Good morning, capital markets servants. Did anyone else get their Unown platinum medal over the weekend? Exciting stuff (for nerds)! But we’re here to talk about accounting news, not Pokemon. So let’s do that.
In this news brief
- KPMG Tells on Itself to the PCAOB
- Good News Bad News for Accenture
- There’s a New Sheriff in Town at the FRC
- Now That’s What I Call Modern
- Deloitte Office to Use Co-Working Space For a While
- Turns Out Consulting Isn’t Cheap
- Arkansas Gets an Upgraded Enterprise Platform
- Imagine 1000s of People Show Up to This
KPMG Tells on Itself to the PCAOB
The Mandarin reports that KPMG Australia has snitched on themselves to the PCAOB. Probably a good idea, they were going to find out anyway.
Accounting firm KPMG has told the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that it is under investigation by Australia’s Department of Finance for its ethical standards.
The firm told the powerful US regulator that a number of Australian governments have suspended KPMG’s ability to participate in government tender processes until Finance determines whether the firm remains ethically fit to continue as a government supplier.
Good News Bad News for Accenture
Two Accenture items of note today. First, they nabbed a fat defense department contract:
Accenture Federal Services was selected for a five-year task order worth up to $821 million to supply core integration support for the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office-managed War Data Platform, which grew out of the Advana enterprise data and analytics program.
According to government open source and online market intelligence trackers, and three sources familiar with the recent award, Accenture beat out four other commercial bidders to secure the deal. The Defense Department is listed as the funding agency and the CDAO is named as the funding office.
Next, hackers claim to have nabbed a wad of Accenture data:
A threat actor claims to have stolen a vast trove of sensitive data from the consulting giant Accenture in a recent cyberattack.
The compromised data includes source code, Microsoft Azure personal access tokens, RSA encryption keys and SSH keys, a hacker calling themselves “888” said in a dark-web post shared by Bleeping Computer.
The actor says they hacked roughly 35GB of data from Accenture during the intrusion, which occurred in early July.
Accenture downplayed the incident in a statement to Cybersecurity Dive.
“We are aware of this isolated matter and we have remediated its source,” spokesperson Peter Soh said. “There is no impact to Accenture operations and service delivery.”
There’s a New Sheriff in Town at the FRC
UK audit watchdog at the Financial Reporting Council are getting a new chair and she has a lot of letters after her name that denote usefulness to the monarchy or something.
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, has today named Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia DBE CVO as the government’s preferred candidate for Chair of the Financial Reporting Council, succeeding Sir Jan du Plessis who steps down on 30 September.
Dame Jayne-Anne brings to the role a distinguished career spanning financial services, fintech and public service. A chartered accountant by training, she built her career across insurance, retail banking and fintech, most notably as CEO of Virgin Money from 2007 to 2018, where she led the acquisition of Northern Rock and the subsequent listing of the combined business. More recently she has been a founder and innovator in the fintech sector.
Obligatory quote: “I am delighted with Dame Jayne-Anne’s appointment and look forward to working with her. Her exceptional experience, her deep understanding of what it takes to build and lead institutions that command public trust, and her commitment to the role the FRC can play in supporting our economy make her ideally suited to lead our Board.” – Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive of the FRC.
Now she awaits confirmation.
The departing chair, Sir Jan du Plessis, has received exactly three mentions on this website during his tenure:
- Senator Calls Bullsh*t on Guy Claiming Heavy Regulation Is to Blame For the Auditor Shortage (October 2023)
- UK Audit Regulator Chair Says Cheap-Ass Firms Should Pay Their Junior Auditors Better (June 2023)
- Friday Footnotes: Accounting AI Explodes; SOX Compliance Sux; KPMG Gets on a List | 6.17.22 (June 2022)
Now That’s What I Call Modern
Wanna see a snazzy consulting firm office in Tijuana? Architizer’s got you. There’s a whole bunch of pics.
Pretty sure I have that same metal and frosted glass partition in Sims Freeplay.
Deloitte Office to Use Co-Working Space For a While
Deloitte Singapore is sending some people to a co-working space. That doesn’t seem very economical but what do we know.
Deloitte Singapore will be moving a “portion” of its workforce to JustCo Place’s co-working space at Orchard Point from September, as its lease at OUE Downtown — which has been its home for more than a decade — approaches expiry at the end of 2026, The Edge Singapore reported.
The company, however, did not provide further details about its lease at OUE Downtown, staff count, and rental sums at either location.
The co-working space can accommodate about 1,000 to 1,200 workstations and has an average lease term of 15 months, JustCo executive chairman and CEO Kong Wan Sing said at a media briefing on July 7.
Turns Out Consulting Isn’t Cheap
In other Deloitte news, at least one lawmaker in Ireland is a bit disappointed that the government is spending so much on Deloitte bills. Shocked actually.
The Department of Social Protection has spent over €100m ($114 million USD) on consultancy and IT services from Deloitte over the last six years.
The department spent €102.8m on Deloitte services between 2020 and 2025, with expenditure peaking at €22.2m in 2024.
The spending covered a range of services, with the largest outlay going towards web services, including digital product development and production support.
Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes said he was “taken aback” by the high level of spending, describing it as “absolutely shocking”.
“It’s clear that in this particular case, and perhaps in many others, the State is essentially outsourcing much of its ordinary business to private interests and is completely beholden to making private firms rich to order to perform its core functions,” Hayes said. “That’s a gross level of mismanagement of the public sector and it’s extremely bad value for taxpayers.”
Dude wait til you see our Deloitte bills.
Arkansas Gets an Upgraded Enterprise Platform
Arkansas updated their accounting system and they’re very proud:
The State of Arkansas has completed a major upgrade to its statewide accounting system, marking what state officials say is the first for state governments across the country.
The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) announced Monday that it has successfully upgraded the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System (AASIS) to SAP’s latest enterprise platform, known as S/4HANA. State officials said Arkansas is the first state government to complete the transition to the new technology.
Imagine 1000s of People Show Up to This
Manitowoc locals are invited to attend a ribbon cutting at CliftonLarsonAllen’s new Sheboygan office on Thursday (if those city names are meaningless to you safe to say you aren’t invited). They’re very excited about this, you guys.
Pat Ness, managing principal of the CLA Sheboygan office, noted, “This project represented a significant investment in CLA’s future in the region and our commitment to the Sheboygan community. This new office space reflects our promise to create a modern, flexible workplace that supports not only collaboration, productivity and employee well-being, but also opportunities to connect with our clients in the community.”
No word on if there will be snacks.
That’s it for this edition of the Monday Morning Accounting News Brief. If you have a tip or story email or text anytime, I’d love to see it. I left comments open if anyone needs to sound off about anything. OK bye.
