Last Thursday I got an email from Renaissance Capital listing the colleges that have produced the most initial public offering CEOs in 2019. If you’re curious, the answer is Princeton University with four. So that got me wondering about which colleges have produced the most public accounting firm CEOs/chairmen/managing partners.

So I took a look at INSIDE Public Accounting’s ranking of the top 200 firms in 2019, which names the CEO, chairman, or managing partner for each firm. Then I creeped on their LinkedIn profiles (if you see that I recently viewed your page, you’ll know why) or looked on their bios online to find out where they graduated from college. I only looked at bachelor’s degrees, not master’s degrees.

In total, I got bachelor’s degree information for more than 210 public accounting firm leaders, as 11 firms have either co-CEOs, co-chairmen, or co-managing partners.

Of the top 12 undergraduate accounting programs ranked by U.S. News & World Report, nine have graduated leaders of top 200 firms (number in parenthesis):

• University of Texas at Austin (2)
• Brigham Young University (2)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2)
• Indiana University (4)
• University of Michigan (1)
• University of Pennsylvania (1)
• University of Southern California (4)
• New York University (3)
• University of Florida (4)

The University of Notre Dame, Ohio State University, and Boston College aren’t represented in IPA’s top 200 firms list. Also shut out were the University of California-Berkeley, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Chicago, and the University of Iowa.

There are 28 colleges or universities that have graduated two public accounting firm leaders in the top 200. Besides the schools listed in the bullet points above, some others include Babson College, University of North Carolina, Virginia Tech, University of Wisconsin, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, University of Oregon, Auburn University, University of Alabama, and the University of Washington.

But according to my analysis and counting skills (I’m no mathlete, as you know), here are the schools that have produced the most leaders of top 200 public accounting firms (in descending order):

7. (tie): University of St. Thomas (3)

• Steve Behrns, Boulay
• Mark Gibbs, Redpath and Co.
• Cory Parnell, Boeckermann Grafstrom & Mayer

7. (tie): UCLA (3)

• Stephen Milner, Squar Milner
• David Neste, Prager Metis CPAs
• Michael Novogradac, Novogradac & Co.

7. (tie): New York University (3)

• Steven Klein, Gerson Preston Klein Lips Eisenberg & Gelber
• Stuart Kotler, Berdon
• Harry Moehringer, Marks Paneth

7. (tie): Bentley University (3)

• Laurie Austin, DiCicco Gulman & Co.
• James DeLeo, Gray Gray & Gray
• Carla McCall, AAFCPAs

2. (tie) University of Southern California (4)

• Philip Holthouse, Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt
• Rick Parent, Gumbiner Savett
• Joe Ucuzoglu, Deloitte
• Stephan Wasserman, Gursey Schneider

2. (tie): University of Tennessee (4)

• Jeff Drummonds, LBMC
• James Hutcherson, Henderson Hutcherson & McCullough
• Edward Pershing, PYA
• Chris Schellman, Schellman & Co.

2. (tie): University of Indiana (4)

• Ted Dickman, BKD
• Robert Minkler Jr., Anders CPAs + Advisors
• David Resnick, Katz Sapper & Miller
• Alan Whitman, Baker Tilly

2. (tie): University of Georgia (4)

• V. Hanson Borders, Mauldin & Jenkins
• Jeffrey Eischeid, Bennett Thrasher
• Gregory Hayes, Moore Stephens Tiller
• Sean Taylor, Smith & Howard

2. (tie): University of Florida (4)

• Louis Cohen, Caler Donten Levine Cohen Porter & Veil
• Timothy Devlin, Daszkal Bolton
• Bert Mills, Moore Colson CPAs and Advisors
• Carol Villemaire, James Moore & Co.

1. University of Maryland (6)

• Jacqueline Cardello, Gelman Rosenberg & Freedman
• Joel Chazen, Hertzbach & Co.
• Larry Davis, Aronson
• David Goldner, Gross Mendelsohn
• James Kokolas, Calibre CPA
• Walter Pennington, Dembo Jones

All you Terps, feel free to gloat in the comment section.

The post These Colleges Have Cranked Out the Most Public Accounting Firm CEOs and Managing Partners appeared first on Going Concern.

You read that right—when FP&A, accounting, tax, and audit professionals can proficiently read, work with, analyze, and argue with data, they gain superpowers. These powers give you the abilities to complete tasks with incredible speed, make decisions driven by uncanny wisdom, unleash spectacular results for clients, and ultimately gain an astonishing edge on your competitors.

In the real world, getting bitten by a radioactive spider will probably just leave a nasty scar, and jumping into a gamma bomb blast to save the world’s most annoying teenager will definitely kill you. But that doesn’t mean superpowers don’t exist. 

With The Economist declaring that data has now replaced oil as the world’s most valuable resource, it’s time for accounting and finance professionals to start unlocking the great power (and, of course, great responsibility) of data and gain the capabilities they need to stay competitive.

Like Steve Rogers, you already have those abilities inside you. You just need a super soldier serum boost to unleash your full data potential.

So what is that secret formula? You’ve likely read countless articles about data literacy initiatives being the key to success in this new age. While data literacy is certainly important, it’s the superpower equivalent of Squirrel Girl’s ability to talk to and mobilize squirrels—useful, but not exactly world-shaking.

To become the hero the accounting and finance world needs, you’ll have to go beyond simple data literacy to achieve data domination. And the only way to do that is with the right analytics platform—one that empowers your organization to easily unleash the value of your data and grab your cape to analyze it, share it, and automate key tasks along the way. 

You’re probably thinking,“That all sounds great, but what exactly will these data superpowers allow my organization to do?” Let’s take a look at some specific benefits and use cases across tax, audit, finance, and general accounting—and show you what unlocking your inner data hero really looks like.

Data and analytics superpowers for tax professionals

Tax professionals spend more than 50% of their time gathering tax data and less than 30% on strategic tax analysis. If your organization could flip those numbers, you could transform tax data from a liability into a superpowered asset. When tax professionals dominate data, they can:

• Stop collecting data like an RPG character mining for XP: Reduce time spent manually gathering data, business and legal entity reconciliation, and tax reporting; increase time for higher-value work like performing multiple analyses of transactions.
• Become a data Mr. Clean without shaving your head: Easily clean data from any source, including multiple ERPs, consolidation systems, billing systems, commerce platforms, and more.
• Comply faster than a Star Trek Borg: Get a complete analytical view of audit processes across compliance, fraud detection and investigation, risk assessment, operational performance, and internal controls. 
• See flaws better than an Inhuman: Improve efficiency and accuracy to understand anomalies before and after meeting compliance requirements.
• Say “I know” more than Han Solo: Boost confidence in data integrity and in uniting all team members and decision makers around a single source of truth.

None of that happens if you stick with the spreadsheet ways of the past. The right analytics solution can evolve your process to visual, repeatable workflows. That means performing correlation analyses to identify drivers of effective tax rates and disparities between statutory and effective rates. And it means better forecasting of effective and cash taxes, determining optimal transfer pricing patterns, and conducting “what if” analyses ahead of M&As.

Data and analytics superpowers for audit professionals

Using spreadsheets for audits today is like trying to run Starcraft II on your old 386 PC—it just doesn’t work.

