Blogs

Segregation of duties is the cornerstone of a company’s internal control structure.  Maintaining proper segregation of duties in core business process areas minimizes the opportunity for an employee to commit fraud against his or her employer.  Duty segregation protects both the employer and the employee.

Regularly evaluating the conflicts of interest potentially affecting your company may not seem important to your business operations.  However, because employees, leaders and board members are constantly rotating through and making changes in their personal lives, it is key for a company to regularly review the conflicts of interest of individuals tied to the organization to ensure the con

Lynne Waymon

View Instructor Profile | Jun 17, 2019

Puzzled by a tricky question from a client?  Looking for hard-to-find information? Stumped by a request from a partner or referral source?  

The AICPA’s Auditing Standards Board (ASB) recently released an exposure draft of a Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS)  and a Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) that would align the AICPA definition of materiality with the definitions used by the United States judicial system, the PCAOB auditing standards, the FASB, and the U.S.

Jennifer Flaa

View Instructor Profile | Jun 6, 2019

When the #MeToo Movement went viral it reverberated through the halls & cubicles of business, we realized two things:

Maura Schreier-Fleming

View Instructor Profile | Jun 3, 2019

You probably hate meetings if you’re like most people.

In the past few years there has been an abundance of new types of subscription services available to consumers.  The concept of subscription services is not new...service contracts and leases are common recurring revenue streams that have existed for a long time; however, there has been a proliferation of monthly subscriptions for both necessary and luxury goods and services.  The typ

Vicki Lambert

View Instructor Profile | May 28, 2019

Every year we, in payroll, wait in anticipation for the social security (OASDI) wage base to be announced. This basically heralds in the year end/year beginning processing time.  But for some, maybe those responsible for employment tax budgets or financial reports, the wage bases for future years is a handy thing to have all at once and not just wait for it at the end of the year.

David Ringstrom

View Instructor Profile | May 24, 2019

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 Ribbon".

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.