vehicles were repossessed as a result of the shenanigans. Overdraft fees replied even though there is enough money to cover the transactions.
Settlement consists of $2 billion restitution and a $1.7 billion fine from CFPB, which is a record for the agency.
Yeah, the research wizards at the Ag Department concluded food inflation in 2021 was exact same as 2020. We will see even smaller price increases in 2022.
US Department of Agriculture – 1/28/22 – 2021 retail food price inflation continued at the same pace as 2020, but varied among food categories – In a clever disinformation effort, the alleged economists at the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture claim food prices increase of 3.5% during 2021 was the same rate of increase as in 2020. The mere 3.5% during 2021 is only slightly higher than the historical average of 2% from 2000 through 2019.
In newsflash to everyone who actually buys groceries or goes to a restaurant, food prices barely increased in 2021.
(Discussion cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, because understanding impact of high inflation on our clients helps us serve them better.)
Because of the pushback this article is already receiving, it will likely be memory-holed momentarily so I will quote a few parts of the article. Will quote the entire article at the end of this post.
The headline information:
“Retail food prices increased by 3.5 percent in 2021, equal to the rate in 2020 and greater than the historical annual average of 2.0 percent from 2000 to 2019. Of the 12 food categories depicted in the chart, six showed slower price increases in 2021 compared with 2020.”
Prices for half the food you buy are coming down. Cool, huh?
Image doing that to seventy billion dollars. Intentionally. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
It is so sad to say, but a reality never-the-less, there are so many major banking fiascos with such a wide range of willing participants that it is impossible to keep straight the players and disasters and fines based just on memory.
So, that means I have a spreadsheet to track the willful disasters I’ve been following.
My tally does not include all the billions of dollars paid to settle mortgage issues arising from the Great Recession. That is another massive set of disasters all by itself.
Here is my running tally of the amount of stockholder equity wasted for a range of different debacles. Amounts in millions of dollars:
We have been locked down long enough for the volume of statistics to build up to the point of allowing deeper analysis. As is always the case, the statistics can also be manipulated to give whatever answer you want. Deeper, honest analysis is starting to show surprising results, for example, the lack of correlation between infection rates and lockdown policies.
Surprising results on the low correlation will be mentioned after some game playing is described.
The annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota routinely draws huge numbers of people to the town, whose population is only 7,000 people. Attendance at the 10-day event this year was lower than usual with an estimated 460,000 motorcycle enthusiasts hanging around.
Frightening news reports at the time said this would cause massive numbers of Covid infections leading to massive numbers of deaths.
“Three very definite propositions were set out in its (the Declaration of Independence) preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that
all men are created equal,
that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that
therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.” (emphasis added)
He explained these issues are settled, resolved, final.
We can expand on those ideas. We need to bring them into further fruition. We can dive deeper into their meaning.
Setting them aside or replacing them means we go backwards. Declaring they are no longer true is regression to the ancient past.
More eloquently than I could ever describe, the president said:
“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.”
If you are a CPA serving the not-for-profit community, you need to read this document each year. It provides a survey of the accounting and auditing issues affecting the nonprofit world.
If you are an auditor, there are several other risk alerts you ought to be reading every year.
(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, since this information is useful for many CPAs.)
If you are working for a nonprofit, these alerts would give you a good survey of accounting issues in general and the audit issues your CPA will be dealing with this year.
Valuation of Gifts in Kind
Of particular interest are new comments responsive to the challenge from the California AG over valuation of GIK. The 2017 and 2016 editions had minimal comments on GIK.
The 2018 edition has a new section, Gifts-in-Kind: Reporting Contributions of Nonfinancial Assets, in paragraphs .53 through .57, which describes the AICPA’s interpretation of GAAP.
Years after the mebendazole issue has faded away, the second bullet point of paragraph .56 says that when GIK is sourced outside the U.S. and is not approved for distribution in the U.S., the meds should be valued at international prices. (If you have been following this issue for years, you realize the concession made by that comment.)
As mentioned in the previous post, I’ve reread my notes from several continuing education classes this year. Thought I would share a variety of stray ideas.
For what it is worth here are some tidbits you might enjoy:
Presentation of not-for-profit financials – ASU 2016-14
Presenter said that if an organization wanted to break out the with restriction column into more detail there is nothing to resented been broken into two or three columns. Perhaps it could be columns for:
donor endowment
other with restriction contributions
time restrictions
total with donor restriction
without donor restriction
total (total column is not required, but total change in net assets is)
Another possibility to present more detail would be to present multiple lines within the with donor restriction column, such as contributions to donor endowment, various purpose restrictions, time restriction, and a subtotal.
As part of working on a big writing project, I’ve reread my notes from several continuing education classes this year. (More details later and a link to the published material much later.) Thought I would share a variety of stray ideas. Here are a few tidbits from the classes.
Probably need to note that I have not gone back and read the original pronouncements supporting each idea and therefore I do not have a specific citation for you. (Reading three of the documents is the next step for my writing project.)
For what it is worth here are some tidbits you might enjoy:
Leases – ASU 2016-02.
One of the key on/off switches is whether a particular transaction or document is a lease. That will require an assessment of each transaction.
Right of use assets (the new description) resulting from operating and financing leases need to be listed separately on the statement of financial position. Those two categories (operating right of use and financing right of use) will be presented separately from fixed assets.
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