But with a modern, superpowered analytics platform, auditors can use intuitive, drag-and-drop interfaces to achieve data domination through experience and experimentation. Code-free and code-friendly platforms provide deeper understanding in the auditing process—no matter your analytics comfort level—and make it easier to identify anomalies and classify potential irregularities.

With data powered by self-service analytics, audit professionals can start to:

• See farther and wider than Heimdall: Easily perform end-to-end process testing and control validations.
• Cut costs like Edward Scissorhands: Lower existing and future audit costs through scheduling and automation of data collection, preparation, and analysis.
• Calculate risks more accurately than C-3PO: Produce earlier identification of high-risk patterns in spending, codes of conduct, and across a network of partners and suppliers. 

The right platform can also drive new capabilities like text analytics, which can recognize specific assets on printed balance sheets, or robotic process automation, which can reconcile balances in multiple sub-ledgers. 

Overall, using analytics in audit makes the process faster and cheaper while offering better coverage in testing. And the technology is only going to get better—constant evolution continues to push what’s possible with new artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.

Data and analytics superpowers for finance professionals

At the risk of beating a dead spreadsheet, getting full visibility across key financial management systems just can’t happen with manual data processing. With spreadsheets, data remains static, siloed, and hard to manipulate, so achieving organization-wide data domination is less likely than Warner Bros. ever making a good Green Lantern movie.

To stay competitive in today’s financial world, you need to be able to access and blend all relevant financial data from your internal systems and those of partners and suppliers. That’s a lot easier and faster with superpowered analytics solutions that can bring together data from multiple accounting ledgers and consolidate it for statutory reporting and sub-ledger account analysis in an automated fashion. 

After just a bit of experimentation with the right analytics platform, finance professionals can learn to:

• Bring everything together better than Avengers: Endgame: Manage diverse and unstructured data sources to create high-quality reconciliations.
• Keep more robust records than the Jedi archives: Standardize master data records using fuzzy matching and pattern recognition.
• See the future better than Madame Web: More easily perform risk-weighted asset calculations for capital, interest rate risk modelling, sensitivity analysis, liquidity reporting, and compliance.

Data and analytics superpowers for accounting professionals

Quick, what’s the best superpower you could possibly have? Super strength? Not unless you want to crush your favorite co-worker’s ribs during your next celebratory chest bump. Flight? That’d be fun—until the bill for all the FAA violations you’ve committed comes due. 

No, the best superpower is the ability to manipulate time. Think about it: Put enough hours in the day and there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.

That’s exactly what the right analytics platform can do for accounting professionals. It gives you back the hundreds of hours you spend on manual data extraction and accrual calculations across multiple departments and inconsistent systems. 

With analytics, accountants can:

• Get better transparency than Sue Storm: Automation around data extracts and accrual calculations creates transparency at review, and analytic workflows also make it easier to document the steps in the process—should issues arise.
• Have better connections than Bezos or Gates: By having strong data connection options, accounting details can be seamlessly passed through to the journal after approvals are made.
• Be more consistent than Superman saving Lois Lane: Analytics drive consistency and accuracy, freeing you up to do more with your superpowers than you ever thought possible.

Get data superpowers in a box with Alteryx

As you research analytics solutions for your organization, you’ll find that they generally fall into one of two categories:

1. General use products providing few-to-zero specific accounting/finance functions.
2. Traditional accounting software with some analytics capabilities shoehorned in, but lacking the raw power of general solutions.

Only Alteryx gives you the best of both worlds—a superpowered, proven analytics platform that’s been specifically customized to automate and enhance the tasks and processes most critical to accounting and financial success. Alteryx is an ideal solution for organizations of every shape and size, combining the robust capabilities large enterprises require with the flexible pricing and ease-of-use needed by smaller companies.

It’s time to push data domination across your organization and evolve to heroic levels of tax, audit, finance, and accounting analytics. With Alteryx, you can finally free your organization from manual steps and allow more time for the strategic analysis needed to unlock your data superpowers and put your firm on top.

Learn more about Alteryx and start your free trial >

The post How Accounting and Finance Professionals Can Use Data to Gain Superpowers appeared first on Going Concern.

Here are some screenshots from the latest over-the-top KPMG Lakehouse video to illustrate what we mean:

Here’s the actual video. If you’re not hearing impaired, you might wish that you were while watching it, not only because of the cheesy music but for the “how we can stress right across our organization what it means to bleed KPMG blue” line.

And remember, current and future Klynveldians, the $450 million, 55-acre training and development center KPMG is calling the Lakehouse (aka Kamp KPMG, aka KPMG Kompound) will open near Orlando, FL, in January.

Plan your hijinks accordingly.

The post Even the Hearing Impaired Will Know How Cheesy KPMG’s Latest Lakehouse Video Is appeared first on Going Concern.

Show of hands, who here thought CPA Canada would, by some miracle, be able to get scores from last month’s clusterfuck of a CFE out on time? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Well today they finally got around to telling candidates not to expect a miracle. Sure no one is surprised. Let’s check out this “special message” from the benevolent overlords at CPA Canada:

We understand that it has been an anxious time for students who are waiting to receive their September 2019 CFE exam results.

There have been two parallel processes unfolding since the September CFE, which have not yet been completed:

• An independent, third-party review conducted through Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) into the integrity and reliability of the examination;
• The CFE marking process led by the Board of Examiners (a senior committee that oversees the official scoring of the exams) which includes accommodations for the extenuating circumstances that impacted exam-writers.

Given the complexity of these processes and the extent of the disruptions to this year’s examination, the Chair of the Board of Examiners has advised us that the time required to fully assess the exam results will be longer than usual. We want to ensure that all students are treated fairly, and that the due diligence completed is thorough. We know that our writers are anxiously waiting for the results and we are working hard to reach a fair and equitable outcome.

Unfortunately, student results for the September CFE will not be available on November 29th. We sincerely apologize for this delay, but we are confident that it is in the best interests of the students, and the integrity and fairness of the exam marking process.

Subject to the findings of the independent review and marking processes, we anticipate that results will be released in January 2020.

We want to assure you that the profession is working together to resolve this situation as quickly as possible. Additional information will be posted to our website as it becomes available.

Sincerely,

Joy Thomas
President and CEO
CPA Canada

Way to ruin Christmas for so many future CPAs, Joy! I’d say you ruined Thanksgiving too but Canadians are weird and apparently already had theirs. Whatever, you ruined that too. Note that CPA Canada “anticipates” a January 2020 score release, not that they pinky swear promise it will definitely be January when this crack team they hired to unfuck their fuck-up is able to deliver. So don’t get your hopes up. Oh who am I kidding, y’all are future professional accountants, you don’t even have hopes at this point.

The post If You’re Waiting For Your CFE Score, You’re Going to Be Waiting a Long Time, Says CPA Canada appeared first on Going Concern.

PwC and EY accused of complicity in Thomas Cook collapse [FT]
MPs have accused two of the UK’s Big Four accounting groups of being “complicit” in the failure of Thomas Cook, slamming one, the travel group’s former auditor PwC, over an alleged conflict of interest in its pay advice to executives.

