Going Concern

Small Business

Are Big Banks Really Helping Small Business?

GoingConcern
July 7, 2010

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

In the latest move by a big bank to make itself into a friend to small business, Chase recently announced a program to offer incentives to small companies for hiring. But the actual benefit to most small businesses is hard to see.

Specifically, the bank will lower its interest rate on new lines of credit by 0.5 percentage points for each new hire, up to three employees, for the life of the loan. The offer is available to business owners who are approved for a line of credit of up to $250,000 or existing business customers who increase their line of credit by at least $10,000. And if you open a business checking account, you get an additional half percent discount on your loan rate.

A typical interest rate on a line of credit is 6 percent. According to the bank, if you choose the whole ball of wax – take the discount for three hires and open a checking account – you’ll lower that to 4 percent. And counting the discount for a new checking account, small business owners can save about $4,000 over three years on an outstanding balance of about $65,000.

Trouble is, that’s an offer most businesses are likely to refuse. Those already planning to hire and that are in good health might take advantage of the deal. In fact, they’d be silly not to. But the offer is hardly enough to inspire a business to hire if it wasn’t going to do so already.

What the offer might accomplish is to help Chase seem like a nice institution, not the greedy enterprise that helped bring down the economy. And it’s hardly the only attempt by Chase, or other banks, to do something to lift their image, something I’ve written about before. For example, last year, Chase unveiled plans to increasing lending to small businesses by $4 billion to a total of $10 billion. Bank of America recently said it would buy more from small businesses. In May, Citicorp launched a $200 million fund to boost small-business lending in low-income communities. And of course, last year, Goldman Sachs announced its own $500 million small-business fund.

It’s also a way to attract healthy businesses at a time when loan demand is down.

So a win-win for Chase. Not so much for small businesses.

Announcements

Thanks to This Week’s Advertisers

GoingConcern
July 7, 2010

A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Going Concern:

• Sunshine Suites

• Wiley

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Thanks!

BDO Does Some Ribbon Cutting, Opens Raleigh, NC Office

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

More good news out of B to the D to the O as the firm announced today that it is opening an office in Raleigh, North Carolina (full press release after the jump). This will be the 39th office in the U.S. and fourth in North Carolina. The firm also has eight affiliate offices in the state.

In the process, the firm managed to pick up former Ernst & Young audit partner Michael Dannar (a refugee perhaps?).

The good times at BDO have been aplenty lately as the firm just admitted five partners on July 1 and was given a mulligan on the Banco Espirito lawsuit. Oh and don’t forget that the firm fka BDO Seidman is celebrating its 100th birthday all year.

No word if there will be cake or freakishly large scissors at the celebration but nevertheless, it’s good to see some expansion in the Tar Heel state for a change.

BDO USA, LLP EXPANDS NORTH CAROLINA PRESENCE WITH NEW RALEIGH OFFICE

Chicago, IL – BDO USA, LLP, one of the nation’s leading professional service organizations, has announced an expansion of it’s presence in North Carolina with the addition of a new office in Raleigh. The Chicago-based firm, which now has offices in 39 cities around the country, had previously serviced clients in this market through its Charlotte practice. Pending a move to permanent office space at 5430 Wade Park Boulevard in August, the new practice, which will have approximately 15 staff, will be temporarily located at:

BDO
5410 Trinity Road, Suite 310
Raleigh, NC 27607

The Raleigh business community will now have more direct access to BDO’s full array of services which include assurance, tax, risk advisory, financial planning, business restructuring, litigation and fraud investigation services. Michael Dannar, previously with Ernst & Young, has joined the firm as a partner and will assist in serving the firm’s assurance clients in Raleigh and throughout the southeast. Mr. Dannar has significant experience working with colleges, universities and other non-profit organizations.

“We have been working with clients in Raleigh for a number of years now and the time is right for us to establish a permanent presence. This new office will enable us to better serve our clients in this growing market,” said Jack Weisbaum, CEO of BDO USA. “We are also happy to welcome Michael Danner to the partnership. His knowledge of the market will be a valuable resource to our firm.”

