When we think of bullying, we usually visualize a big burly person standing over someone smaller intimidating the smaller person with size. Or else, like in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we assume a boss is intimidating his staff threatening them with loss of income if they don’t comply to his request for sexual […]
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced on March 14th, that they had released new opinion letters on their website. These letters address the compliance issues related to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Before we review the new opinion letters for the FLSA, let’s do a […]
In December 2018 the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued an amendment to its standard on the use of specialists in a financial statement audit. To better understand the amendment, it is important to recognize the role of a specialist and why one would be engaged during a financial statement audit. Auditors performing audits […]
Are your Accounts Payable Operations measuring their performance? If not, how can progress toward goals be determined? How can issues be identified before getting calls from Vendors? Or worse, Management and Customers? Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Accounts Payable can cover everything from the productivity of each AP processor to whether invoices are paid on […]
Some people are afraid of their own shadow. They have a lot of fears if they’re in sales. They are afraid of their competitors. They’re afraid of failing. Fear is the wrong emotion to have when you sell. I want you to be able to get past fear and sell more successfully. I’m afraid if we share information […]
Have you ever noticed that when someone says something good about a co-worker, it tends to end at that person. BUT, if someone says something bad about a co-worker, it gets repeated, exaggerated – and can and often does destroy another person’s reputation. I’m aware of a case of a woman being accused of not […]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today that starting May 13th only individuals with tax identification numbers may request an Employer Identification Number, or EIN, as the “responsible party” on the application. This change will prevent entities, such as employer, from using their own EINs to obtain additional EINs. The requirement will apply to both the paper Form […]
The cash disbursements cycle steps – approval, preparation, authorization – can leave your company vulnerable to fraud and theft if basic controls are not in place. Two of the most important controls are segregation of duties and check signing/EFT approval procedures. Controls over these two steps in the cash disbursement cycle minimize the risk of […]
Fraud can be catastrophic for any size organization. Often companies unknowingly allow fraudulent activities to happen because they have been complacent in their review of their current internal controls. When a system is working it is easy to set aside evaluating it in favor of reviewing processes that are knowingly flawed. The most cost-effective way […]
For decades Microsoft Excel followed a predictable pattern of a new update being released roughly every three years. Of course, Excel 2002 was an outlier, sandwiched in between Excel 2000 and Excel 2003. Then there was a four year wait for Excel 2007 while Microsoft worked to implement the new menu structure known as “the […]
