Associations

The American Institute of CPAs has begun shipping its 2007 AICPA Audit and Accounting Guides, updated for the risk assessment standards issued by the Auditing Standards Board.

Cash flow management is the major issue facing small business, according to a newly released survey.

Barry Melancon, president and chief executive of the American Institute of CPAs, and a number of other accounting profession luminaries such as Tim Flynn, chief executive at Big Four firm KPMG, have been named to the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession.The 21-member group will spend roughly a year examining issues facing the auditing profession, including such front-burner topics as audit firm concentration, auditor liability caps, recruiting young people to the profession, the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley and the move toward international standards.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Small Business Administration have signed an agreement that will give CPAs more access to the SBA's programs and network of small businesses.

The American Institute of CPAs said that it supports H.R. 3359, a bill pending in Congress that would create a uniform national standard for state withholding of nonresident income tax.

Staffing needs are the top concern of CPA firms, according to a newly released survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on allowing U.S. companies to use International Financial Reporting Standards.

The American Institute of CPAs installed its new chairman, Randy Fletchall, a partner with Ernst & Young, at its Fall Meeting of Council."I'm very honored and very proud to become the next chairman of the AICPA," said Fletchall.Outgoing chair Jimmy Lee Williamson said that he is "certain that [Fletchall] will be successful and will contribute to the profession."Fletchall said that one of his priorities would be recruiting new talent to the profession. "All of us know the importance of winning the battle in the trenches," he added.Williamson also expressed the AICPA's support for the victims of the wildfires raging in Southern California. He heard from Teresa Mason, the new chair of the California Society of CPAs, that some firms in the region had to close down. "We've faced this crisis before," said Williamson. "Our thoughts are with the people of California."AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon noted that the AICPA has a benevolence fund for members who are in need.The AICPA also awarded its 2007 Gold Medals for Distinguished Service to Kathy Eddy, a former chair of the institute, and to Gary John Previts, a former member of the governing council and board of directors. Eddy is a founding shareholder of McDonough, Eddy, Parsons & Baylous, in Parkersburg, W.Va., and serves on the board of Harsco Corp. Previts, a professor at Case Western University, serves with the Accountability Advisory Council of the Comptroller General of the U.S.

Get ready to start keeping track of virtual currency, as if foreign exchange and complex financial derivatives weren’t enough of a challenge.

The American Institute of CPAs outlined its strategic plan and priorities at its Fall Meeting of Council and Annual Members’ Meeting.

CPA2Biz Inc., the Web portal of the American Institute of CPAs, reported its third consecutive year of profitability at the institute's Fall Council Meeting, held here.

1987: A TOUGH ENTRANCEIt was not, perhaps, the best of times for the accounting profession: Scandals, including the implosion that summer of the brazenly fraudulent ZZZZ Best, had tarnished auditors' reputations, malpractice insurance rates were soaring, college students were staying away in droves, and the Federal Trade Commission claimed that the American Institute of CPAs' rules on professional activities violated restraint-of-trade rules.

The risk assessment standards, FIN 48, valuation standards, convergence, the rewriting and codification of auditing and accounting standards, ethics interpretations, and other changes impacting the accounting and auditing regulatory landscape are being driven by a number of factors. But when push comes to shove on implementation, the burden squarely falls on the companies that these rules apply to, and on CPA firms’ A&A practice group and A&A practitioners.

Barry Melancon has been leading the American Institute of CPAs since 1995. As president and CEO of the AICPA, he has been keeping busy on a number of fronts this past year. The Institute has been working with Congress on patent reform to keep tax strategy patents from taking hold. Another priority has been CPA mobility, so CPAs face fewer regulatory barriers when practicing across different states. Melancon has also been closely involved with the effort to move toward Extensible Business Reporting Language for financial statements, spearheading an initiative to assign data tags to generally accepted accounting principles. He was recently named co-vice chair of the Center for Audit Quality and to a position on the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession. Melancon is also a member of the AICPA's delegation to the International Federation of Accountants. His accounting career began in 1979 at Bergeron & Co. in Louisiana. Before joining the AICPA, he served for eight years as executive director of the Society of Louisiana CPAs.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun a two- to three-year project to revise its auditing standards in an effort to achieve greater clarity.

The Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) is living up to its name, as it has issued three white papers in response to the so-called “liquidity crisis” that began in the subprime mortgage-related markets and, according to CAQ, has spread to other corners of the credit markets with “a potentially pervasive impact on public companies generally with respect to investments held.”

In a vote that may have a wide-ranging effect on the accounting profession, House lawmakers voted 220-175 to overhaul patent rules and place a ban on tax-planning-method patents.HR 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, primarily contains provisions that would make it harder to get patents and harder for companies to be sued for patent infringement. However, it also contains a provision that would protect accounting firms from lawsuits over tax-planning methods.

Ernst & Young Chairman and CEO James S. Turley has been appointed chair of the governing board of the Center for Audit Quality to help improve investor confidence in the audit process.

AICPA CEO Barry Melancon and other accounting profession luminaries have been appointed to the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox is making a serious push to get more public companies and their accountants to start using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, to publish their financial statements, and the day may soon be at hand when it's going to be required.