Cases against EY and PwC still hanging around like a bad smell [Irish Times] Another take, a longread on how auditors shirk responsibility when companies crash.

Firms & people on the move: Baker Tilly and Weaver open new offices [Accounting Today] Wait, did I just put a roundup in a roundup? Meta.

US CPA faces up to 10 years in jail over Ponzi scheme [economia] Ronald Roach, together with his co-defendant Joseph Bayliss, an electrical contractor, pleaded guilty to playing an important role in the massive scam, which raised the money from 17 investors between 2011 and 2018. Both had made millions out of their fraudulent activities, at the expense of the investors. According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, the owners of the solar energy company at the heart of the fraud, for which Roach provided accounting and tax services, persuaded investors to invest in tax credit investment contracts and sale leaseback investments through promises of gains in the form of tax credits, guaranteed lease payments and profits from the operation of mobile solar generators (MSGs).

How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert [ProPublica] Gilbert’s relationship with the White House helped him win his desired tax break, an email obtained by ProPublica suggests. In February 2018, as the selection process was underway, a top Michigan economic development official asked her colleague to call Quicken’s executive vice president for government affairs about opportunity zones. “They worked with the White House on it and want to be sure we are coordinated,” wrote the official, Christine Roeder, in an email with the subject line “Quicken.”

Government Questions the Benefits of IRS Audit Campaigns [National Law Review] Upon inspection, it appears that the IRS did not have a systematic approach to choosing which issue would become a campaign. Instead, the approach was seemingly ad hoc, and was open to employee suggestions instead of empirical analysis. The TGITA suggests that going forward the IRS use a more data-driven selection process for its campaigns. The idea would be to analyze where the IRS could get the biggest bang for its resource bucks in terms of dollars as well as compliance goals.

‘You can’t hire your way out of this:’ How PwC trains workers for the future [HR Dive] The plan is aimed not only at upskilling PwC’s 276,000 employees but also at developing and sharing tech for clients and communities. “We consider this a brand-defining commitment building upon a commitment we already made to not leave anyone behind in our firm,” Mike Fenlon, chief people officer at PwC U.S., told HR Dive.

Revealed: KPMG’s secret AECOM team talks [Financial Review] Sources said KPMG was well aware of its need to act quickly and confidentiality and devise a strategy to make sure it didn’t trigger contractual obligations around non-solicitation and non-compete agreements.

The post Friday Footnotes: Firm Moves; PwC’s Future-Ready Workforce; KPMG Gets Sneaky | 10.25.19 appeared first on Going Concern.

Plus, a Massachusetts accountant pleads guilty to tax fraud, and a Toronto accountant gets prison time for stealing from charity.

Oregon CPA who ripped off Olympic snowboarder and spent trust fund of porn shop heirs headed to prison [The Oregonian]
Nathan Wheeler was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison on Oct. 24 for stealing about $4.5 million of his clients’ investments to support his “Playboy lifestyle’’ of booze, drugs, and money, and bolster his large marijuana business.

The Oregon CPA, who owned the Portland-based accounting firm Bridge City Advisors, ripped off more than $900,000 in earnings from Olympic snowboarder Daniel Kass, misappropriated the trust fund of two porn shop heirs, and bought his fiancee an engagement ring using the investments of a retired law enforcement officer, according to prosecutors.

Wheeler, 43, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and attempted tax evasion in May 2018. He must surrender to authorities on Jan. 24, 2020.

Former IRS employee sentenced to prison for tax evasion [Justice Department]
Craig Orrock, a former IRS employee and attorney, was sentenced on Oct. 22 to 32 months in prison in Las Vegas for tax evasion and obstructing the IRS.

Orrock, 72, filed tax returns for the years 1993 through 2015 but didn’t pay the income taxes due. He attempted to prevent the IRS from collecting the reported income taxes by using entities, bank accounts, and trusts in other names to hide his income and assets, filing frivolous bankruptcy petitions and filing an offer-in-compromise falsely representing to the IRS that he had virtually no assets.

For example, Orrock used an entity known as Arville Properties LLC to conceal from the IRS his ownership of real property that he sold in 2007 for $1.5 million. In all, Orrock evaded the payment of more than $500,000 in federal income taxes.

Orrock was also ordered to pay $923,666.73 in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release.

Albany accountant charged with stealing from former firm [Albany Democrat-Herald]
Richard Perdue, a prominent former accountant in Albany, OR, was charged with three counts of first-degree aggravated theft and one count of first-degree theft on Oct. 16 for allegedly stealing at least $31,000 from his former accounting firm, now known as Koontz, Blasquez & Associates but previously named Koontz, Perdue, Blasquez & Co.

His next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 18.

Tax preparer sentenced to 15 months in federal prison [Justice Department]
Gelin Sterling, who owned the tax preparation business Sterling Tax Plus LLC in Berlin, CT, was sentenced on Oct. 28 to 15 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, for preparing false tax returns.

For the 2014 through 2017 tax years, Sterling prepared tax returns for numerous clients that included false mileage expenses, false charitable donations, and other false income items, authorities said.

Sterling was ordered to pay the IRS restitution of $250,000. As a result of his actions, many of his clients’ filed tax returns will need to be amended. The amount of Sterling’s restitution may be reduced as his clients resolve their own tax liability with the IRS, authorities said.

He pleaded guilty to one count of aiding in the preparation of false tax returns on May 2. Sterling is required to report to prison on Dec. 30.

Worcester accountant pleads guilty to tax fraud, allegedly over $1M [Worcester Telegram & Gazette]
Sebastian Adzadi, who operated Skylimits Tax Service in Worcester, MA, offered a guilty plea on Oct. 23 in U.S. District Court to a single count of aiding and assisting the filing of a false income tax return.

He allegedly fabricated expenses and charitable donations in order to get clients as much as $1 million in fraudulent tax refunds, although his attorney argued that the amount of loss for which Adzadi is responsible is less than $1 million.

An undercover agent had asked Adzadi’s firm to prepare a tax return, and the filed return contained fictitious deductions that weren’t based on responses the agent had provided. If the return had been properly prepared, the agent would have owed the government $43. Instead, the return resulted in a tax refund of $1,045.

Adzadi is scheduled to be sentenced in January 2020.

New Hartford accountant sentenced to 12 months for failure to file tax returns [Justice Department]
James Becker, who operated Becker’s Accounting Services in Whitesboro, NY, was sentenced on Oct. 23 to 12 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, for failing to file his personal income tax returns for the years 2012 through 2015.

He also was ordered to pay restitution to the IRS of $162,049.

Becker, 53, pleaded guilty in June to four counts of failing to file his tax returns notwithstanding having gross income in excess of $100,000 in each of the tax years.

Toronto charity thief jailed, ordered to repay $1M [Ottawa Sun]
Marcia Motayne, an accountant who stole almost $1 million from New Vision Toronto, was sentenced on Oct. 23 to six and a half years in jail.

“For unexplained but obvious reasons of greed, you smoothly and carefully stole a million dollars,” said Justice Michael Quigley of the 51-year-old ex-accountant.