BDO SEIDMAN FACTS:

• BDO is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1910.
• BDO represents companies ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to closely-held private businesses.
• BDO had $620 million in revenues in 2009 (6/30/09). Over the past four fiscal years, the firm has averaged double digit growth (10.2%).
• As an independent member of BDO International Limited (the fifth largest global network of accounting firms), the firm can leverage the resources of more than 1,000 member firm offices in 115 countries around the world.

ABOUT BDO USA

BDO is the brand name for BDO USA, LLP, a U.S. professional services firm providing assurance, tax, financial advisory and consulting services to a wide range of publicly traded and privately held companies. For 100 years, BDO has provided quality service through the active involvement of experienced and committed professionals. The firm serves clients through 39 offices and more than 400 independent alliance firm locations nationwide. As an independent Member Firm of BDO International Limited, BDO serves multi-national clients through a global network of 1,138 offices in 115 countries.

BDO USA, LLP,a limited liability partnership, is the U.S. member of BDO International Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO network and for each of the BDO Member Firms. For more information please visit: www.bdo.com.

KPMG

Did KPMG Plagiarize Part of Its Atlantic Yards Market Study?

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

Back in the fall we told you about a market study that KPMG issued on the Atlantic Yards project.

At that time, we learned that KPMG had done some less-than stellar research on the movement of the units on Prospect Park and it got the attention of some the local blogs covering the massive development project.

Namely, the Atlantic Yards Report blog. It reported:

KPMG’s report has some very shoddy research. Consider that the report (dated August 31) claims that Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park is 75% sold. (Only rental buildings are pre-leased.)

However, the New York Times reported September 27:

While the developers say half of the building’s 99 units have been sold, the real estate Web site StreetEasy.com documents only 25 closings through public records.

AYR didn’t state it so boldly back in the fall but in a post from yesterday (as well as reports in May and June) it isn’t so nice and flat out calls the firm out for lying, “The KPMG report got very little discussion, but it contains lies–blatant, checkable lies–about condo sales.”

But wait! There’s more! We learned today from a friend of GC that not only does AYR call out KPMG for having their pants on fire, it also says that the firm got a little carried away with the copy and pasting:

I discovered when I took another look, it contains more than two pages of shameless borrowing–plagiarism that is not diminished by a vague footnote.

The entire section on New York City Market Dynamics is cribbed from The Corcoran Report(s) for Manhattan and Brooklyn for the second quarter of 2009.

Yes, there’s a footnote to the section headline that cites “The Corcoran Report–2nd Quarter 2009” as a source (click to enlarge), but there’s no indication that nearly all the text–with the slightest of changes–comes from Corcoran.

No quotation marks, no indentations, no italics.

AYR provides several examples that are ~~oddly the same~~ identical. We’ve presented a clip from KPMG’s report here:

And here’s Corcoran’s (apologies for the small type):

Like we said, this is just one example. Our messages (email, voicemail, in a bottle) to KPMG have not been returned at this time.

Nonprofits Could be Forced to Pay to Save the Postal Service

Adrienne Gonzalez
July 7, 2010

It’s difficult to find numbers that don’t contradict each other, some reports say nonprofits are doing better than expected in this uncertain economic environment while others insist it’s still rough out there, especially for organizations that rely on donations to get by. For nonprofits, it doesn’t matter how the year is going, it may soon cost more to send out those pleading donation mailers.

The Postal Regulatory Commission is looking at a 2 cent increase for first class mail, an 8% increase for periodicals (just what the doctor ordered for struggling print publications) and a 23% increase on parcels. While they have not specifically mentioned an increase in nonprofit mailer pricing, the PRC has already identified certain “underwater” mail classes, non-profit mail being one such case.

As is, authorized nonprofits get a price break of about 40% over commercial mail prices so you could see why a struggling USPS might go straight for non-profits when looking for additional revenue sources to close its $7 billion budget gap.

Overall, postal prices are expected to rise 4 – 5%, a huge jump from the legally allowed .6% the Postal Service can use to adjust for inflation. Seeing as how we supposedly haven’t experienced any inflation this year, the jump is that much more disheartening to mass mailers.

