Going Concern

Job of the Day: Fannie Mae Needs a Senior Accountant

GoingConcern
May 7, 2010

Fannie Mae is looking for an Senior Accountant – Debt, Derivatives in their Washington, DC/Metro location.

The position requires a minimum of six years experience, with exposure to FASB 52, 91, 133, 155, 157, 159 a plus.

Company: Fannie Mae

Title: Sr. Accountant – Debt, Derivatives

Location: Washington, DC/Metro

Description: Operate with considerable latitude in performing highly complex duties related to preparing and analyzing financial information to record transactions, prepare financial reports, and review and verify accuracy. Provide value-added expertise to consultants, auditors, and others in development of new concepts, techniques, and standards. Utilize wide-ranging experience to conduct research and problem-solving. May operate in a lead role within the team.

Responsibilities: Compile, review, analyze, and record financial information to the general ledger; Complete monthly closings; Prepare balance sheet and profit and loss statements, consolidated financial statements, and other accounting schedules and reports; Prepare daily, weekly, and monthly reconciliations to ensure general ledger account information is accurate, consistent, traceable, and auditable; Execute and manage timely and accurate transactions; Identify control weaknesses, communicate to management, and operate in a lead capacity in making remedial changes to tighten and enhance controls and mitigate risk; Design and produce reports; Conduct research and analyses on highly complex issues. Devise creative and effective solutions; Provide requested information to auditors, consultants, and others on highly significant matters requiring coordination; Design, modify, install, and/or maintain accounting systems to ensure adequate recognition of financial transactions; May perform highly complex projects or participate as a team member on projects at the highest level of complexity.

Qualifications/Skills: Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent required; 6-8 years; CPA preferred; Knowledge of financial instruments (debt, derivatives, short term investments) and/or familiarity with financial statements of financial services companies; Knowledge of any of FASB 52, 91, 133, 155, 157, 159 a plus.

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

Deloitte Manages to Tone Down Its Response to This Year’s PCAOB Inspection Report

Caleb Newquist
May 7, 2010

The PCAOB has released its 2009 Inspection Report for Deloitte and out of 73 audits inspected, 15 deficiencies were cited in this year’s review.

The Board writes that deficiencies are “failures by the Firm to identify or appropriately address errors in the issuer’s application of GAAP, including, in some cases, erikely to be material to the issuer’s financial statements. In addition, the deficiencies included failures by the Firm to perform, or to perform sufficiently, certain necessary audit procedures.”

Issues cited by the PCAOB in the report included goodwill impairment, deferred tax assets, inventory valuation, a failure to identify a “departure from GAAP,” among others. The Big 4 Blog rightly notes that this is the first time that the PCAOB has provided the sample size of the inspections which allows for some surprising error rates:

The error rate in this situation is quite high, almost one of every five audits has errors. Obviously, Deloitte performs thousands of audit each year and extrapolating from a small sample is quite dangerous, nonetheless, even at half of 20%, the natural conclusion is that one in ten audits has an error, and would have gone unnoticed had not the PCAOB done a good post-audit on the audit.

You could really make a fuss about what auditors did and did not do but the fact remains, audits are never perfect. Some are just more unperfect than others. What’s especially interesting is how Deloitte’s attitude has changed with regards to the PCAOB’s findings as compared to last year.

In last year’s inspection report, the Board cited seven audit deficiencies which resulted in a three page letter from Deloitte that, in no uncertain terms, told the PCAOB to get bent and keep their Monday Morning QBing to themselves. This was about as an aggressive of a response from an accounting firm as we had seen so it was definitely a surprise to see a firm lose their cool.

This year, despite the fact that Deloitte was cited for over twice as many deficiencies, the firm is considerably less defensive (read: boring) and put together a concise one page response to the Board’s findings that included the following:

“We have evaluated the matters identified by the Board’s inspection team for each of the Issuer audits described in Part I of the Draft Report and have taken actions as appropriate in accordance with D&T’s policies and PCAOB standards.”

It’s nice to see the firm playing nice with their regulator this year but we’re curious as to how the change in attitude came about. We hope that at least one of the remaining Big 4 will include a little more color in their response.

PCAOB_2010_Deloitte_Touche_LLP
PCAOB Inspection of Deloitte Audit – 20% Error Rate?? [Big 4 Blog]
Audit Deficiencies at Deloitte [WSJ]

Stressed Out PwC Partner Was Criticized By Fellow Partners for Being a Total Pansy

Caleb Newquist
May 7, 2010

On Monday we briefly mentioned the unfortunate case of Colin Tenner, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner that is suing the firm for disability discrimination. He is claiming that after he took a leave from the firm after “mismanagement by PwC and bullying by a client,” after which, negotiations for him to return to the firm fell apart and he was let go.

