By Michelle Golden, President, Golden Marketing Inc.So far, CPA firms seem to be feeling limited impact from the economic downturn. Some firms are seeing a bump in "average days in A/R" as business clientele slow their payments due, in turn, to their dipping receipts. Other firms report the heartbreaking scenario of trying to assist vulnerable clients take measures to remain solvent—scaling back, if not ceasing, operations.

WARNING: Reading this article will be painful By Gary Zeune, CPA

Quick! You are feeling romantic, and your significant other is nowhere to be found!!!!! What do you do?!?!If your first thought is the following: "Walk out of the hotel room, take the elevator down to the lobby, slip $10 to the hotel clerk for an adult movie, and go back to your room,".........................congratulations, you are an auditor.This is not a normal reaction, unless you are out of town at least 40 weeks per year. To be honest, I'm not sure that it is a normal reaction even then, but I don't plan on traveling down that road.

by Barbara Bix and Melissa Josephson Edwards Chances are your accounting firm gets a lot of its business from referrals:A current or previous client recommends your services.Colleagues in a complementary field recognize a need that you can address for their clients.A marketing consultant calls you because one of her clients heard you speak at a conference or read an article you wrote.

I returned from training late on a Friday night, and was scheduled to fly out to my first client on Sunday night (I hadn't seen the office yet). A senior (call him Matt) and I were headed out to a chemical plant to do Sarbanes-Oxley controls testing. Matt had arranged all of the details. Because of the newness of this stuff, neither he nor anyone at the company had any idea exactly what to do.We were going to be flying out to the plant. This had initially surprised me, because I was under the impression that most chemical plants should be located away from major cities.

It is said that "truth is stranger than fiction." While I'm not entirely convinced of that, I can testify that the truth can be pretty damned strange. My goal in this series will be to give the reader an uncensored look at entry-level life in a Big 4 firm. It won't contain any deep insights into "office life," mostly because I rarely spent any time in the office. I couldn't even tell you the color of the carpet. In order to be completely honest with the facts,, (and because I value receiving a paycheck), I am going to remain anonymous.

By Phyllis Weiss HaserotThis is the third of a new series of regular columns by generational expert and internationally known consultant, coach, writer, and speaker Phyllis Weiss Haserot on intergenerational relations and navigating the challenges of the multi-generational workplace for better productivity, retention, succession planning, and business development results.

By Bruce L. Katcher, Ph.D.Part 1 - THE PROBLEM:Organizations continue to downsize, yet our research shows that 6 out of 10 employees say there are not enough qualified employees to do the work in their department. Are they right, or are they lobbying to prevent layoffs? Here are some reasons why they may, indeed, be right:

By Darla Sycamore The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines promulgation as1: to make (as a doctrine) known by open declaration: or2 a: to make known or public the terms of (a proposed law) b: to put (a law) into action or forceThe FASB refers to the promulgation of accounting standards in its Mission Statement (sometimes the process of issuing accounting standards is also referred to as pronouncing).