Archive for February, 2010

@Going Concern: “You’re Hired. You’re Fired. Beware The Big 4 Boomerang”

By Francine • Feb 24th, 2010

My new column is posted @Going Concern.
There’s no profession more conflicted about employee retention versus alumni relations than the auditors. On the one hand, the largest audit firms have well-oiled recruiting machines.
Their uncanny ability to identify and sway candidates early is rivaled only by professional baseball’s success at finding talented Dominicans still swinging stalks of [...]

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It’s Mine, Mine All Mine: Can Anyone Catch Lehman Stealing?

By Francine • Feb 22nd, 2010

Most of what’s been written about the financial crisis and firms that were forcibly acquired, bailed out, or that failed tends to focus on “fair value” as the feckless culprit.What are the auditors’ obligations with regard to clients’ fair value measurements and disclosures? Auditors do not determine fair values. Instead, their role is to, “test management’s fair value measurements and disclosures.” But that obligation is broader than just taking the word of the “masters of the universe.”

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A Prisoner’s Dilemma: AIG and Goldman Sachs Game Each Other And PwC

By Francine • Feb 18th, 2010

I’ve never heard a specific explanation for how PwC could preside over a long running dispute between two of its most important global clients, a dispute that was material to at least one of them, obviously, that had the attention of its highest level partners, and not force a resolution based on consistent application of accounting standards sooner. I’ve been writing almost as long as I’ve been writing here that PwC should resign as AIG’s auditor. Is it not enough that PwC was clearly torn between two clients who held enormous financial sway and lost its independence and objectivity along the way?

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@Going Concern “It’s Hard Out There For An Auditor”

By Francine • Feb 17th, 2010

My latest column is posted @Going Concern:
It’s tough to be the “good guy,” however you define “goodness” within your moral framework. It’s even tougher if you were never taught your duty to the public as a licensed CPA and if the firm or company punishes you, de-incentivizes you to do the right thing. Retired Trinity [...]

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Vendor Management: Navigating the Process Through Turbulent Waters

By Francine • Feb 15th, 2010

Kevin Funnell of The Bank Lawyers Blog has a new venture called “Bank Business Advisors, LLC.” He asked me late last year to consider presenting webinars under this new label.
To better pursue his goal of educating others, Kevin formed a joint venture with a business that has been around for a few years and that [...]

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Holiday Weekend Diversion

By Francine • Feb 13th, 2010

No, I mean President’s Day, not St. Valentine’s Day.  It’s a funny coincidence that Monday, a US Federal holiday, follows the other holiday on Sunday.  It’s as if the universe gave all the lovers and lovey-doveys a day off to recover.
I will enjoy the extra day of peace and quiet to catch up on a [...]

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Our RSS Feed

By Francine • Feb 10th, 2010

Do you access re: The Auditors via RSS feed and/or Google Reader?  We have updated the feed and made some technical adjustments.  Please re-verify the feed in order to take advantage of this adjustment.
Thanks!

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Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: A College Student’s Assessment of Public Accounting Job Opportunities

By Francine • Feb 4th, 2010

Somehow, they manage to make accounting look sexy. It starts when they roll into campus career fairs with their nicely tailored suits, bundles of pens and tote bags to give away, even informational cards which can be planted in a pot and sprout as flowers. You’re not in Kansas anymore! This is the big leagues, and guess what? You made it!

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Big 4 CEOs Get Their Close-Ups At Davos

By Francine • Feb 4th, 2010

It’s sort of sweet to see the CEOs of the Big 4 audit firms being treated like big deals at Davos. In the US, the media typically pays no attention to these guys unless there’s either a catastrophic accounting related failure – and the recent crisis is not being viewed as such by the media [...]

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The Great American Financial Sandwich: AIG, PwC, and Goldman Sachs

By Francine • Feb 2nd, 2010

Maybe PwC didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell to be a truly independent, objective advocate for shareholders by forcing a true and fair presentation, in all material respects, of the financial position of either AIG or Goldman Sachs and the results of their operations and their cash flows in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. But is there a truly good excuse for PwC to not have been a preemptive strike force, a beacon, an early warning system for shareholders of the financial Armageddon we faced? They had longstanding, thorough, perfect knowledge of both sets of financial statements.

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