Now the Times Online is reporting some of the feelings of Tenner’s fellow partners. In January 2007, Mr Tenner took sick leave for a couple of days and that did not sit well with his fellow partner Hugh Crossey:

While Mr Tenner was on sick leave in January 2007, his managing partner, Hugh Crossey, e-mailed a third partner to say that he had heard that Mr Tenner was ill again and that the firm needed to point out that “real partners simply do not get sick”, it was alleged.

Depression? Anxiety? Apparently those aren’t real sicknesses, according to Hugh. But wait! Hugh wasn’t the only ones that thought Tenner was a total wuss. The tribunal also heard that a member of PwC’s “partner affairs team” (which probably has nothing to do with treating people like whores) wrote to the firm’s chief medical officer (?) “that there was a ‘very strongly held view that [Mr Tenner] was not as unwell’ as he claimed.” So not only is he total sissy, he’s also a faker.

Tenner claimed that his health had deteriorated to the point that it led him to “actively research ways of committing suicide,” although he actually never made any attempts on his own life.

PwC maintains that this mental health thing is all bullshit, sticking with the standard communiqué, “We believe that his claim is completely without merit and we will vigorously contest it.”

PwC manager told Colin Tenner ‘real partners do not get sick’ [Times Online]

CPA Exam

Here’s What You Need to Know About Authoritative Literature and Research on the CPA Exam

Adrienne Gonzalez
May 7, 2010

Though it doesn’t get much coverage in CPA exam study guides (for a reason, which we’ll get to later), your ability as a CPA exam candidate to tackle research on each exam section might make or break your overall performance.

When planning out the amount of time you will spend on each exam section (i.e. 45 minutes on each simulation as a general rule), you can rest easy if you save the research portion of each sim for the very end. It is believed to be worth only one point so if you can’t get to it, don’t worry about it too much. Focus on the written communications as those are worth 10 points – or one of them is, and you don’t know which one so take care of both and save the research for last only if you have the time.

As for practicing, newer CPA Review practice software already has this function built in.

If you would like to practice manually, you’ll have to take your active NTS to register for 6 months’ worth of access to the professional literature from cpa-exam.org. With this, you can search through AICPA Professional Standards and FASB Pronouncements to familiarize yourself with accounting regs, though you are still encouraged to take the tutorial CPA exam on the cpa-exam.org website as the research on its own is not exactly representative of the research function in the exam environment.

If that is not enough practice, book a 30 minute test run with Prometric to check out your testing center and the computer you’ll be using.

Anyway, don’t obsess too much over the literature. Like the tax code, a lot of your “answers” will be provided in the questions, it’s just up to you to look into what the questions are asking.

Think about it: CPAs have access to volumes of regs and standards in their careers, it is not imperative that they memorize each one. The CPA exam is meant to test your understanding of accounting fundamentals, not how well you can memorize 200 FASBs and spit them back out.

ANR
News

Accounting News Roundup: Times Square Gets Back to the Grind After Bomb Scare; Down with the Corporate Income Tax; The Politics of Spending | 05.07.10

Caleb Newquist
May 7, 2010

Times Square Goes Back to Work After Bomb Scare [FINS]
FINS checked in with several companies who have locations in the Times Square area to see if things are back to normal after last weekend’s failed bombing. Most companies are officially mum on the issue including our favorite TS resident, Ernst & Young, who was quoted as to have, “reached out [to their employees] on an informal basis.”

And by “informal” apparently that means “nothing” in some cases We checked with a couple of our own sources at E&Y and we were told that they had not received any communication at all. If there’s an email floating around out there, let us know but it sounds like any reassurance of safety was passed around on a post-it note.

A.I.G. Said to Dismiss Goldman [NYT]
Back in the game AIG! Thanks for the good times GS, Citigroup and Bank of America will take it from here. All it took was a little money for AIG to realize that they were in an abusive relationship.

Time to Junk the Corporate Tax [WSJ]
Michael Boskin argues for dumping the corporate income tax in an op-ed in yesterday’s Journal, citing several reasons that it sucks big time including double taxation, “Corporate income is taxed a second time at the personal level as dividends or those capital gains attributable to reinvestment of the retained earnings of the corporation. Between the new taxes in the health reform law and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, these rates are soon set to explode.”

