In your firm today, an increasing number of staff members – from the partner level to the administrative staff - are experiencing burnout, low productivity, dissatisfaction and stress related illnesses…due in large part to a lack of balance between their work and personal lives. It is time for your firm to look at how it can create greater balance between work and personal lives of the number one asset in your firm – its people.

As regional bell companies like Verizon and AT&T begin commercial rollouts of Internet Provided TV (IPTV) services that bundle telephony, video and internet, the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR.org) an industry consortium, has announced a new initiative to standardize accounting and settlement practices. IPDR.org says on its Web site that the telecommunications industry cannot use the accounting and billing information standards (e.g. CDR) that were “designed for yesterday’s services” for this next generation of services.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has answered questions relating to lease accounting.The way it stands now, FAS 13 requires that a lease should be recalculated when a change in a key assumption affects the net income.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) announced late last year that it planned to make significant changes in the way companies report pension liabilities, the Associated Press reports. The first step will be to require companies to show on their balance sheets the total assets of their plans in comparison to what is owed to workers.

A new study shows, that with all the current regulation and resulting compliance, archiving is not widespread. The study found that only a small number of respondents were required to archive required data because of regulatory legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). The study was commissioned by Bridgehead Software, a developer and vendor of storage management software.

Want to see how leading CPA firms are reaping the rewards of electronic document management? GoFilERoom, the leading provider of document management solutions for CPA firms, is offering a free, 45-minute webinar, complete with case studies, at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, on Tuesday, January 31.“Going paperless is huge cultural change for an accounting firm,” Gary Adamson, Managing Partner at Brady Ware explained in announcing his firm’s selection of GoFileRoom for organizing firm documents and tracking client projects.

National CPA firm Novogradac & Co. has beefed up its affordable housing and community development services niche fields as well as its general real estate services by developing an online system that provides detailed housing data, on urban and non-urban markets nationwide.The Compsmart too, which culls rental and occupancy rates.

The EPA reports that companies, governments and other entities, are required to spend a record $10 billion to come into compliance with environmental laws as a result of enforcement actions in 2005. A record 627 entities voluntarily disclosed violations and more than 600,000 businesses and individuals received EPA assistance in understanding and complying with environmental laws.

The price of a stamp went up 2 cents over the weekend, in the first increase since 2002. Postage on the first ounce of first class mail is now 39 cents and 24 cents for each additional ounce. The increase follows legislation requiring the United States Postal Service (USPS) to put more than $3 billion in an escrow account this year.“We’re trying to transform the way we do business with the public, as far as getting better automation, providing better service because right now, we’re a little behind, but we’re catching up,” Leroy Williams, a USPS supervisor told CBS.