Author: GoingConcern

Job of the Day: Deutsche Bank Needs Your GAAP and IFRS Knowledge

Deutsche Babk need someone to join their Finance Division; preferably someone that has knowledge of both U.S. GAAP, IFRS and bonus points for you if you know anything about German HGB accounting.

The position requires at least four years experience and a CPA/MBA is desirable.

Get more details after the jump.


Company: Deutsche Bank

Title: Finance Manager – VP

Location: New York, NY

Experience: 4 – 8 years

Selected responsibilities: All DB legal entity financial reporting for a number of subsidiaries supported in DE. This includes all general ledger balances, and reporting oversight for risk, intercompany reconciliation, regulatory and management purposes; Requires compliance with corporate and regulatory policies. Must be able to identify when a transaction may impact certain key policies, and know when to refer issues to key contacts in treasury, accounting policy, legal, tax and regulatory areas; Work with Accounting Policy and DB Advisory to properly apply GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) to transactions initiated by business lines that will be recorded on legal entities.

Qualifications: BS/BA Accounting and 4-8 years work experience in financial accounting; CPA or MBA is desirable, but equivalent experience acceptable; Experience with SAP, Essbase and or BCS (Business Consolidation System) a plus; Good knowledge in IFRS GAAP and/or US GAAP needed. Any knowledge of German HGB accounting standards a big plus.

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Ex-Bank of America CFO Is in Cuomo’s Crosshairs

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

We briefly discussed work-inspired nightmares yesterday but as professionarobably don’t get a whole lot more unsettling than Joe L. Price’s.

Price, the former CFO at Bank of America, must be tossing and turning lately, what with the attorney general of New York naming him personally last week in a lawsuit over the bank’s handling of the ugly Merrill Lynch acquisition/investor-subsidized bailout/compensation party in late 2008.


Now, Price and former BofA CEO Ken Lewis face another unpleasant twist in what they must’ve thought originally was a slam dunk in an awkward but palatable settlement with the SEC over the Merrill Lynch deal (beware that slam-dunk feeling [see Tenet, George]).

Recall how Jed Rakoff, the irascible U.S. District Court judge presiding over the BofA/Merrill Lynch case, last year rejected a settlement between the SEC and BofA, saying that $33 million wasn’t nearly enough for the bank to make things right with investors who were kept in the dark about the unsavory downside – if that’s not too generous a word – for taking on Merrill Lynch’s baggage. And then on Monday Rakoff started asking mean questions about the second rendition, in which the SEC and BofA are saying, okay, fine, how does $150 million sound?

Going by some of the doubts Rakoff raised, he isn’t leaning toward letting the BofA executives ease on out of their difficult litigation-riddled winter into a springtime of sun-dappled redemption and new life. Easter, as it were, may yet be cold and wet (as may Passover, choose your festival). But don’t blame Rakoff because there are better scapegoats – the SEC, Andrew Cuomo, Punxatawny Phil …

Cuomo, that pesky AG in Albany, asserted in his allegations against Price et al. that BofA lawyers who had counseled against pulling the curtain aside on certain details about Merrill Lynch were essentially operating in the dark and that they were, therefore, misled. “Bank management failed to provide any of their lawyers with accurate information about the losses which the disclosure issue concerned,” the civil-suit complaint says, adding painful elaboration that alleges “false and incomplete information provided by Price.” (Ron Fink explains here).

This is not the kind of thing a CFO likes to read about himself or herself, which is why it may be best as a rule to come clean from the get-go. At the heart of the controversy is the assertion that BofA execs were simply not forthright about how they allowed Merrill Lynch brass to receive billions of dollars in bonus bucks in exchange for having lost billions of investor dollars.

In such a context, Radoff has implied, $33 million is chicken feed and $150 million is – I don’t know – cat food? The good judge apparently wants the bankers to throw some steak over the wall.

Also at issue, and fundamental to how BofA is managed going forward, are questions about how certain aspects of corporate governance are handled, perhaps especially about how compensation is set. Rakoff suggested that there might be better ways to come up with a reasonable pay scheme than leaving it to BofA’s compensation committee to pick its compensation consultant of choice.

A big clue about how he might rule on this is in his observation on Monday as to the “incredibly bloated compensation of too many executives in too many American companies.”

Job of the Day: Genworth Financial Needs an Assistant Controller

Genworth Financial needs an assistant controller that can manage a variety of responsibilities including overseeing the SEC reporting process, staying cognizant of technical accounting issues, and engage with external auditors.

Qualified candidates need a CPA and a minimum of 8 years experience with a Big 4 or public company experience; preference to those with insurance and international experience.

Get more details after the jump.


Company: Genworth Financial

Title: Assistant Controller

Location: Raleigh, NC

Experience: 8 – 12 years

Description: Reports to the International Controller in the International Headquarters in Raleigh, NC. The role has oversight of 3 reports across the globe.