Not surprisingly, there’s a nonprofit set up to focus on postal issues around nonprofit mail and they’re all over it. Said Tony Cooper of the Washington-based Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, the USPS delivery system “is a system that’s built to handle about 300 billion pieces of mail, and they’ve got about 170 billion, and it’s set to decrease. It’s basically twice as big as it needs to be. It’s that excess capacity and costs that are creating the need in their minds to do this.” Hear that, USPS? Cut the fat before you start going after the little guys.

Adrienne Gonzalez is the founder of Jr. Deputy Accountant, a former CPA wrangler and a Going Concern contributor. You can see more of her posts here and all posts on the CPA Exam here.

Accounting News Roundup: IRS Probing HSBC Clients with Accounts in Asia; Saints Deny State Money Was Taxable; Pot Tax Helps Helps Another California Budget | 07.07.10

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

HSBC Clients With Asian Accounts Said to Face Probe [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
“The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of HSBC Holdings Plc clients who may have failed to disclose accounts in India or Singapore to the Internal Revenue Service, according to three people familiar with the matter.

‘This is a global initiative by IRS and the Department of Justice,’ said Robert McKenzie, an attorney at Arnstein & Lehr in Chicago who said he spoke to two people who got letters.

The probes show how the U.S. is expanding its crackdown on offshore tax evasion beyond Switzerland and UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, sa tax lawyer at Greenberg Traurig LLP in New York. London-based HSBC is Europe’s biggest lender by market value.

‘It’s clear that the IRS and the Department of Justice are intending to pursue other depositors outside of Switzerland,’ Kaplan said. ‘They’ve announced it before, and they are moving forward in that regard.’ “

A.T. Kearney, Booz Call Off Merger Talks [WSJ]
“A.T. Kearney Inc. and Booz & Co. called off discussions about a possible merger that would have given the two midsize firms greater scale in a highly competitive industry.

The two have flirted with each other multiple times over the years without completing a deal. The most recent talks occurred on and off over the past six months, says a person familiar with the matter.

The combined firm would still have been smaller than market leaders such as Deloitte LLP, McKinsey & Co. and Accenture Ltd in an industry where scale is increasingly important in wooing global business.”

Did Tax Ploy Help Saints Win Super Bowl? [Forbes]
If you feel so inclined, you could probably blame this on Reggie Bush but otherwise it’s probably due to some clever tax attorneys, “In a just-filed U.S. Tax Court lawsuit, the partnership owning the Saints acknowledges that it didn’t treat an $8.5 million annual payment from the state of Louisiana as income and therefore didn’t pay taxes on the sum. Rather, the team said the money was an addition to “working capital” and a nontaxable transaction.

The Internal Revenue Service insists the money should have been included in income by the franchise, owned for a quarter-century by auto dealer Thomas M. Benson Jr. The Tax Court case challenges that position.”

Pot Tax Helping Long Beach Plug Budget Deficit Faces Vote in California [Bloomberg]
“The city council of Long Beach, California, voted last night to pursue taxes on medical marijuana dispensaries, part of what may become a wave of communities turning to such proceeds to plug budget deficits.

The Los Angeles suburb with a population of almost 500,000 scheduled a public hearing on the drug levy for Aug. 3. If the council later approves the wording, a ballot initiative establishing a 5 percent tax on the city’s 35 dispensaries could go to voters in November, according to Lori Ann Farrell, Long Beach’s director of financial management.”

IRS Disbars CPA for Relying on Client’s Income and Expense Numbers [Tax Lawyer’s Blog]
How much due diligence should a tax preparer perform to be comfortable with their clients numbers?

Ex-Qwest Accountant Says SEC Should Be Sanctioned [CBS4]
“The SEC has said [James] Kozlowski hasn’t shown that it acted in bad faith. It has accused him of ‘theatrical conduct,’ including filing ‘numerous losing motions.’ Kozlowski’s attorneys dispute that.”

Quote of the Day

This Fall, It’s Do or Die for Accounting Rule Convergence

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

“If we can’t get converged (on financial instruments), it would suggest the convergence effort is going to be challenged and questioned on a significant basis.”

~ FASB member Tom Linsmeier levels with everyone on the FASB’s big test in the convergence process this fall.

Another Survey, Another Reason Parents Will Pressure Their Kids into Accounting

Daniel Braddock
July 7, 2010

Welcome back, people. Stuffed with watermelon mint juleps, fireworks and Klynveldian meats, most of you probably returned to full stomachs and fuller inboxes. That said, I hope your day is as painstakingly slow as mine (HR is a beautiful thing).