…And that stakeholders ultimately bear this cost, “the corporation is a legal entity; only people pay taxes. In a static economy with no international trade, the tax is likely borne by shareholders. The U.S. economy is neither static nor closed to trade, and taxes tend to be borne by the least mobile factor of production. Capital is much more mobile globally than labor, and the part of the corporate tax that is well above that of our lowest tax competitors will eventually be borne by workers.”

The Political Economy of Consumption: ‘Tis Better To Give, and Give, and Give [Tax Vox]
This sums up why America’s deficit problems and citizens personal debt problems will never be fixed:

Not to stereotype, but nations do have personalities. Italians eat. Russians drink. Americans spend. And when anything—or anyone—gets between us and our consumption, watch out.

Recessions make us grumpy in part because we can’t consume as much as we like. In the depths of the current downturn, the savings rate in the U.S. topped 5 percent. But retail sales have been rising since October, and the savings rate has fallen in half. I suspect Americans won’t really feel better until we drive our savings rate back to zero.

Accordingly, politicians have to pander to masses about “cutting taxes” and “reducing spending” when it’s very simple and popular to the do the former, while in reality it’s very difficult and unpopular to do the latter.

Quote of the Day

But Spongetech Execs Aren’t Used to Handling Bar Soap…

Caleb Newquist
May 7, 2010

“Spongetech’s masterminds are going to prison. File that under ‘unfinished business.'”

~ Gary Weiss, on Spongetech executives who were arrested yesterday for securities fraud and obstruction of justice.

Deloitte
DWB

Deloitte Is Totally Cool with You Jumping Ship

Daniel Braddock
May 7, 2010

A GC reader from Deloitte emailed me the notes from a recent meeting for management on the health of its staff levels. Our source had the following to say:

I’m a senior in D&T (making manager in the fall) and thought the minutes from a recent manager meeting were interesting in terms of HR’s take on attrition. It does match what you’ve said in your column, i.e. they plan for a certain level of attrition, but I don’t think they even want to consider that there could be a cause for concern.

Management Community Feedback

Retention: Previous S. Manager / Manager Practice meeting unity is seeking additional clarity as to where the firm is heading, in the short term and long term (i.e., economics, compensation, etc.).

HR Audit Update: As of the time of the meeting, specific numbers are not known

DWB: Staff complaints, questions, and concerns, are summed up with the phrase “community is seeking additional clarity.” People want to know what the *#&! to expect in these still-somewhat-unclear times. Oh, and HR? They can run their “numbers” in minutes. Why they were not shared is a mystery; a concerning one at that.

Senior Turnover: Managers feel concerned with the leadership leaving at the senior level – potential for additional turnover in the fall

HR Audit Update: Turnover is comparative to 2 – 3 years ago so not considered a concern.

• Recent increase in the number of seniors that are voluntarily leaving the firm when compared to those trends seen in the last 12 – 18 months
• Region is looking at approximately 75 new hires
• Restrictions on inter-office transfers are being lifted

DWB: A lot to take away from this.

1) Managers are vocalizing the fact that people are leaving; this goes beyond the typical public accounting attitude of “good riddance.”

2) Turnover in 2007 was incredible. Do you remember what the market was doing in 2007?! It was a rip-roaring success. To compare it to that time frame and say it is “not considered a concern” is troubling. The difference between then and now is D&T was hiring like gang-busters themselves at that time so the attrition was not “felt” as severely as it’s being felt now. Layoffs and frozen hiring budgets make the recent staff losses more significant.

3) More people quitting now than during the recession? What research expert included that bullet point?

4) Inter-office transfers being reintroduced is a positive point; expect an announcement about this spun in the HR-style of “woo-hoo, now you can work in St. Louis!” And by St. Louis they mean Branson, Missouri.

What to do?

• Create a positive environment for the seniors and staff
• Leverage personal experiences to keep seniors/staff motivated
• Express advantages a “manager” position can add to one’s career path when looking at long-term goals.
• HR Advisory Update: National recruiting expects a good group in the Mid-West. Comparative attrition trends are taking place even though it may feel that the turnover rate is higher than normal.

DWB: Talking about the glory days of D&T audits doesn’t sound exciting, but sometimes it’s enough of a Kool-Aid effort to keep staff motivated. And look! Attrition rates are right where they want them to be. So all of you on under-staffed, over-worked projects? Yeah, this is the type of environment they plan for.

