Small businesses added 55,000 new jobs in December and employees worked longer hours last month, according to figures from Intuit.

IMGCAP(1)]I travel quite a bit and have the luxury of seeing a lot of different accounting practices and management styles.

Sage North America has released Sage Simply Accounting 2012 English/Spanish, with new features geared towards providing payroll processes with increased efficiency and compliance for bilingual small businesses.

Optimism among small business owners grew significantly in December, according to the latest survey by SurePayroll.

This issue of Generational Viewpoints features two individuals from Kennedy and Coe llC (www.kcoe.com), a Salina, Kan.-based top 100 firm with over 200 professionals. Generation X member Jeff Wald, born in 1972, and Baby Boomer chief executive Kurt Siemers, born in 1948, shared their responses to the following question:

When Elizabeth Taylor died last year, she left a legacy of iconic movie performances, philanthropy, and lots and lots of diamonds. It was among these incredible baubles at Christie's auction house, where they have since been sold for astronomical sums, that members of global women's network 85 Broads convened to ask the popular question: Where are all the women?

In a bit of good news despite a still-uncertain economy, compensation for accounting professionals is expected to rise some 3.5 percent overall in 2012, continuing its upward momentum from the prior year.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to issue additional guidance on the temporary two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, including how a new “recapture” provision for high-income employees will be implemented.

Both the House and Senate passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and the “doc fix” for preserving the current Medicare reimbursement for physicians by unanimous consent on Friday morning, sending the measure to President Obama’s desk.

Bowing to pressure from fellow Republicans, a leading House Republican said Thursday he would introduce a bill Friday to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for two months.

President Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., pressed House Republicans on Thursday to agree to a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, even as Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, insisted he was ready to negotiate.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has come under increasing pressure to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.

IMGCAP(1)]A major financial reporting and accounting deficiency needs our long-overdue attention: the failure to reflect the value of human capital as an asset on a firm’s balance sheet.

House Republicans blocked the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits on Tuesday, setting up a confrontation between the two chambers.

Bolstered by the additional revenue generated by the acquisitions of SurePayroll and ePlan Services, payroll and benefits outsourcing provider Paychex posted a 7-percent rise in second quarter revenue to $545.7 million for the period ended November 30.

Ninety-two percent of financial professionals believe that businesses will either maintain their current employee headcount or increase their employee count in 2012, according to a survey of U.S. accounting firms.

Career growth opportunities ranked as the number one inducement for staying at or joining an accounting firm, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

The Senate has passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, but House Republican leaders and some Democrats balked at the short-term extension.

Congressional leaders in both parties signaled they were working on a deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for at least two months, while also agreeing on a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown.

Hiring of finance and accounting employees is expected to improve in the first quarter of next year, according to a survey of CFOs by staffing company Robert Half International.