Rothstein Kass Appoints Three New Principals [PR Newswire]
Leading professional services firm, Rothstein Kass (www.rkco.com), today announced that Arthur Brown, Kashif Hussain and Daniel O’Connor have been named Principals in recognition of their ongoing contributions to the company’s success.

Analysis: Decades-old auditor ties under scrutiny in U.S. [Reuters]
Goldman Sachs has stuck with the same auditing firm since 1926, Coca Cola since 1921, General Electric since 1909 and Procter & Gamble since 1890. That’s going back 85, 90, 102 has relied on a different one of what are known today as the Big Four accounting firms. And now some U.S. accounting reformers are thinking that perhaps enough is enough: the time has come to rotate auditing firms.

IASB Chairman: IFRS Adoption Is in “Economic Interest of U.S.” [Journal of Accountancy]
Adopting IFRS would benefit the United States’ economy, the new chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) said July 29 during his first official visit to China. Speaking to a gathering of the Ministry of Finance’s Accounting Regulatory Department in Beijing, Hans Hoogervorst said, “U.S. investors invest globally, and U.S. companies seek international capital, and it is in the economic interest of the U.S. to adopt IFRSs,” according to a copy of the speech posted on the IASB website. “IFRSs support economic growth and establish a high-quality level playing field for globalized markets.”

Audit reveals ‘very significant’ accounting woes in Granger [Yakima Herald-Republic]
Granger’s accounting problems are so serious that if not corrected, the city could miss out on future federal grants, according to the state Auditor’s Office. A state audit showed the city didn’t report $500,000 in federal grants and failed to provide complete and accurate financial reports.

Mergis Group Accounting & Finance Employee Confidence Index Dips [Sacramento Bee]
The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among U.S. accounting and finance workers, slipped 2.1 points to 50.0 in the second quarter of 2011, according to a recent survey of 3,833 U.S. adults among which 183 are employed in Accounting and Finance commissioned by The Mergis Group®, the professional placement division of SFN Group, Inc. The survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive®, reveals that fewer workers are confident in the strength of the economy and in the future of their current employer.

China’s Mutant Turtles [FT]
Our research shows that the poor quality of accounting in China is an extension of a poor governance environment, with its origins in China’s cultural, political, economic and legal systems. After decades of communist rule the state is still trying to establish its legal authority and is unable to enforce the law impartially. The result is that people resort to personal connections and private information to protect their business dealings.

Restoring trust and saving the U.S. credit rating [Chicago Tribune]
Our elected officials don’t follow the rules to enforce honesty that they require of the private sector, such as the standards of Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. If voters really understood this, they might remove them from office and put some of them in jail. Washington’s ways have evolved with a veneer of legal legitimacy, when in fact those ways increasingly resemble the corruption we deplore in lesser-developed countries.

Wanted: Missionaries with accounting skills [Baptist Press]
Accountants may not be the first image that pops into people’s heads when talking about missionaries, but that’s exactly how Grece, a Nebraska native, answered his call to missions. He uses his financial skills in the office while also focusing on ministering to those around him — whether it’s frazzled missionaries or local villagers.

Moody’s: IASB, FASB Accounting Standards Proposals Hitting Delays [PropertyCasuality360]
Proposed changes to insurance-contract accounting standards are running into delays amid vocal opposition, but whatever final conclusions ultimately emerge, they are unlikely to have a broad impact on credit ratings since new rules, by themselves, do not alter the economic position of an entity, according to Moody’s.

Official Washington’s Crackhead Accounting [The American Spectator]
There is no evidence that this bizarre deal of questionablee.g. the “Super Congress”) will actually lead to any real cuts. Nor is there any evidence that it will prevent the U.S. government from losing its long held triple-A credit rating. There is a promise of spending cuts, but overall federal spending will continue on its upward trajectory because Official Washington operates in the make-believe world of “baseline budgeting.” According to this crackhead accounting, both a cut and an increase may count as cuts.

State faults Binghamton’s accounting system [Sun-Bulletin]
The City of Binghamton’s accounting system lacks adequate controls to provide an accurate picture of city finances, an audit by the state comptroller’s office found. The 33-page report, released Monday, said the municipality has, among other things, overstated its general fund balance, has a city comptroller that hasn’t properly monitored certain accounts and has more than $13,000 in unaccounted funds from its parking operations.

Barclays to cut 3,000 jobs as profit drops [Reuters]
Barclays is set to cut about 3,000 jobs this year to reduce costs after a drop in bond trading and an insurance mis-selling charge cut first half profits by a third.

Money Funds Have Biggest Redemptions This Year Amid Debt Talks [Bloomberg]
Investors last week pulled more money from money-market mutual funds than any week this year as U.S. lawmakers failed to resolve the impasse over raising the debt ceiling. Withdrawals reached $37.5 billion, with about 70 percent of the redemptions coming from institutional funds that invest in U.S. government securities, according to data from the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group.

Accounting Departments Drive Demand for Electronic Document Management Solutions to Improve Bottom Line, According to IntelliChief [Benzinga]
IntelliChief LLC, the leading provider of document management and imaging solutions for the IBM i (System i, iSeries, AS/400), reports accounting department personnel are often both primary drivers and first adopters of paperless solutions in their companies. “Because of the cost savings to be gained by going paperless in accounting, and the bottom-line responsibilities that are top-of-mind with financial professionals, it makes sense that the demand for paperless solutions most often originates from within the accounting department,” says Brian Smith, IntelliChief Marketing Director.

No Day in Court for Bank Clients [WSJ]
Some small and regional U.S. banks are prohibiting unhappy customers from taking their complaints to court or joining class-action lawsuits, instead requiring them to resolve disputes through arbitration.

Preparing for New ‘Bottom Line’ on Leases [Memphis Daily News]
Obviously, the more significant a company’s leasehold interests are, the greater the impact of the new guidelines; for example, airlines, manufacturers and retailers. Additionally, regulatory rules will likely be impacted for banks and insurance companies. And, because the new guidelines deal with the accounting for leases on the balance sheet, the greatest impact will be on companies issuing audited financial statements.