Accounting firms are not marketing with blogs

Law firms continue to outpace accounting firms when it comes to harnessing the power of blogs to market their services to current and potential clients. A recent post by Michelle Golden asks the question “Isn’t Your Firm Blogging Yet?” and the answer apparently is no. The post quotes this one from LexBlog founder Kevin O’Keefe,Continue reading “Accounting firms are not marketing with blogs”

Scots tout principles in the Big Apple

The Scotsman: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland will tell high-powered US financiers at a conference in New York that individual judgment should play a bigger role than strict adherence to a rule book. Ah, this old classic. Once again the rules-based US system is coming under attack by external sources, this time fromContinue reading “Scots tout principles in the Big Apple”

BlackBerry maker getting the probe on options backdating

The Ontario Securities Commission has launched a probe of Research In Motion’s stock option practices. An OSC spokesperson said the review was launched in early October, which is not long after the company announced it would have to restate past financials because of its options accounting. Another tech company is having difficulties with their optionsContinue reading “BlackBerry maker getting the probe on options backdating”

Mining Wikipedia for accounting topics

Wikipedia is a good source of information about a variety of topics. I’m pleased to find that it’s generally pretty good about accounting too. The article on the Balance Sheet contains “case studies” showing the effect of some transactions on a very basic balance sheet. As well, I’d never seen non-current liabilities referred to asContinue reading “Mining Wikipedia for accounting topics”

Pension brouhaha south of the border

FASB is coming out with some tough new standards relating to defined benefit pensions that is expected to result in significant new liabilities (or increases to existing ones) for companies that had been accounting for their pensions under the more lax requirements of the old standard. Defined benefit pension plans are definitely the more complicatedContinue reading “Pension brouhaha south of the border”