My morning news feed (i.e. Caleb’s morning news round-up) contained a story that is all too familiar – graduating college with an accounting degree is a safe bet. Of course. This report could have been 10 days or 10 years old; the song and dance would be the same. Consistently one of the best (meaning safest) bets for an undergraduate degree, the report from National Association of Colleges and Employers that, “jobs in accounting paid an entry-level salary of $50,402.” (It should be noted that – rumor has it – NACE pays a circus monkey to regurgitate these statistics EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.)

Not too shabby, 50 grand a year after college. This number obviously comes with a salt shaker, as those entering into a career in public need to factor in their location and the fact that the number is pulled upwards – at least to a degree – by private salaries. My beef is not with these numbers but with the parents, high school guidance counselors and university staff that use these numbers as a means to push their products on to naïve students. Alas, my list of Flakey Reasons You Should Be an Accounting Major:

“My (insert random acquaintance reference here) is an accountant, and he/she does just fine.” That’s wonderful for your barber’s cousin’s friend, but really the success of one accountant means nothing. Doctors are successful, as is the 15 year old kid bagging my groceries. This “Mr. Smith is successful” argument is generally used as a conservative reference to a job that is less popular. Quality of life is a relative term; so who’s happier, the produce bagger or the family tax accountant?

“You need to graduate with a degree that will earn you a job.” I understand this argument; however isn’t the point of college to study a subject which you actually like? Don’t get me wrong, I am all for being realistic about this, but the long-term consequences of studying a particular subject and focusing on an industry cannot be overlooked. This leads me to…

“You can work in any industry with an accounting degree.” I like Skittles. I am downright passionate about Skittles. Skittles are my life*. Is an accounting degree the only way to work for their producer, Mars Inc? Umm. No.

“You need a job to pay back your student loans.” No argument here, except for the one about overall crisis in higher education (you know, no big deal really). A recent CardRatings.com poll showed 36 percent of college graduates are carrying student loan debt on a credit card. Sleep soundly knowing the remaining 64 percent of the group is simply burdened by lower interest rates.

But I digress. The loans should be considered a necessary means to an end (i.e. – finding a job and career of interest). If you’re majoring in a subject so you can pay down the debt…that you took on…to earn…said degree…you’re vastly missing the point of going to college.

*Don’t judge.

Tax Return of the Day: Four Pounds of Unadulterated Joy

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

Warren Mayer of Coyote Blog posted this photo of his four pound tax return:

Don’t forget that the picture above is direct result of this:

Tax reform anyone? If you’ve got a tax return that weighs more, feel free to send us the pics (on the scale of course).

[h/t TaxProf]

Do You Enjoy Excitement? Following Money? Arresting Tax Scofflaws? The IRS Needs You!

Caleb Newquist
July 6, 2010

You may think that working for the IRS would involve nothing more than a plethora of bomb and/or white powder scares as well as hassling famous doucebags for their back taxes you’d only be partly correct.

So if you’re looking for job security, the chance to slap some bracelets on those illegally avoiding their patriotic duty and a whole other level of bureaucracy that the Big 4 only wishes it could create, the IRS may be for you!

Of course if danger isn’t your middle name (some are gathering armies after all), there are plenty of other opportunities out there on the new IRS careers website. The only drawback of course is that you probably won’t get to carry any of those shotguns.

Technology

An Argument for Techie Accountants

GoingConcern
July 6, 2010

My one piece of advice for the next generation of accountants right now is, enroll in some Computer Science courses. Learn to code. Learn how to manage a small server farm. Learn APIs, SQL, HTML5, JAVA, etc.

Drop that Poli-sci course right now.

Technicalntant’s best friend nowadays. It should be self-evident as to why. Data. Data. Data.

My first accounting gig was in a tax firm. We had an old mainframe crunching numbers and all the programming was in COBOL. In industry, reports would have all been generating output as text files; but who cares, there’s no ‘export to file’ function anyways.

Actually, that’s a good test. If you want to know whether your current software vendor is investing in the future of their product, look at the file output from your reports. If they come out as text files (you open Excel and each line of output is just one cell), this means the reporting architecture is really, really old.