“You did that through a callous and calculated payroll robbery plan that you knew would be immune to detection, and you also knew it would deprive some of the most vulnerable and needy of our fellow citizens of the monies they needed for a subsistence day to day level of survival with the disability weights they carry.

“You ignored your obligations you had to the disabled persons who relied on you in committing this cold, duplicitous, greed-driven offence.”

She used some of the money she stole to fly with her two sons to Brazil to watch the World Cup.

The post Accountants Behaving Badly: Ripping Off Olympian, Ex-IRS Employee Jailed, Stealing From Your Own Firm appeared first on Going Concern.

If all the negative headlines EY has been dealing with (and deserved) since the Huffington Post broke the story last Monday about the firm’s now-infamous 2018 training seminar for women leaders weren’t bad enough, an exposé that airs tonight on BBC One won’t do anything to help EY’s reputation and once again sheds light on how corrupt the Big 4 can be.

BBC News reported:

A major accountancy firm covered up evidence of smuggling by an organised crime gang that was laundering British drug money, an investigation has revealed.

EY failed to report suspicious activity at one of the world’s largest gold refineries and then altered a compliance report to hide the crime.

BBC Panorama found the gang laundered money by selling 3.6 tonnes of gold to the Kaloti refinery in Dubai.

Both EY and Kaloti deny any wrongdoing.

Now, this alleged EY cover-up isn’t new news; it reportedly happened about seven years ago. In fact, The Guardian interviewed the whistleblower in this case, former EY Dubai partner Amjad Rihan, in February 2014. But the headlines in the last 24 hours previewing the show, Following the Drug Money, has kept the EY brand in the news for all the wrong reasons.

In the show, BBC Panorama and French news agency Premieres Lignes reveals that the smuggled gold was owned by the money laundering gang’s company, Renade International.

The article continues:

Amjad Rihan was the lead auditor for EY in Dubai in 2013 and he says he wanted to report the suspicious activity at the time. But he says his bosses watered down reports and told him not to tell the authorities.

“If you identify a suspicious transaction you should report it to the authorities and what we identified was way beyond suspicion. Instead of reporting the crimes that I told them about, my bosses just covered them up,” he said.

EY did not just fail to report the crime – it helped to cover it up too.

Panorama has seen a number of drafts of a compliance report to a Dubai regulator. In the initial report, Kaloti seems to admit buying gold coated with silver. It says: “We acknowledge an incident… with the bars coated with silver.”

But EY rewrote the report so that it said: “We acknowledge transactions… in which there were certain documentary irregularities.”

The accountancy firm turned the crime into a “documentary irregularity”.

In January 2018, The Guardian reported that after blowing the whistle on his employer, Rihan was fired by the firm. In a lawsuit filed that month, he accused EY of “unlawful, unprofessional, and unethical” conduct over its relationship with Renade International.

The Financial Times reported today that Rihan is suing four EY entities, including its global and European businesses, for about £13 million.

His case against EY is scheduled to be heard beginning in January 2020.

The post EY’s Run of Bad Press Continues appeared first on Going Concern.

I don’t know about you guys but I’ve never known a person who hasn’t come to work sick. Not that I condone it or think you should. The last thing you need is a colleague spreading germs by hacking up a lung in your face.

But for one reason or another, we’ve all done it at some point in our careers—cold, fever, butt flu, and all. Accountants and tax professionals especially. You guys do it all the time during busy season when you should be at home in bed drinking Canada Dry ginger ale and binge-watching Mindhunter.

From a thread on r/accounting in February about being sick during busy season:

[OP] All I’ve done this week is wake up, drive to work, drive home, and sleep. Pounding cold medicine and water and hitting the bathroom every 45 mins of 12 hour days is a rough existence.

[Redditor 1] A manager once told me, “as long as you’re breathing, you can use excel”. You really should be excelling from home though.

[Redditor 2] I worked the better part of busy season several years ago with mono. Felt pressured to take no time off. Public is for the birds.

[Redditor 3] I feel you. The catering they got us Monday night has given me the runs the past 3 days. Or maybe its stress related diarrhea? is that a thing? Either way, feeling forced to be here so I can get my hours in while having explosive diarrhea has just made my living nightmare even more fun.

What a crappy existence, pun intended.

When a press release from Accountemps hit my inbox last week, saying that a survey revealed 90% of professionals admitted they go to work sick at least sometimes, the first thing I thought of was, “I call BS on the other 10%.” (Actually, it’s 11%, according to Accountemps, because responses don’t equal 100% due to rounding.)

Now, I haven’t worked in an office with other people for several years, so last night I asked my wife, who does, if she believed that there are 10% or 11% of people out there who’ve never gone to work sick. She said, “No, they’re full of shit.”

So it’s not surprising that 57% of the 2,800 people polled by Accountemps said they come to work sick sometimes, while 33% admitted they come to the office sick all the time.

The press release continues:

More than half of those who report to the office with a cold or the flu (54%) said they do so because they have too much work on their plate; another 40% don’t want to use sick time.

In addition:

More employees ages 25 to 40 (39%) reported always coming to work unwell than respondents ages 18 to 24, 55 and older (27% each) and ages 41 to 54 (26%).

But a growing number of employers are setting policies to discourage people from showing up sick to work and grossing out or infecting colleagues. And many give their employees the option of working from home when sick.

So maybe we will start to see the percentage of people who at least sometimes come to work sick decrease in a year or two when Accountemps does this survey again.

Michael Steinitz, senior executive director of Accountemps, said:

“Whether it’s due to large workloads, pressure from the boss or because they can’t afford to take time off, it’s all too common for employees to come to the office feeling sick when they really should be resting. Staying home when you’ve got a cold or the flu is the best way to avoid spreading germs to others and fight the illness faster.”

Steinitz added, “Bosses should set an example by taking time off when they’re under the weather, encouraging employees to do the same and offering those with minor ailments the ability to work from home.”

This guy in another r/accounting thread gets it:

[OP] Still new to this manager thing but I’ve just had to deal with an A1 who was upset that she was sick and felt like she is letting the team down. It’s awful that kids coming into this job feel that way and having to continuously assure them it’s ok to be sick, how mad is it to feel guilty for being unwell.

Anyways, please just let us know and focus on resting up. Especially in the coming months. If you have a manager who is giving you shit for it speak to your mentor/counselling manager/HR.

Hopefully there are other managers and/or partners in public accounting who are like him.

The post Survey: 1 In 10 Professionals Say They Never Go to Work Sick, Are Full of Crap appeared first on Going Concern.

Ross Howard has joined fellow Deloitte partner Helen George as having received a “severe” slap on the wrist from the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council for his role in the shoddy auditing of Serco Geografix Ltd., a subsidiary of outsourcing firm Serco Group PLC.

Reuters reported:

Britain’s accounting regulator said on Tuesday it had fined Deloitte’s audit engagement partner Ross Howard for misconduct in the audit of Serco Geografix’s 2012 financial statements.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said Howard had been severely reprimanded and will have to pay a discounted settlement of £78,000, ending the regulator’s investigation into Deloitte’s audit of Serco Georgrafix.

Back in July, the FRC fined Deloitte £6.5 million, reduced to £4.225 million, for its extremely subpar audits of Serco Geografix’s 2011 and 2012 financial statements.