Responsibilities: Manage monthly close process facilitating with our Corporate headquarters and our platform level controllership teams within the various countries; individually perform and oversee aspects of GAAP reporting, maintaining strong communications between our countries and our Corporate partners (Analytics, Financial Statement Review); provide technical guidance on US GAAP treatment to our in-country Controllers in conjunction with our Corporate TAG (Technical Accounting Guidance) group; develop and lead change process internationally to ensure continuing compliance with technical developments; responsible for Controllership aspects of New Country and New Product Launch, Acquisitions, and Divestitures in conjunction with our Corporate partners; provide analysis and business input on quarterly SEC reporting and necessary audit support; responsible for participating in Genworth wide finance and non-finance initiatives as required by the business; oversee and manage the account reconciliation process; follow-through and execution of all identified audit findings, as necessary; proactively identify and facilitate global resolution of issues; participate in policy review and implementation.

Qualifications: CPA; BA/BS in Accounting; Strong understanding of ERP Ledger systems (Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft); Public Company Experience; Big 4 Accounting Experience; Strong Project Management and Process Skills; 8 – 12 years Experience.

Preferred Qualifications: Insurance Industry Experience; international experience; MBA

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Job of the Day: Morgan Stanley Needs a Stock Option Guru

With all the outrage around big bonuses more executives (read: Jamie, Lloyd) will be getting larger portions of their payouts in the form of equity. This is good news for those of you that can’t get enough of FAS 123(R) or Topic blah blah blah in the codification.

Morgan Stanley is looking for an associate or senior associate to join their financial controllers group that will specialize in compensation reporting, preferably a CPA or CPA candidate with proficiency in equity-based compensation plans.

Get the details after the jump.


Company: Morgan Stanley

Title: Associate/Sr Associate – Financial Controllers (Compensation Accounting)

Location: New York, NY

Experience: 2 – 5 years

Description: Compensation Accounting Team within HR Controllers is seeking to fill a newly created position at the Associate or Sr. Associate level. This position will be responsible for functions related to compensation reporting and will work on the accounting related to the firm’s equity-based compensation plans.

Responsibilities: Managing the reporting of actual and estimated earnings per share information for external reporting purposes and monthly forecasting to senior management; Monthly, quarterly and year-end financial close activities: general ledger maintenance, journal entries and account reconciliations; Booking amortization for stock-based compensation performance awards and cash-settled equity awards; Maintaining a strong control environment and audit documentation over various share reporting & earnings per share related areas; Improving the reporting and analytics related to equity-based compensation plans.

Skills: B.A./B.S. Accounting or Finance; CPA or CPA-candidate preferred; approximately two to five years related work experience in financial accounting and/or financial reporting preferred; financial services industry and stock-based compensation experience preferred; proficiency in technical accounting research skills related to earnings per share and stock-based compensation preferred (e.g., FAS 128, FAS 123R, ASC 718, ASC 260).

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Job of the Day: Help Jamie Dimon Celebrate His $16 Million Bonus

Probably not but now that Jamie Dimon’s bonus is out, don’t you wish you could be him? Right. We all do. For starters, you could at least get a gig at the same company.

J.P. Morgan is looking to fill an AVP Senior Financial Associate role in their Worldwide Security Services group in the division of Treasury & Securities Services. Get the details after the jump.


Title: Senior Financial Associate – AVP

Location: New York, NY

Description: The Worldwide Securities Services Planning, Reporting and Analysis team is responsible for providing Business and Finance Executives standardized, meaningful and timely MIS to facilitate management decision making in support of performance analysis, forecasting and planning.

Responsibilities: Coordinate the weekly/monthly revenue and expense forecast process; deliver consolidated analysis, inclusive of the consolidated monthly and quarterly executive reviews; monitor the month-end close; support the annual planning processLiaise with product and function CFOs to understand the drivers of business variancePlay a proactive role in enhancing the current BAU processes.

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Study: Founder CEOs Blame CFOs More Often for Accounting Irregularities

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

Not that CFOs shouldn’t be blamed for irregularities but at least you’ll know what to expect.

Remember how

Grant Thornton Gets Emotional in Its Ad Campaign

This morning we took a look the deadly advertising at BDO and while they came up with a good tagline, they were unable to capitalize on the opportunity to personalize their service with actual clients.

In contrast to the utilitarian feeling of the BDO advertising, Grant Thornton is all about emotions. The most important statement that a professional service agency can make is that it is passionate for the client’s business, and Grant Thornton’s attitude is authentic. The firm is well defined by the tag line, “People who love what they do” and by the whimsical rose mnemonic.

The three spots in the campaign are not balanced. This one about customer service misses the mark. It is long and tedious and continues to run needlessly after the point is made.