I’ll let our anonymous tipster finish off the commentary:

At least they might try to “create a positive environment” for me. I’d be really concerned if HR actually believes this or if they just don’t want to panic the managers. (Incidentally, I will be leaving after they give me the promotion.)

News

While the World Implodes, Let’s Bicker About Accounting Program Rankings

Caleb Newquist
May 7, 2010

Despite your 401k taking a deuce and the entire continent of Europe about to sink into the Atlantic, the Bloomberg Businessweek Business School undergraduate speciality rankings are out and the accounting rankings are, shall we say, interesting. Maybe no one is that worried about it but if sports play any part in your like/dislike of a particular school, then there should be a few words:

1 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
2 Brigham Young University (Marriott)
3 Emory University (Goizueta)
4 University of North Carolina – Chgler)
5 Wake Forest University
6 Lehigh University
7 Boston College (Carroll)
8 University of California – Berkeley (Haas)
9 University of San Diego
10 Southern Methodist University (Cox)

11 Babson College
12 University of Washington (Foster)
13 University of Richmond (Robins)
14 Villanova University
15 Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead)
16 University of Texas – Austin (McCombs)
17 University of Virginia (McIntire)
18 Cornell University
19 College of William & Mary (Mason)
20 New York University (Stern)
21 University of Southern California (Marshall)
22 Tulane University (Freeman)
23 Fordham University
24 Georgia Institute of Technology
25 Loyola University – Chicago
26 University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign
27 Ohio University
27 University of Denver (Daniels)
29 University of Texas – Dallas
30 University of South Carolina (Moore)
31 University of Connecticut
32 Boston University
33 Santa Clara University
34 University of Maryland (Smith)
35 Indiana University (Kelley)
36 Syracuse University (Whitman)
37 Washington University – St. Louis (Olin)
38 Binghamton University
39 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
40 Texas Christian University (Neeley)
41 University of Miami
42 University of Missouri – Columbia (Trulaske)
43 University of Michigan (Ross)
44 North Carolina State University
45 University of Wisconsin – Madison
46 Texas A&M University (Mays)
47 The College of New Jersey
48 University of Minnesota (Carlson)
49 Miami University (Farmer)
50 University of Georgia (Terry)
51 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
52 University of Delaware (Lerner)
53 Ohio Northern University (Dicke)
54 Seattle University (Albers)
55 Northern Illinois University
56 Michigan State University (Broad)
57 Georgetown University (McDonough)
58 California Polytechnic State University (Orfalea)
59 Loyola College in Maryland (Sellinger)
60 University at Buffalo
61 Bentley University
62 DePaul University
63 University of Iowa (Tippie)
64 Drexel University (LeBow)
65 Northeastern University
66 Marquette University
67 St. Joseph’s University (Haub)
68 University of Pittsburgh
69 University of Utah (Eccles)
70 University of Oregon (Lundquist)
71 Seton Hall University (Stillman)
72 Bowling Green State University
73 Kansas State University
74 Colorado State University
75 Louisiana State University (Ourso)
76 Baylor University (Hankamer)
77 University of Oklahoma (Price)
78 University of Colorado – Boulder (Leeds)
79 University of Massachusetts – Amherst (Isenberg)
80 James Madison University
81 George Washington University
82 University of Tennessee – Chattanooga
83 University of Houston (Bauer)
84 Xavier University (Williams)
85 Florida State University
86 John Carroll University (Boler)
87 University of Hawaii (Shidler)
88 Arizona State University (Carey)
89 Florida International University
90 University of Louisville
91 Bryant University
92 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Lally)
93 Purdue University (Krannert)
94 Illinois State University
95 University of Arizona (Eller)
96 Texas Tech University (Rawls)
97 Hofstra University (Zarb)
98 Ohio State University (Fisher)
99 Clemson University
100 University of Florida (Warrington)
101 University of Akron
102 University of Arkansas – Fayetteville (Walton)
103 Butler University
104 University of Nebraska – Lincoln
105 University of Illinois – Chicago
106 University of Central Florida
107 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Pamplin)
108 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)
109 Temple University (Fox)
110 Pennsylvania State University (Smeal)
111 Clarkson University

EY
News

Apparently Ernst & Young Doesn’t Buy the “C’s Get Degrees” Mantra

Caleb Newquist
May 6, 2010

We know that lots of you out there are perfectionists, so this could never happen to you but for you mere mortals, you can sympathize a little bit.

