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My new essay is up at Sundayed.com, the side project I’m contributing to with a few friends including Jason Moriber from Wise Elephant who helps me run this site.
This weekend I’m talking about the “Summer Fiction: 20 Under 40″ issue of The New Yorker. The fiction I read is varied, but I’m not much [...]
I’ve joined with a few friends to produce some completely different kinds of writing at Sundayed.com. I will be contributing once or twice a month as my schedule permits.
Jason Moriber, the Editor, describes it as such:
Sundayed.com is a short menu of provocative weekend reading. It’s a platform for our contributors to discuss/illustrate/define/opine on topics that [...]
My new column is up @Going Concern.
I get calls. I get letters. And now I even get lots of requests to meet. Talking to readers is one of my favorite things to do. It makes my opinions and ideas real.
I also, of course, learn much from you about what’s really going on. I appreciate the [...]
My new column is up @Going Concern:
They lead a charmed life.
• A government sanctioned franchise to provide their services to the largest global companies.
• Oligopolistic pricing and an annuity-style constant pipeline of business because of significant barriers to entry resulting in a license to print money.
• Historic immunity from scrutiny and litigation based on proprietary methods [...]
The US Federal government has been propping up AIG with hundreds of billions of dollars and AIG has been, in turn, protecting its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
My new column is up @Going Concern.com
“…I don’t envy today’s professors trying to teach the old-fashioned accounting skills in the electronic environment – closing checklists, regular balance sheet reconciliations, journal entry sign-offs, backup documentation requirements, managerial review of financial statements, and proper reviews and approvals of estimates and analytics. These are the Sarbanes-Oxley and the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
My new post is up @Going Concern.
“I chafe at the cheekiness of some of the announcements. The firms’ communications teams are blithely unaware of how such shameless self-promotion looks to those who are watching closely. For example, all of the Big 4 firms were named to the Fortune 100 Best Places To Work list, even [...]
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. Look for my column, "Accounting Watchdog" at Forbes.com and "Accountable" at American Banker. For more information, click "About" at the bottom of this page. Your firm can sponsor this specialized news site. For more information contact Francine McKenna, fmckenna@mckennapartners.com |
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