With the close of 2016, did you question why you do a full physical count every year? Did you wonder if there was a better way to achieve the same result instead of having your employees come in early, stay late, and possibly closing your doors during regular business hours? If your company maintains inventory, …
Dishonest employees can see an opportunity to steal from the company through expense reimbursements. If you don’t have a strong travel and expenses policy that is routinely monitored and enforced, you open yourself up for the risk of expense reimbursement fraud. Some common examples of fraud schemes that impact everyday companies are: Double billing: seeking …
Some businesses avoid running special promotions and discounts with the view that this will tarnish their brand or reduce the value of the product or service they have worked hard at creating. However, some businesses find that offering special promotions and discounts through a deal website, such as Groupon, are an effective method for advertising …
Nobody is destined to never make a mistake, and unfortunately every now and then, a company (and yes accountants, too) fall into that group as well. Even though CFOs, accountants and auditors do everything they can to avoid them, mistakes happen and steps have to be taken once found to correct those prior period errors. …
With its first Accounting Standards Update of 2017 (ASU 2017-01), the FASB revised the definition of a business under U.S. GAAP. This update was issued to provide more clarity to entities in determining whether transactions should be classified as an acquisition (or disposal) of assets or businesses. Stakeholders had communicated to the FASB that the …
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently released Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-18 regarding specific guidance on the presentation and classification of restricted cash in the statement of cash flows. The ASU notes the following items: The statement of cash flows is required to explain the change during the period in the total of cash, …
There are times companies may have to make a decision of whether they should purchase software from an outside party or develop software internally to meet their operational needs. If companies choose internally developed software, they should at least be aware of the accounting implications because, when you develop the software internally, some of these …
Financial ratios are often used to analyze the financial statements. They help the users to form conclusions about the financial health of the entity. Ratios can be used to form conclusions on the level of liquidity, leverage and profitability of a company’s financial statements. These ratios can also be used to compare companies with each …
Former Major League All-Star Bobby Bonilla made headlines on July 1st, 2011, when he showed up on the New York Mets payroll. Most would expect a 48 year old former major leaguer to be on the payroll in the position of a coach or mentor, but Bobby Bonilla was just beginning to receive money that …
The financial close process is used to prepare the financial data of a company for financial statement presentation. The process centers on finalizing account balances in order to display financial data in the proper accounting period. It can be a complex process and usually involves many different employees, systems and processes within a company. There …