The FRC said Deloitte and audit engagement partner Helen George “failed to act in accordance with the fundamental principle of professional competence and due care.” George’s fine of £150,000, which was reduced to £97,500, only pertained to the 2011 audit of Serco Geografix.

In addition, Deloitte agreed to pay £300,000 toward the costs of the investigation and have all audit staff undergo training aimed at improving the conduct of the team.

The fines doled out by the FRC in July came just a couple days after Serco Geografix agreed to pay £19.2 million to settle fraud and false accounting charges brought by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office.

Serco Geografix misled the U.K.’s Ministry of Justice about profits made from a contract between 2010 and 2013, according to the SFO.

The post Another Deloitte U.K. Partner Fined Over Bad Serco Geografix Audits appeared first on Going Concern.

Wait, the Big 4 dominates auditor market share across the pond? I’m shocked:

EY, KPMG, PwC, and Deloitte — collectively known as the ‘big four’ — audited 81.8% of all UK-listed businesses in 2018, according to figures from the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Market share was up from 80% in 2017.

The ‘big four’ also audited 100% of the FTSE 100, Britain’s 100 biggest listed businesses, up from 99% in 2017.

Fee income at the ‘big four’ rose by 4.7% to £10.9bn, while income at accountants outside the top table fell by 8.1%.

Consultancy work continues to dwarf auditing fees at the ‘big four’, despite criticism of the practice. The accountants made just £2.1bn from auditing, with 72% of revenues coming from non-audit work like consulting. That was up from 70.4% in 2017.

If you have some time to spare this afternoon, the full FRC report can be found here.

The post BREAKING: The Big 4 Audits a Lot of Companies In the U.K. appeared first on Going Concern.

Before Brandon Taubman was rightfully fired as assistant general manager of the Houston Astros on Oct. 24 for making an ass of himself in front of a group of female reporters in the Astros clubhouse following the team’s ALCS victory over the New York Yankees, he was profiled in April by EY, his former employer, in the Alumni section of the firm’s website.

According to the site Heavy.com, Taubman, who worked at EY early in his career as a derivative valuation expert, said about his experience with the firm:

“It’s a badge of honor. And it’s something that, quite frankly, I can advertise as proof of my having learned from the best and brightest and had diverse experiences with some of the premier financial services clients in the world. It’s almost like having gone to a great school, or having anything that is recognizable as prestigious by various people outside of the company or the industry.”

He also mentions that EY is where he met his future wife, Leah, who still works for the firm and that “EY has helped me professionally and personally in many different ways,” according to the New York Post.

Now, I would’ve just cited what Taubman said directly from that interview on EY’s website instead of excerpting what Heavy.com and the Post reported. But it’s not there anymore. Gone. Vanished.

What happened, EY? According to the Post:

As of Friday, the interview had been scrubbed from EY’s Web site — a day after the Astros fired Taubman for reportedly declaring how happy he was to have hired relief pitcher Roberto Osuna, who had been suspended for domestic violence allegations.

A spokesman for EY didn’t answer questions about why the firm removed the four-page Taubman interview, saying he was still “trying to learn more details.”

Trying to learn more details? Huh? All of the other alumni profiles are still on the webpage. There’s one with DuPont Vice President and Controller Mike Goss, T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter, and Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent, among others. But the one with Baseball Golden Boy Brandon Taubman has disappeared.

Sorry, Brandon, but the firm you said you were honored to work for is pretending like you never existed.

The post EY Probably Won’t Be Inviting Ex-Astros Executive Brandon Taubman to Any Alumni Events Anytime Soon appeared first on Going Concern.

Karen Ward, the former EY partner who alleges she was a victim of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation during her tenure with the firm, said she wasn’t shocked to learn about the 1950 2018 training seminar that EY hosted for women leaders, in which attendees were told, among other things, not to flaunt their goods in front of men, to always have good haircuts and manicured nails, and that their brains were like pancakes.

In an open letter to EY U.S. Chair Kelly Grier, Ward said she was very much familiar with the sexist values portrayed in the training seminar, which was called “Power-Presence-Purpose,” even though she wasn’t one of the 30 or so women who attended it. Ward said the content of the seminar was “entirely consistent with my own experience as a female executive at EY.”

As the only female Partner out of 19 partners in my group in Transaction Real Estate, I was unfortunately not surprised to learn of the appalling and outdated PPP training. It is incredibly telling that just two months before I was fired, female employees were trained to look “healthy and fit,” and to wear “well-cut attire that complements [their] body type” if they wanted to succeed at the firm and in the business sector. As a woman who has been named to the Fortune Most Powerful Women in Business list for two consecutive years, it should be more than “deeply troubling” to you that women at EY were told that typical feminine traits included “Childlike,” “Flatterable,” “Gullible,” “Loves Children,” “Soft-Spoken,” “Shy” and “Yielding,” whereas masculine characteristics included “Acts as a Leader,” “Aggressive,” “Ambitious,” “Assertive,” “Analytical,” “Competitive,” “Defends One’s Beliefs,” “Has Leadership Abilities” and “Willing to Take a Stand.” Even worse, women were told that their brains were smaller than men’s brains, and were instructed not to “directly confront men in meetings” and not to be “too aggressive or outspoken.”

After Huffington Post broke the story early last week about EY’s pancake brain training, Grier tried to do some damage control, saying in a video to EY alums that the content in the seminar “should never have been delivered as part of any EY learning program” and had she followed those things discussed in the training program, “I can assure you I would not be sitting here today as your U.S. chair.”

After a HuffPost report exposed a demeaning training program for some female employees at Ernst & Young, the U.S. chair sent a response video to company alumni calling the program’s content “offensive.” pic.twitter.com/I2U7BquBVa

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) October 23, 2019

Grier is the third top EY U.S. executive who Ward has sent a letter to regarding her sexual harassment and discrimination case against the firm and asking EY to stop its practice of forced arbitration.

As a condition of her employment, Ward signed an arbitration provision in her partnership agreement that took away her right to sue EY in court. After she filed her harassment and discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2018, Ward wrote an open letter to then-EY CEO and Chairman Mark Weinberger asking him to end forced arbitration for victims of sexual misconduct and discrimination at EY, as well as to release her from the arbitration agreement. The firm denied her request, forcing her to file her claims in arbitration.

She also wrote a similar open letter to current EY CEO and Chairman Carmine Di Sibio on Aug. 5, shortly after a group of more than 60 New York state legislators sent a letter to Di Sibio denouncing the firm’s practice of forced arbitration agreements, especially in cases of sexual harassment and discrimination.

So instead of having to pay a $450 filing fee to have her case against EY heard by a judge or jury in the Southern District of New York and possibly win a substantial amount of money in court, Ward has had to pay nearly $200,000 in costs so far during the secret arbitration process. That’s because EY refused to pay all the arbitration costs, according to a declaratory judgment complaint filed by Ward’s attorneys. In March, a tribunal of three arbitrators ruled that Ward and EY would have to split the costs.

EY has maintained that Ward’s sexual harassment and discrimination claims are “unfounded and baseless,” and said in a statement that “the arbitrators, not EY, determined by their ruling several months ago that the cost of the arbitration would be shared by the parties, subject to final resolution of the proceedings.”

