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Community News

Auditing a Strong Revenue Source for Firms

Auditing has gotten a bad "rep" over the past few years--and especially during the past year--thanks to investigative work done by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the fact that CPAs and accounting professionals have reportedly been seeking more lucrative, less risky alternatives to audit work.However, some experts in the nation's top firms have gone public with their opinions that their assurance services are indeed a money-maker for their firm and that any integrity lost as a result of alledgedly poor auditing practices is not really their fault.In the world of the Chief Fina
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Community News

"Best" U.S. Companies Boasts CPA Firms, Great Plains

Fortune magazine has released its annual list of the Best Companies to work for in America, and making the list this year were two Big 5 firms and one accounting software giant.Great Plains, a popular provider of back-end office solutions, came in the highest of the three accounting-related companies at Number 15.
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Community News

Formation of KPMG Consulting Positions Firm To Go Public

In a move generally interpreted as a first step towards taking its company public, KPMG announced on Monday the formation of KPMG Consulting, a separate corporate entity, which will handle the business consulting side of the business.KPMG Consulting will be 80.1 percent owned by KPMG and its partners, and 19.9% owned by Cisco Systems, who last August announced an investm
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Community News

EY Cuts 5% of Accounting Jobs

There are more shake-ups to report among the Big 5 firms as each of the firms struggles to get a foothold in the e-commerce business.Ernst & Young has layed off 400 people who held traditional accounting jobs because of a shift in mindset at the firm from the tried and true accounting business to E-commerce, E-business and the like.
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Community News

New Chair Named to BDO Seidman

Second-tier accounting firm BDO Seidman has named Denis Field CEO and chairman of the board. Replacing Richard Roedel, Field has serves as the leader for the firm's national tax practice for the last four years.Field also is the youngest partner ever to be elected to head the firm. At 41 years old, has has worked since 1983 for the firm in a variety of positions.
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Community News

PWC Denies IBM Partnership Rumor

A rumor has surfaced that IBM will buy or form an alliance with the consulting arm of Big 5 giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, but according to PWC officials, the rumor is false.The rumor began late last week when the New York Post reported that PWC was thinking about separating the accounting and consulting functions--and even considering possibly selling the consulting division.An internal restructuring task force is, however, studying how to align the company for the future, especially in light of the bad press the
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Community News

AICPA Requires Mandatory Quality Control Systems

Today, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) announced that it is establishing requirements for mandatory quality control systems for the five largest auditing firms to enhance compliance with existing independence rules.
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Practice Management

Focus Your Firm With Client Advisory Boards

Ryan Travis, a a professional development consultant with Results Accountants Systems, led an online workshop today focusing on the benefits of a client advisory board in helping to steer your organization to success.A Client Advisory Board, or CAB, is a focus group of sorts, made up of 6-12 of your "A" list clients, whom you invite for 2-3 hours to a session, facilitated by someone outside your firm, in which they are asked to comment
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Community News

Andersen's VC Effort Fleshes Itself Out

Last week, AccountingWeb reported a story about how Arthur Andersen is repositioning its practice and conducting business through a new venture capital practice for Internet start-ups. Now that the dust has settled on the announcement, the firm has made public additional details regarding the VC component.Because everyone--these days--also is in the funding of Internet start-ups, experts are beginning to doubt the sincerity of Andersen's foray into the business.
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Technology

Yet Another Big 5 Defection to the Dot-Com World

Andersen Consulting knows the power of the Internet. It's sister company Arthur Andersen is redesigning corporate strategies and setting up billion dollar venture funds to capitalize on the dot-com revolution.
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Community News

Costumes, Dress Codes Lead to Quandry at Big 5 Firm

What happens when traditionally conservative suit-and-tie accountants enter into a strategic partnership with more relaxed dressed-down dot-coms?
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A&A

The Seven Risk Factors In Successful Mergers

William Case is the founder of Integrated ChangeWare Systems, a company that specializes in merger integration, multiple organization roll-ups, and strategic change. In a workshop presented for AccountingWEB, Mr.
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Community News

Andersen Adopts New Business Strategy

Arthur Andersen today unveiled a new business strategy designed to pull clients into what the firm is calling the "new economy."The goal is to position clients for change as economies change and the business marketplace changes along with it.
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Community News

Leading Edge Alliance Adds Four New Firms

The Leading Edge Alliance, a network of premier independent CPA firms across the United States, announces the addition of four new member firms:The new firms are:Gifford, Hillegass & Ingwersen, P.C.
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Community News

Fun Facts on EY and the Golden Globe Awards

What's behind the hoopla when major award shows bring out the accountants? Quite a bit, if you're Ernst & Young, who has kept the tally for Golden Globe Award winners for more than 30 years.Already, the firm is at work for this year's broadcast on Sunday, Jan. 23, and "3" seems to be a magic number. For three days prior to the broadcast, only three people - two EY CPAs and one assistant, know who the winners will be.Remember the 5:30 a.m. press conference in December to announce the nominees?
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Technology

Big 5 Executives Transition to E-Business Companies

CPAs have always been at the top of the list of advisors in providing value-added knowledge.
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Community News

Is CPA/Legal Fee Sharing Wrong?

Independence reigns supreme within CPA and law practices, but what about the issue of sharing fees within a practice that services both industries?Late last year, several Big 5 firms announced the set-up of law practices connected to the CPA practices to provide turn-key services to clients and enhance firm revenues.The issue is a nationwide one, and a Texas lawyer who heads up a State Bar of Texas Task Force to examine the multidisciplinary issue will go public on Jan.
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Community News

Accounting Firms Merge Healthcare Practices

The accounting and consulting firm of Moore Stephens Lovelace, P.A. (MS Lovelace) has merged the healthcare division of Moore Stephens Frost (MS Frost) into its own healthcare practice. MS Frost is a fellow Moore Stephens North America, Inc. accounting network member firm from Little Rock, Arkansas.
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Community News

H&R Block Takes Business to Year-Round Service

Seasonal tax-preparer H&R Block have unveiled a plan to transform their offices into year-round financial Services outlets for the middle class.The Kansas City-based company plans to open 94 Block Financial Centers throughout the country.
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Community News

MySap.com Includes Deloitte and Andersen Consulting

Following up on an initial September announcement, SAP America's new online ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution, known more familiarly as mySAP.com, has recruited Delotite & Touche and Andersen Consulting to join its initial core in SAP's Partner Network.SAP provides ERP and other solutions to the business marketplace, and is one of the companies heavily used by CPAs who provide consulting services for their clients.Other partners include IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.
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Pages

Voice of the Editor

Even though any accounting auditor would tell you it seems like there are an awful lot of tax accountants out there, surely one-third of the country isn't made up of tax preparers, so it's rather startling news to learn that one-third of Americans like to do their taxes. Who knew?
Read more
Gail Perry, CPA
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AccountingWEB
editor@accountingweb.com
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