Courthouse News Service reports that a class action suit in California has been filed against E&Y claiming that the contracts signed by graduating seniors “compel” them to work for the firm but allow the company “to legally renege or cancel the offer of employment” if the senior does not maintain “continued strong academic standing.” Apparently this means if you slack off your senior year and slip a couple of C’s in there, you could be out on the street.

Yunjung Gribben, 43, is the named plaintiff in the suit and she is seeking damanges for wrongful termination, age discrimination, breach of employment, specific performance and violations of the Labor Code.

Ms. Gribben claims that she graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a 3.6 grade point average but, “After working for Ernst & Young for a month, Gribben says, she got a call from human resources, questioning her about the C’s she got in her senior year. She says she was fired the next days [sic].”

She claims that “continued strong academic standing” was not defined in her contract, although she admits that there is a “hazy reference” to the term on the firm’s website.

Dale Fiola is representing Ms. Gribben and he us, “No student should be under the impression that they have an employment agreement once they graduate. Most of the time when people sign offers of employment they think they’ve got something.”

The suit alleges that other students have cited the “continued strong academic standing” language and in Ms. Gribben case, “younger employees were allowed to stay at the company.”

Ernst & Young spokesman Charlie Perkins had no comment at the time our post was published.

Class Sues Ernst & Young Over Contract [Courthouse News Service]

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…or: Cloud Computing and SaaS Briefly Explained

GoingConcern
May 6, 2010

Figuring out how to sum up Cloud Computing and Software as a service (SaaS) in the space of ~800 words would absolutely require the biggest, puffiest, most cumulus metaphor that ever precipitated understanding over the dry, barren plains of ignorance EVER! Something like….

king Business Applications By Storm, or
– Burning off the Fog Around Cloud Computing, or
– Cloud Computing goes from Light Showers to Torrential Downpour, or even
– Quit Jiiiivin’ Me Turkey, You Got to SaaS it! (a Turkey is a bad person)

Why?

Because this thing is growing like a Class 5 Hurricane sucking up warm air over the Gulf of Mexico in mid-September, and you’re in the eye of the storm baby!

Enough! I can’t… I just can’t brew up another hackneyed metaphor!

All joking aside, Cloud Computing and SaaS are now “required reading” if you’re even remotely involved with technology (i.e. you use a computer). I can help you understand this stuff better, but first some disclosure:

I work for a SaaS company. My paycheck depends upon acceptance of this technology.

If you can accept this embedded bias, I’ll try to suppress any overt advocacy while providing a synopsis of this space over the course of the next few weeks. Call it Saas 101.

So, what is it?

We’ll get into this in more detail soon because there’s more to it, but very simply:

Software as a Service – A software application that you access online without having to download anything to your computer.

Cloud Computing – Provides computing power and data storage on an “as needed” basis much the same way as a public utility provides electricity.

Why should you care?

At the very least, you should care because you are already using this stuff for personal web activities (e.g. Facebook – think privacy, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, etc). And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the next software sourcing project your company undertakes will include Cloud and Saas representation.

This is a bet I’ll win because even the big, established players in the software world like IBM, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are running to try and get in front of this thing on the business side.

You want to know about this.

Where did it come from?

How did Software as a Service and Cloud Computing as we know it come about?

Well, what’s in a word?

Again, there’s more to it, but without rekindling the internecine nerd-fighting I think tracing the roots of this movement back to Marc Benioff, the founder, Chairman & CEO of Salesforce.com is not unreasonable for our purposes. He was arguably the most vocal advocate for looking at software delivery in a new way back before this stuff HAD a name. Salesforce.com launched as an unknown start-up back in 1999 and is now one of the leading CRM (Customer Relationship Management) products Cloud or otherwise and is traded on NYSE with a market cap of over $10 Billion.

Along with another early entrant, Netsuite, these guys let the genie out of the bottle. Interestingly, both companies have deep, deep roots back into Oracle Corp., Oracle, a company that, according to Oracle, “would change the face of business computing forever.” I don’t dispute the claim though. And I would take it one further saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The Rain Fell in Torrents…

The creation of Salesforce and Netsuite were both extremely capital intensive. In order to host their customers (i.e. users of the software), tens of millions of dollars were required to build the data center infrastructure. You’re not required to buy servers and hardware, so where do you think all your data is residing? In a cloud? We haven’t advanced that far.

But we have advanced.

Today companies building Cloud apps don’t tend to build their own data centers, at least not right off the hop. Another important innovation in Cloud comes from companies like Amazon. Apart from books, Amazon has a whole other line of business providing computer infrastructure on a rental basis. It’s like a power grid for computing.