In her letter to Grier, Ward wrote that forcing her to arbitrate her sexual harassment claims against EY and pay thousands of dollars to do so “is simply indicative of the fact that EY has not changed its culture since the 2018 PPP presentation.”

[F]orced arbitration is simply a means of keeping women quiet and submissive, in the same way that women at EY were advised to be “soft-spoken” in the PPP training. As Microsoft explained when it eliminated forced arbitration for sexual harassment victims: “The silencing of people’s voices has clearly had an impact in perpetuating sexual harassment.” That is what EY has done and continues to do.

Ward asked Grier if they could meet to discuss her experiences at EY, her case against the firm, and the issue of forced arbitration.

You can read Ward’s entire letter to Grier here.

The post Ex-EY Partner Karen Ward ‘Not Surprised’ By ‘Appalling’ Training Seminar for Women appeared first on Going Concern.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Apologies if you do actually work for @KPMG, but you're this year's #halloween costume #companyhorror pic.twitter.com/B4N09PCs7W

— 𝕯! (@darrynvdwalt) October 28, 2017

The post This Halloween Costume Is Here to Haunt the PCAOB’s Dreams appeared first on Going Concern.

Now that the little goblins have come and gone and the Christmas advertisements have begun, it’s official: the final CPA exam testing quarter of the year is upon us. Technically it started in October but as we all know, a testing quarter doesn’t really start until the first score release.

As is tradition, candidates have already been pestering NASBA for an early release, hoping that knowing whether they’ve passed or failed a few days early would be a better treat than scamming all the fun-size Butterfingers off your kid.

I am scared you won’t release scores early

— michalski (@j0shuamichalski) October 28, 2019

Here’s the deal. The official word is that scores are due to be released on November 5, which means a November 4 release isn’t too far-fetched. Since the 4th falls on a Monday and NASBA has in the past released scores super early (read: Friday) when scores are due on a Monday, then I suppose it isn’t too crazy for a handful of eager beavers to hope today is the day. Actual odds of a score release before Monday? Minimal at best, but whatever, I’m also a cynic so y’all just hang on to that last little shred of hope if it fills you with joy.

So I guess we’re not going to have an early score release pic.twitter.com/CpL6jTQ2J5

— Avery Springer (@Avery_Lee7) November 1, 2019

As of publication, there are just four score releases left in 2019.

• November 5
• November 22
• December 10
• December 19

Your final day to take the CPA exam in 2019 is December 10, which is a mere five weeks away. Not even gonna lecture you on getting on it if you haven’t already before it’s too late.

The post Here’s Your (Super Hopeful) Open Thread For the First CPA Exam Score Release of Q4 2019 appeared first on Going Concern.

KPMG duo who quit amid bullying fallout make senior hires at new firm [Financial News] Two ex-KPMG partners, who set up their own consultancy after leaving the Big Four accounting firm over its handling of complaints of bullying, have lured two former executives from their old employer to the new venture. Maggie Brereton and Ina Kjaer set up Eos Deal Advisory in September following six months of gardening leave. They have now appointed Shilpa Thanki-Green as Eos’s chief operating officer and Tomas Zalagenas as chief financial officer.

Is the American Tax System Regressive? [NPR] [T]he American tax system, taken as a whole, and including state and local taxes, is not progressive, meaning it does not tax the rich more than the middle class or working poor. Instead, they write in their book, when you include the totality of taxes, “The US tax system is a giant flat tax—except at the top, where it’s regressive.” That is, the rich now pay a smaller tax rate on their income than everyone else.

EY again rated #1 most attractive professional services employer by Universum [In-cyprus] Well this is awkward, considering that whole “pancake brain” thing: “EY scored highest among other professional services employers for professional training and development, opportunities to take on challenging work and for being a good reference for future careers.

Competition for talent drives CPA firms to start early with offers, internships [Buffalo Business First] Subscription required to hear about how hard firms are gunning for top talent.

Meet the 2019 Best Firms for Young Accountants [Accounting Today] Each year, Accounting Today and Best Companies Group recognizes the 100 Best Firms to Work For in the U.S. — and this year we also picked the 10 Best Firms for Young Accountants from among those based on the responses of their younger staff to a comprehensive employee survey.

Deloitte Peeks Into The Future, Details Four TV/Video Scenarios [TV Technology] Overall, Deloitte’s scenarios paint a picture of digital platform companies being the major disruptors in the industry, while broadcasters and content producers face the most potential change. They argue that broadcasters and content producers can’t rely on their current market positions. Instead, they need to be open in creating alliances, even with direct competitors. Investment in technological skills will also be critical.

PwC grows its mental wellbeing commitment with partnership [Consultancy.com.au] Mental health technology company Medibio is helping out PwC employees with their psychological welfare following an agreement signed between the two firms. Medibio’s support will come in the form of access to its data-driven corporate mental wellness application Ilumen.

Stitch Fix’s Material Weakness Over IT Controls Spotlighted Under New Audit Rule [Wall Street Journal] Stitch Fix Inc. is expanding its internal information-technology controls after identifying weaknesses in how the online personal-styling service reported financial performance. The issue, related to outsourced information-technology service providers, was flagged by the San Francisco company’s independent auditor in October—one of the starkest examples of how a new audit rule is training a spotlight on companies’ hairiest internal issues.

The post Friday Footnotes: Don’t Go Nuts at PwC; Bullied KPMGers’ Fresh Start; Best Firms For the Youths | 11.1.19 appeared first on Going Concern.

Plus, tax preparers plead guilty to preparing fraudulent returns, and the owner of a tax preparation business failed to file his own taxes.

Gambling accountant gets 14 years for $396M Ponzi scheme [Law360]
Texas CPA Jay Ledford will serve 14 years in federal prison for his supporting role in a Ponzi scheme that netted $396 million.

Ledford, 55, spent five years working with Maryland salesman Kevin B. Merrill on the scheme, pitching investors portfolios of defaulted consumer debt that they claimed would be profitably collected or flipped, Maryland U.S. attorneys said.

Ledford’s role in the scheme included creating fake documents, sales agreements, tax returns, portfolio overviews, collections reports, bank statements, and merchant account reports.

The two men were arrested in September 2018, and earlier this year both pled guilty to the lucrative long con in Baltimore federal court. Merrill was sentenced to 22 years in prison last month.

Accounting firm sentenced and fined $15,000 in connection with pot bust [Lewiston Sun Journal]
Leonardo & Co. was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine and forfeit $12,500 in U.S. District Court in Portland, ME, on Oct. 28 for failing to file cash transaction forms. The firm was also sentenced to one year of probation.

[I]n 2017, agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division learned that Leonardo & Co. wrote four $12,500 checks to Brian Bilodeau, described as a member of a marijuana trafficking organization operating out of Androscoggin County in court records.

Court records show the checks written to Bilodeau were drawn on accounts associated with Leonardo & Co. and that the payments “did not involve a tax refund or payment for any services Bilodeau provided to the firm.”

“Instead, on each occasion, (Leonardo & Co.) exchanged the checks for $12,500 in cash,” according to the court records.