This commercial extolling the global capabilities of Grant Thornton is better. It is well written and although it is not particularly visually arresting, it makes the point about the firm capabilities crisply.

The commercial about responsiveness is the best. It stands out because it uses humor and the analogy of the unreliable, hapless goalie is relevant and easily understood. All in all, Grant Thornton tackled the challenge of advertising a professional service firm well.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner will GT take the next logical step and extend their passion campaign in to special topical ad?

Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.

Job of the Day: Investment Management Firm Needs a Senior Financial Reporting Accountant

A SEC registered investment management firm that manages approximately $9.6 billion in total assets with a staff of 65 employees needs a Senior Financial Reporting Accountant with SEC and internal reporting experience in Rosemont, IL.

Qualified candidates include a CPA or CPA candidates with three years experience, preferably in public accounting.

Get more details for this position after the jump.


Title: Senior Financial Reporting Accountant (SEC & Internal Reporting)

Location: Rosemont, IL

Minimum Experience: 3 years

Responsibilities: Coordination of quarterly SEC financial report preparation (10-K, 10-Q), including the drafting of initial updates to financial statements, footnotes and management discussion and analysis; Processing management, legal and auditors changes and maintaining blackline versions and distributions to reviewers as well as the coordination of the EDGARization process with outside vendor; Assisting with preparation of monthly internal financial reporting package, including the preparation of comparative analysis as well as the preparation and tie-out of information used to prepare supporting schedules.

Qualifications: CPA or CPA Candidate with at least 3 years of experience with SEC reporting; Public accounting experience preferred; Knowledge of financial statements and generally accepted accounting principles to prepare, reconcile, and analyze financial statements (e.g., earnings statements, balance sheets, statements of cash flows, supporting footnotes, etc.); Knowledge of applicable regulatory rules (e.g., Security and Exchange Commission, Financial Accounting Standards Board, etc.) for external reporting.

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

BDO’s Big Ad Campaign: It’s Deadly

Advertising a professional service company is a challenge for ad agencies. First, the subject is not all that interesting, except maybe to the people who work there, their families, and their clients. And second, the differences from one company to another are minute. What you can say about one CPA or law firm is pretty much the same as another. You can’t advertise a firm as doing something better, the way Tide claims to clean better or Crest to whiten teeth better.

What can marketers do when they can’t make a claim that they are better? Why, write a jingle, like Coke or Pepsi of course. However, professional service companies have to maintain some gravitas. Schmaltz and accountants would be like wearing shorts and flip-flops to a client meeting.

We’re presenting some analysis of two current accounting firm ad campaigns, starting with BDO and tackling Grant Thornton this afternoon.

Analysis and videos, after the jump


The solution is to differentiate yourself not by what you say but through the tone of your advertising. And the tone of the BDO’s advertising is deadly, almost literally. It is dark, and cold, and depressing. And it doesn’t work because it takes itself too seriously. The conversations are artificial, and the situations forced.

In the following commercial, as two executives exit an unidentified intuitional-looking edifice, one person says to the other “Reilly hit the roof” about the need to restate. We never find out who “Reilly” is, but are reassured that “the partners are on it”, suggesting that BDO will not send in the juniors to fix the problem.

This second commercial deals with the switch from GAAP to IFRS. Why is BDO best suited to handling it? According to the commercial because of its global resources and because “it’s complicated.” Oh? Weak, pretty generic, arguments.

The best asset BDO has is it tagline, “People who know, know BDO”. That could have been the idea for a very nice commercial, maybe using real customers, but BDO did not capitalize on it.

Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.

Job of the Day: Genworth Needs a Financial Analyst

An analytical CPA/CFA/MBA is needed for a position located at the Genworth HQ in Richmond, Virginia. Qualified candidates need to have at least five years of Big 4/public accounting experience or experience in financial services or insurance.

Check the more details for this position after the jump.


Company: Genworth Financial U.S.

Title: Sr. Finance Analyst – Strategic Capital Planning

Location: Richmond, VA

Minimum Experience: 5 years

Description: Genworth Financial is looking for a highly experienced and analytical CPA, CFA or MBA to join the Genworth HQ Stat Financial Planning & Analysis team.

Responsibilities: Liaison with various functional areas of the business, including Treasury, Tax, HQ GAAP FP&A, Business Development, Controllership, and Segment Finance groups as needed to consolidate long-term enterprise-wide financial plans, including all key financial metrics; Maintain models for use in updating the consolidated financial plans as needed and to show the impacts of various “what-if” scenarios on all key financial metrics; Use this information and analysis to support strategic corporate planning, including communications to the Board of the Directors; Support the management of the Corporate and Executive Capital Committees, including maintaining committee calendar, minutes and follow-ups, organizing and distributing materials, and documenting project statuses and approvals; Support the Business Development team by providing regular financial inputs, and ad hoc data and analysis as required; Support Board of Director, Quarter Close, Planning, Rating Agency and Capital Committee presentations and analysis as needed

Qualifications: CPA, CFA, or MBA designation; 5-7 years Financial and/or Insurance Experience; Prior Big 4 or public accounting experience; Corporate Finance Experience;

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

White House Backs Down on Corporate Foreign Earnings Tax

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

The Obama administration is slowly starting to pick its battles; starting with taxes on corporations’ foreign earnings.