This changes the business model for companies who build software in the same way these Cloud app companies are changing things for you.

Suddenly, your IT goes from being a Fixed Cost to a Variable Cost.

More next week.

Enjoy!

Geoff Devereux as been active in Vancouver’s technology start-up community for the past 5 years. He regularly attends and contributes to the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in the city through the Vancouver Enterprise Forum, guest blogging on Techvibes.com, and as a mentor with ISS of BC. Prior to getting lured into tech start-ups, Geoff worked in various fields including a 5 year stint in a tax accounting firm. He is currently working in a marketing/social media role with Indicee, a Saas Business Intelligence company, bringing B.I. to mere mortals.

Career Center

Job of the Day: Morgan Stanley Needs a Real Estate Accounting Manager

GoingConcern
May 6, 2010

Morgan Stanley is looking for an experienced accountant to join their real estate group to be responsible for all aspects of accounting for the company’s real estate leases and associated fixed assets.

The position requires a minimum of three years experience with real estate accounting experience preferred and advanced Excel skills including pivot tables and lookup functions.

Company: Morgan Stanley

Title: Real Estate Accounting Associate/Manager

Location: New York, NY

Description: This position will be responsible for all aspects of accounting for Morgan Stanley real estate leases and associated fixed assets. This position will work closely with the space reporting, strategic analysis, lease administration, space planning and property management groups.

Responsibilities: Review of new leases to ensure financials are accurate in the Real Estate System; Calculate and record straight-line rent adjustments as well as prepare monthly reconciliation and analysis; Promptly respond to requests of internal & external auditors by providing lease documentation and supporting schedules; Month end close and expense accruals; Prepare balance sheet reconciliation of all rent & rent-related accounts; Accrue & monitor all costs associated with abandonment of space & assess adequacy of vacant space reserves on a quarterly basis; Review all Corporate Services fixed assets to ensure they are accounted for in accordance with Fixed Asset policy and are assigned to the right locations; Monthly analysis of space & occupancy variances and drivers; Compute and record Interest on Fixed Asset allocations; Assist with all aspects of accounting for the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture; Support the Global Reporting Space Initiative; Ad hoc reports.

Qualifications/Skills: Strong Accounting skills with detailed working knowledge of the General Ledger; 3-5 years of accounting experience; Must have advanced Excel skills, including use of Pivot Tables and Lookup functions; Detail oriented with strong analytical and interpersonal skills; Proven track record of good organizational skills, sound time management, and ability to prioritize and multitask; Team oriented; Systems experience: Omega, REM, BOXI; Communication and presentation skills; Bachelors in Accounting; Background in Real Estate Accounting; PC Skills: MS Excel, Access, Word, PowerPoint, Mainframe General Ledger.

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

Small Business

Don’t Get That Excited About the Growth in SBA Loans

GoingConcern
May 6, 2010

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

It’s time to dial down all the fuss about SBA loans.

First, there are the reports about increases in SBA loan dollar volume, thanks to the stimulus bill. For example, according to the SBA, over a period of about a year, average weekly loan dollar volumes increased more than 90 percent in the two most popular programs, 7(a) and 504, from the average before the passage of the stimulus bill. 7(a) loans can be used for such purposes as working capital and the purchase of equipment, while 504 provides long-term, fixed-rate financing for buying real estate and other fixed assets used for expansion or modernization.

But, a recent analysis by Scott Shane, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve, shows this conclusion should be taken with a big pitcher of salt. According to Shane, the level of growth is only impressive when compared to the previous year’s poor results. That is, in 2009, the volume was about $180,000,000. So, the approximately $300,000,000 for the first 27 weeks of the 2010 fiscal year represents a big jump. But compared to, say, 2006 and 2007, it’s about the same.

Then, there’s the more important matter of just how many small businesses get SBA loans in the first place. The answer is: Not many. Take the 7(a) program, which comprises 90 percent of SBA loans. According to Shane, last year, less than one percent of small businesses with employees received one of these babies. If you look at non-employer businesses, which comprise the majority of all small companies, their share was between one tenth and one twentieth of one percent–about 50,000 small businesses out of 29.6 million.

Of course, 2009 was a lousy year. But, the data still suggests that all the attention being given to the SBA-loan program may not be warranted. That, in turn, has some pretty serious implications for government policy. Those businesses that got SBA loans undoubtedly were helped, possibly increasing their sales and, perhaps, their hiring. But, to reach more companies, the programs just aren’t enough. Another approach is needed to help the vast majority of businesses that don’t use these loans at all.

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