Gail Perry - Voice of the Editor
Gail Perry is Publisher at Sift Media US, Inc. and oversees the content on the Sift websites, AccountingWEB.com and GoingConcern.com. She has been the editor-in-chief at Sift Media US since 2007, overseeing the content on AccountingWEB.
Perry is a CPA and a former senior tax accountant with Big Four firm Deloitte. She maintains a small tax practice, she is a personal finance instructor, and the author of thirty books, including Surviving Financial Downsizing: A Practical Guide to Living Well on Less Income (Adams Media); QuickBooks on Demand (Que); Excel 2007 Macros Made Easy (McGraw Hill); The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes (Alpha/MacMillan); and, most recently, Mint.com for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons). In addition, she is a former columnist for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News daily newspapers.
Perry is a nationally recognized speaker who advises public accountants on using Internet tools to improve their accounting practices. She also taught a college-level introductory accounting class and was on staff at the Indiana CPA Society as a computer applications instructor. For five years, she was a contributing editor for Accounting Today magazine before taking over the helm at AccountingWEB.
Perry is a graduate of Indiana University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She returned to school to study accounting at Illinois State University, passed the CPA exam (in one sitting!), and worked for Deloitte in the Chicago tax department.
Gail has been named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor magazine and the American Society of Women Accountants.
Perry is a CPA and a former senior tax accountant with Big Four firm Deloitte. She maintains a small tax practice, she is a personal finance instructor, and the author of thirty books, including Surviving Financial Downsizing: A Practical Guide to Living Well on Less Income (Adams Media); QuickBooks on Demand (Que); Excel 2007 Macros Made Easy (McGraw Hill); The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes (Alpha/MacMillan); and, most recently, Mint.com for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons). In addition, she is a former columnist for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News daily newspapers.
Perry is a nationally recognized speaker who advises public accountants on using Internet tools to improve their accounting practices. She also taught a college-level introductory accounting class and was on staff at the Indiana CPA Society as a computer applications instructor. For five years, she was a contributing editor for Accounting Today magazine before taking over the helm at AccountingWEB.
Perry is a graduate of Indiana University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She returned to school to study accounting at Illinois State University, passed the CPA exam (in one sitting!), and worked for Deloitte in the Chicago tax department.
Gail has been named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor magazine and the American Society of Women Accountants.
Latest posts
Apr
10
I don't know about you, but it fries me when a proposal is cast out to the wind without any details. A $3 million cap on IRAs - on the surface, that sounds great, right? One more way to tax the rich and bring more money into the government to use for *worthwhile* programs. First, there are no details on how this would work, which worries me. More importantly, messing with IRAs bothers me a lot because the program was created to encourage people to save in these tax-deferred funds, whereas if those people who have millions socked away had known that their funds could be tampered with, they might have invested differently from the get-go.
Apr
08
While part of our world is becoming more transparent, due to the Internet and various social media avenues, many areas are locked down and protected when it comes to researching potential hiring candidates. Laws and regulations limit the types of background checks that employers can perform. Labor and employment lawyer Richard D. Alaniz provides the lowdown on how to perform background checks correctly.
Mar
22
It's that very best time of busy season when you thought you would never make it to April 15, and then the games started! Whether your team is a long shot or a shoo-in, we know you're keeping an eye on the March Madness scores, even if you can't take time to watch the games.
Mar
15
You know the feeling. You've labored over a spreadsheet, entering data, working out the formulas, making the calculations, and then poof! In the flash of a power outage or a moment of craziness when you accidentally closed the file without saving, it's all gone. Well, maybe not. This week, Excel guru David Ringstrom shows us how to go back in time and recover those spreadsheets that might not be as lost as you thought they were.
Mar
07
In case you thought you were doing everything right on your audits, here's the PCAOB to tell you about your shortcomings. In a recent report, the oversight board found that almost half of the audit firms they inspected had at least one "significant audit performance deficiency." The PCAOB called out small firms and big firms alike in its report, so, at least in terms of audit performance, size didn't seem to make a difference. Check out the PCAOB's list of the top nine audit problems.
Mar
05
There's always a silver lining, right? Bad economy, complicated tax system, knowledgeable Baby Boomers seeking retirement – stir that all together in one pot and you have a healthy employment picture for tax professionals who know their stuff. How are accounting firms preparing their younger staff to move into the specialized tax roles of the future? Inquiring minds want to know.
Mar
04
"I'm sorry, what? I didn't hear you – I had my headphones on." Does your workplace allow employees to listen to music while they work? Does music help you focus, or is it a distraction? Are others offended if you wear headphones, thinking you are being rude and uncommunicative? Where do you weigh in on this argument?
Feb
21
In its ongoing attempt to look out for the accounting profession, the AICPA has asked the IRS to work in harmony with taxpayers and tax preparers to alleviate the potential pain of delays com
Feb
05
We have an interesting blog post on Managing Perfectionism in an Imperfect World – a topic I struggled with when I was in public accounting, and I'm sure many of our readers encounter problems in this arena as well. Keep in mind that I worked in the pre-paperless world where scanners and electronic document management systems did not exist. Our document management system was a file room with minimal security. But I had a system, and I taught workshops at my accounting firms on how to create stellar tax workpapers.
Jan
22
Lately, I've been marveling at the large number of my high school friends who grew up to be successful professionals in their chosen fields. I spent my teen years living in a unique community – a neighborhood where nearly all of our parents were self-employed, successful business owners. While I took this environment and the subliminal leadership training I received for granted, I now can see that we were learning by example – with confidence, inventive thought, and high expectations served up nightly at the dinner table.