[S]ince the checks involved the receipt of more than $10,000 in U.S. currency, Leonardo & Co. were required by federal law to file a Form 8300, which they failed to do.

Bilodeau was one of more than a dozen people indicted on numerous felony drug charges stemming from federal raids on an illegal medical marijuana-growing operation in February 2018.

Accountant accused of embezzling more than $200,000 pleads guilty to charges [WCHS-TV]
Reneda Welch pleaded guilty on Oct. 28 to two counts of felony embezzlement for allegedly embezzling $203,000 from the city of Dunbar, WV.

Welch was arrested in April 2018 after Dunbar city officials told Kanawha County deputies they suspected the accountant was keeping deposits and embezzling the money.

So far, Welch has paid $50,000 back to the city.

Tucson tax preparer pleads guilty to preparing false tax returns
Adan Ramirez pleaded guilty on Oct. 25 to two counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of a false tax return, according to a press release from the IRS Criminal Investigation Phoenix field office.

From April 2012 through March 2015, Ramirez, 36, prepared and filed 44 false individual federal income tax returns with the IRS for clients. Authorities said Ramirez used false and fraudulent claims for false wages, withholdings, dependents, Earned Income Credits, and Additional Child Tax Credits to obtain false and fraudulent tax refunds. The false and fraudulent claims resulted in a tax loss of $183,803, authorities said.

The false and fraudulent claims that Ramirez willfully filed on the federal income tax returns were filed to increase his client’s federal income tax refund amounts, to reduce their tax liability, and/or so that Ramirez would receive increased fees for income tax preparation. Ramirez intentionally omitted his name, signature, and a tax preparer identification number on the tax returns to conceal his identity as the tax preparer.

Ramirez agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $100,479. He will be sentenced on Jan. 17, 2020.

Owner of New Jersey tax return preparation business sentenced to prison for tax fraud [Justice Department]
David Patterson was sentenced to 29 months in prison on Oct. 28 for filing false tax returns on behalf of clients and failing to file his own tax returns.

Patterson, 38, who owned D&D Tax Service LLC, prepared fraudulent tax returns for tax year 2012 in which he knowingly falsified his clients’ medical and dental expenses, gifts to charity, and unreimbursed employee expenses, authorities said. At times, he took portions of his clients’ tax refunds and deposited them without authorization into bank accounts he maintained or controlled.

He also failed to file individual income tax returns for himself, and to pay federal income taxes, for 2013 through 2015.

In addition to his prison sentence, Patterson was sentenced to one year of supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution of $290,321 to the IRS.

Tax preparer pleads guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns [Justice Department]
Louisiana tax preparer Carlanda Allegra Isaac pleaded guilty on Oct. 29 to conspiring to defraud the United States with regard to tax returns.

Isaac, who worked for Pelican Income Tax and Bookkeeping Services LLC, located in Bridge City, LA, and Kenner, LA, and then later at Taxes by J.A.D.A. in New Orleans, falsified client tax returns to include false income, withholding, and education credits in order to fraudulently inflate clients’ tax refunds. Isaac charged a fee for preparing these returns, which was often deducted from the client’s refund, authorities said.

Isaac faces a maximum sentence of five years, three years of supervised release, restitution, and other monetary penalties.

The post Accountants Behaving Badly: Jailed Over Ponzi Scheme, Firm Fined In Pot Bust, Embezzlement Admission appeared first on Going Concern.

KPMG U.K.’s better-late-than-never belt-tightening endeavor called “Project Zebra” is leaving carnage in its wake almost on a weekly basis.

First, about a third of the firm’s 630 administrative assistants are losing their jobs. Then, employees had to give up their work-issued mobile phones. Next, average pay per partner is reportedly being cut by 10% over last year to £550,000 in 2019. And the firm might pull the plug on its private members club known as Number Twenty.

Now the Zebra has about 65 KPMG partners in its path. The Financial Times reported yesterday:

KPMG will axe a tenth of its UK partners by Christmas following a review of individual performance, the latest in a series of measures to overhaul the Big Four firm.

The one-off cull of partners comes as the accountant dramatically scales back its costs and restructures its operating model as it tries to recover from a reputational crisis and prepare for regulatory changes to the accounting sector.

So after subtracting those 65 partners, that’ll leave 570 who are employed by the Queen’s KPMG. But the firm is quick to point out that it has appointed 50 new partners and 200 new directors across all business lines this year.

And according to an article posted by Accountancy Daily this morning, KPMG said that total number of partners leaving the firm is nothing out of the ordinary.

“In a typical year around the same number of partners will retire from the firm, often going on to senior roles elsewhere in both the private and public sector.”

But sources told FT that the firm is actively firing partners who are just taking up space and sucking up money:

The firm plans to cut about 65 of its UK partners, said two people with knowledge of the situation, marking its biggest single cut of partners in several years. In any given year, KPMG would expect roughly 45 partners to leave the firm, either through natural or forced retirement. However, this latest move is an active step being taken by the group during the first few weeks of its financial year. It is rare in the industry.

The performance review looked at the amount of money partners had billed their clients as well as other factors, including the importance of their work to the firm’s future strategy.

The partners who will be affected work across all of KPMG’s business lines, FT reported, but its audit practice is the least likely to see cuts, which is weird because one of the big reasons why KPMG’s reputation is garbage is because of the incompetence in its audit practice.

Anyway, remember, folks: KPMG U.K.’s 2019 financial results will be released next month. Should be a good time. Get your popcorn ready.

The post Layoff Watch ’19: KPMG U.K. Partners Fear the Zebra appeared first on Going Concern.

During the afternoon on Friday, this tip landed in our inbox:

“Grant Thornton CEO announced internally – finalists were Nichole Jordan, Jeff Burgess (audit managing partner) and Brad Preber. The nod went to Preber.”

We contacted another source who also confirmed that Preber would be taking over as CEO.

When reached for comment this morning, a Grant Thornton spokesperson didn’t confirm or deny the news in a statement to Going Concern:

“Grant Thornton LLP’s partnership group is currently in the process of electing its new CEO. The firm does not discuss operational matters or procedures.”

Not sure if this has been the case since Preber took over as interim CEO-elect on Aug. 1, but I found the lack of an “interim” tag under his photo in the About Us section of GT’s website interesting:

Preber, who joined Grant Thornton in 2003, took over as interim CEO-elect after Mike McGuire said “thanks but no thanks” to having his term as CEO extended to his mandatory retirement date of July 31, 2021. McGuire is presumably very busy acting as a GT “brand ambassador” in his role as CEO emeritus.

Once Preber got slapped with the title of “interim CEO-elect,” he stepped away from his duties as national managing partner of business risk services, managing partner of the Phoenix office, and chairman of the partnership board, the firm said.

But as Preber was transitioning to his new role, we started getting tips about a bunch of layoffs at Grant Thornton and that the firm was shutting down its office in Westborough, MA.

The mass hysteria resulted in Preber leading a firmwide call on Aug. 1, when he confirmed that 230 professionals and 40 PPMDs were let go—“mostly cutting fat in ICS (internal client service, non-client facing people) plus people from certain advisory service lines that were deemed no longer strategic fits for the firm,” a source told us at that time.