The administration has abandoned its proposal to eliminate U.S.-based multinationals’ ability to defer tax on income by shifting assets to foreign subsidiaries, according to a published report.

While details are sketchy, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the administration’s proposed budget for fiscal 2011 shows that it has abandoned its plan to eliminate the so-called “check the box” system under which U.S. companies can defer U.S. tax on income by shifting income-generating assets to foreign subsidiaries without recognizing gains on the transfer.


The proposal would have eliminated companies’ ability to avoid tax on such transfers and forced the repatriation of earnings shifted in this way.

According to Bloomberg, the administration backed down in the face of intense opposition from multinationals. Observers note that Congress has tried to squelch the efforts of the Internal Revenue Service to clamp down on U.S. companies getting foreign tax breaks at the same time as U.S. tax breaks, although many of those breaks are facilitated by the check the box system.

“Maybe the administration figured this was one it did not need to pick a fight on,” Jasper Cummings, a partner in the Raleigh, N.C., office of Alston & Bird and a former associate chief counsel of the IRS, said in an email to CFOZone Tuesday. “They have enough fights as it is.”

Still, Cummings noted that the administration still has “a pretty long list of other changes” in international taxation that it is pursuing. Chief among them is a plan to tighten the pricing rules for transfers of intangible assets.

As CFOZone reported last fall, one such proposal would crack down on asset transfers of employee compensation. In a paper released in May outlining its budget for the last fiscal year, the administration said it would “clarify” the treatment of transfers of intangible assets to include shifts of such expenses.

At present, many companies avoid paying tax on gains resulting from transfers of so-called “workforce in place” under rules that also allow goodwill and “going concern” to go untaxed. In early 2007, however, the IRS issued a staff directive and audit guidelines warning that it was “improper” for taxpayers to classify workforce in place as goodwill and going concern. And an IRS official in September indicated that transfers of workforce in place should include the value of products or services the employees create if much of the work is complete at the time of the transfer.

According to Bloomberg, the administration’s proposals to toughen the rules on transfer pricing would generate $15.5 billion in tax revenues for the coming year and along with other international tax changes produce $122.2 billion over a decade.

The CPA’s 12-Step Program For Winning New Business

Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.

CPAs have made great strides in the art and science of sales and marketing in recent years but the profession still has a long way to go in adopting robust business development practice. Many firms barely weathered the storm of 2009, but a celebration may be premature. 2010 is likely to be as tough, and perhaps even tougher as clients cut back on expenses. Smart firms are reviewing their marketing plans and planning ways to generate new business in a weak economy.

That is the first step – make sure that you have an effective and comprehensive plan, including cost projections, strategies and person responsible for each. Here is a twelve point checklist for an effective sales plan:

• Cultivating business from current clients is the low hanging fruit. They are already pre-disposed toward you. Just ask them for more business.

• Even resumptions from formerly-lost clients should be considered especially if the loss was not performance relation but for objective reasons, such as a merger.


• Emphasize cross-selling in your firm by getting all senior team members involved in the sales effort and make sure that client/industry knowledge is shared effectively.

• Public speaking on specific topics related to your target prospects. Good old-fashioned word of mouth is still the best new client leads. “Cascade” the speeches into white papers and articles to expand their impact.

• Simply asking clients for referrals of specific types of prospects/assignments among their friends and professional collegues.

• Qualify prospects before investing time with them. Be selective about setting up an appointment on the initial contact and determine valuation of prospect relationship to assess if they are worth pursuing.

• Consider replacing less profitable, time consuming, and unappreciative clients with clients that are a better fit with your objectives as a firm.

• Conduct a “gap analysis” and focus on specific targeted niches: high quality, profitable prospects, and develop a case as to why your experience and expertise is relevant.

• Focus on growth industry with good long-term potential of growth.

• Use relationships with spheres of influence: referrals by attorneys and bankers who reach across companies.

• Use the right people for marketing and prospecting. Not every one is comfortable selling.

• Focus relentlessly on relationship building: aggressive involvement in trade associations and the community; conduct seminars for clients and prospects; cultivate the press including the prospect’s trade press.

To be really successful, you must sell your services. You must generate leads and convert them into paying clients. And the recent Great Recession calls for a significant rethinking of sales and marketing strategies.

While the market for professional services continues to grow, so does the number of firms and individuals competing for that business. In other words, to really succeed means to differentiate yourself from others.