It’s kind of like when you and your friends one-time go for an afternoon horseback ride. Inevitably, one person gets plunked on the beatest, tired old nag you ever seen. Yeah, technically she still rides but she ain’t even long in the tooth. All the teeth, they fell out.

Consider it the carbon dating of your accounting system.

You see, just because there has been consolidation in the ownership of companies in the enterprise software space does not mean the units have consolidated their products. Most units (purchased or raised) continue to operate independently. Revenues are generated from new sales obviously; but equally important, from a big, juicy installed base of maintenance contracts within the business units. You know that. And it’s fine. The amount of new investment in the product however, would be a corporate management decision from head office. Some products are the equivalent of that tired old nag.

Back to the point on technical skills though. Unlike back in the day, technology is no longer just auxiliary to what we do. It’s central and 100% pervasive. A commenter last week summed it up really well when I talked about the accounting tools:

“Three letters for you bitches, S to the Q to the mofo L.”

Getting a bit more techie will help you appreciate the humor in this quote. It’ll also help you recognize the tired old nag before you saddle up and ride.

In practice, normally we’re simply subject to whatever system happens to be installed. You deal with it, right? And that’s fine too. Recognition goes hand in hand with acceptance.

The reports kick out to Excel in text files; you find the delimiters, execute a ‘text-to-columns’ command, split up what you can and do your reporting. In the past, I’ve also had to occasionally create an Excel formula for pulling out text that’s really buried using the LEFT, RIGHT, functions. Then, I write a macro to automate as much as possible. Poor tired old nag.

Technology and data are just like riding a horse. With the correct instruction, you can get the horse to do what you want. But you’ll always be limited by what the horse is physically able to do.

If you don’t know anything about horses, this analogy might not make much sense at all. Which, I would say, just proves my initial point. Learn your technical skills now while you’re still in school. Leave all the fluffy horsebackriding and philosophy courses to the guys who’ll be serving you coffee after graduation.

In my view, technology skills are just as important for accountants as debits and credits. You may or may not like it, but it’s time to see how the dog food is made.

Enjoy.

Old farm adage: “If you’re going to have livestock,… you’re going to have deadstock.”

The Philosophy Teacher – watch more funny videos

Geoff Devereux as been active in Vancouver’s technology start-up community for the past 5 years. Prior to getting lured into tech start-ups, Geoff worked in various fields including a 5 year stint in a tax accounting firm. You can see more of his posts for GC here.

Career Center

Job of the Day: Genworth Financial Needs an Accounting and Reporting Team Leader

GoingConcern
July 6, 2010

Genworth Financial is looking for an experienced professional to assume a leadership role in their accounting and reporting group.

The position is located in Richmond, Virgina, requires someone with a strong accounting background in insurance, a minimum of five years experience with a CPA, and a MBA is preferred.

Company: Genworth Financial

Title: Team Leader, Accounting and Reporting

Location: Richmond, VA

Responsibilities: Coach, develop, and lead reporting analysts; Quarterly financial reporting for assigned Insurance Legal Entities; Review Statutory and GAAP quarterly financial statements; Plan and draft new disclosures for financial reporting as needed and review disclosure checklists prepared by reporting analysts; Review and approve quarterly entries; Review and lead reporting analysts in the completion of Statutory and GAAP audited financial statements; Review quarterly Statutory analytics, including GAAP to STAT reconciliations; Review results of quarterly Risk Based Capital; Review quarterly GAAP analytics, including Schedule 6’s; Support and respond to requests from State regulators, State examiners and external auditors, and review responses to audit and exam requests prepared by reporting analysts; Coordinate the completion of deliverables with multiple suppliers, internal and external to the business Segment Review supplemental NAIC and State required schedules quarterly and annually; Lead and implement improvement projects related to financial reporting.

Qualifications/Skills: CPA with 5-7 years Insurance experience; Accounting and/or finance degree; Strong Accounting foundation; Deep understanding of Insurance regulations; 2-3 years experience managing teams; Strong organization and communication skills; Working knowledge of Oracle or General Ledger system; MBA and GAAP and Statutory accounting and reporting experience are preferred.

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

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