While GT’s partnership board seems to have been in Preber’s corner, our tipster told us on Friday that “partners are really struggling with Preber.”

“He made a lot of shortsighted, half-baked management decisions this summer. Seen less as progress and more as a coup.”

When asked to explain, this person told us:

“Shortsighted decisions were the heavy cuts over the summer. They let go of partners who were key technical specialists who held parts of the practice together without consulting local office leaders about the impact.”

After Preber addressed the layoff rumors in the firmwide call, we were given a heads up that GT was considering three of its top women executives for the CEO seat. One of the potential candidates was Nichole Jordan, national managing partner of markets, clients, and industry, who apparently was a finalist for the role.

GTers, let us know in the comment section or using the contact info below whether you think Preber taking over as CEO is a good move or a bad move for your firm.

The post Grant Thornton Has Elected Brad Preber as CEO (Or So We’ve Been Told) appeared first on Going Concern.

I hope everyone at the PCAOB remembers what to do during an open meeting. It’s been a while.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will hold an open meeting on Tuesday, November 19, at 10 a.m. ET, to consider the adoption of the PCAOB budget for the 2020 fiscal year and the 2019-2023 strategic plan.

The budget is the foundation for the 2020 accounting support fee assessments. If approved by the Board, the budget will be submitted to the SEC for approval, which has scheduled a meeting to consider it on December 18. The strategic plan guides the PCAOB’s use of resources funded by the budget.

The meeting is open to the public and will take place in the PCAOB meeting room at 1666 K Street NW, Washington, DC. It will be streamed live on the PCAOB website and a recording will be available afterward.

Related article:

The PCAOB Hates Meetings As Much As We Do

The post OMG, the PCAOB Is Actually Holding an Open Meeting! appeared first on Going Concern.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted an Accounting Fraud Watch, but there’s news to share, starting with Under Armour’s possible shady accounting.

Five things to know about the federal investigation into Under Armour [Baltimore Sun]
The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Sunday about Baltimore-based Under Armour’s accounting practices being investigated by the SEC and the Justice Department. Because I’ll be in Baltimore this weekend, let’s see what the Baltimore Sun is saying about this, specifically regarding whether the company used some trickery to make its financials appear healthier.

According to reports, the SEC has believed that Under Armour’s accounting has been fishy since 2017.

Under Armour CFO David Bergman said during a conference call with analysts on Nov. 4 that the company’s “accounting practices and disclosures were appropriate.” He’s obviously following Under Armour’s longtime edict of “We must protect this house!”

Which firm is Under Armour’s auditor? PwC. Who can forget that time when PwC lost a flash drive that contained Under Armour employee payroll information.

Our friend Francine McKenna over at MarketWatch has been dropping some interesting tweets regarding PwC and Under Armour in the last day or so:

The WSJ story doesn't mention Under Armour's auditor, PwC nor the partner responsible for the audit, even thought it is now easily looked up in a public database. PwC gave it a clean audit opinion in its last annual report even though its accounting has been a mess for a while.

— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) November 4, 2019

$UA had a gross vs net restatement last year, similar to Kraft Heinz, also audited by PwC. (Uber, Lyft also audited by PwC use net vs gross.) Subscription revenue was previously recorded net of any related commission, but will now be recorded gross.https://t.co/ASzJCRB3Tp

— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) November 4, 2019

Here's some background on the net vs gross debate with regard to Uber I wrote in 2017. https://t.co/k3rX6VyaGr

— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) November 4, 2019

Manipulating estimates is an easy way to shift revenues between periods.

— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) November 4, 2019

Ex-chairman convicted of fraud over Swedish soccer club Ostersunds’ funds [Reuters]
Daniel Kindberg, former chairman of Swedish soccer club Ostersunds FK, was sentenced to jail on Nov. 5 after being convicted of siphoning off around $1.56 million to the team, mainly from a municipal housing company where he was CEO.

Kindberg, who denies any wrongdoing, and two others were found guilty of charges of accounting fraud and breach of trust, between 2013 and 2017. Kindberg, who was sentenced to three years in jail, said he would appeal.

Kindberg and the two other men were ordered to pay around 13 million Swedish crowns ($1.35 million) in compensation to the companies they defrauded.

SEC charges Comscore Inc. and former CEO with accounting and disclosure fraud [SEC]
The SEC on Sept. 24 charged global information and media analytics firm Comscore Inc. and its former CEO, Serge Matta, with engaging in a fraudulent scheme to overstate revenue by approximately $50 million and making false and misleading statements about key performance metrics.

From February 2014 through February 2016, Comscore, at Matta’s direction, entered into non-monetary transactions for the purpose of improperly increasing its reported revenue. Through these transactions, Comscore and a counterparty would negotiate and agree to exchange sets of data without any cash consideration. Comscore recognized revenue on these transactions based on the fair value of the data it delivered, which had been improperly increased in order to inflate revenue.

The SEC also said that Comscore and Matta made false and misleading public disclosures regarding the company’s customer base and flagship product, and that Matta lied to Comscore’s internal accountants and external audit firm, which was EY. This scheme enabled Comscore to artificially exceed its analysts’ consensus revenue target in seven consecutive quarters and create the illusion of smooth and steady growth in Comscore’s business.

To settle the charges, without admitting or denying the orders’ findings, Comscore and Matta agreed to cease and desist from future violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws and to pay penalties of $5 million and $700,000, respectively.

Matta also agreed to reimburse Comscore $2.1 million representing profits from the sale of Comscore stock and incentive-based compensation pursuant to Section 304(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and to the entry of an order barring him from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years.

Ex-U.S. biotech executive fined for lying to auditors, charges dropped against CFO: SEC [Reuters]
Bobby Dwayne Montgomery, the former chief business officer of U.S. biotechnology company Osiris Therapeutics Inc., has agreed to pay a $40,000 civil penalty for lying to auditors, the SEC said on Oct. 17.

The SEC had alleged that Montgomery prompted Osiris to book fake revenue and give false information to auditors. Montgomery agreed to a judgment that enjoins him from future violations of securities law, the SEC said in a statement.

The biotech firm previously paid a $1.5 million penalty to settle charges of overstating company performance and issuing fraudulent financial statements for nearly two years, the regulator said.

Former Goals CEO denies fraud [Economia]
Keith Rogers, who ran the company from 2004 and 2016, “categorically” denies any awareness or involvement in alleged accounting fraud at Goals Soccer Centres.

The crisis at Goals started in March, when the company reported a £12 million black hole in its accounts. Several years’ worth of accounts needed to be restated. In September its shares were delisted from AIM, and earlier this month it admitted that the shortfall in its accounts could be much larger than first reported.

In a statement to the stock exchange announcing its sale to rival Soccerworld, Goals confirmed that its profits had been overstated by as much as £40 million since 2009. An audit and other investigations revealed “serious issues were identified concerning the accounting treatment of VAT” and “other areas of inappropriate accounting.”

The post Accounting Fraud Watch: Under Armour’s Messy House?, Former Soccer Club Chairman Convicted, Ex-Comscore CEO Fined appeared first on Going Concern.