Dan Meyer at Tick Marks has brought my attention to a KPMG survey that reports audit committees are becoming more concerned about IT risks on financial reporting. 90% believed that IT oversight deserved more time at audit committee meetings. By constrast, 80% of committee members were satisfied with audit committee oversight of management judgments and […]

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There’s been a lot of activity lately on the income trust front. Foreign firms are making bids left and right to acquire the Canadian entities, in the wake of the 31.5% trust tax intro­duced by the Conser­v­ative government. Jack Mintz, a professor at Rotman, the business school at the University of Toronto, discusses in a […]

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Smart cash flow management is critical to any business, but especially so for startups. Leasing the building, furnishing it, maintaining it, equipping it with phone and computer systems and networks… These are signif­icant costs that startups would do well to avoid for as long as possible. So it was with great interest that I read […]

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Having lugged around three thick files repre­senting the full permanent file for an audit client for the past few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that my firm needs to consider digitizing these things. Perm files for accoun­tants consist of client documents that carry forward year to year. For example, engagement letters are good for […]

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This struck me as sort of inter­esting, possibly useful, and probably a little compulsive. One blogger’s way of slowly using change is to carry the optimal number of each denom­i­nation of coin in his pocket. Everyone has coins they want to get rid of. I randomly thought of an easy way to carry change and […]

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