CLEVELAND--()--With its second Tampa-area merger in less than a year, Skoda Minotti has merged with Dowell & Perez, P.A., positioning Tampa as its second-largest business market in the country. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed. In July 2012, Ohio-headquartered Skoda Minotti merged with Tampa CPA firm Baumann, Raymondo & Co.
“Good things are happening in Tampa, and we are excited to join Skoda Minotti,” says Dan Dowell, CPA, former Dowell & Perez president and now...
Read More >>On May 16, 2013, the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board)
and IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) issued a
revised joint exposure draft (ED) on leases that, if adopted, would
pose significant changes for both lessees and lessors. As we
informed our readers in December in our Accounting Insights
Newsletter, the FASB was working on a revised ED on accounting for
leases that was originally published in August 2010.
The primary difference between the original release in 2010 and...
This month's Special Delivery includes:
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Read More >>As an independent member of the BDO Seidman Alliance, we are pleased to provide you with this informative update on the mergers and acquisitions climate. If you have any questions, please contact one of the professionals in our Merger and Acquisition Services group by calling 440-449-6800.
M&A Activity Update
2012 M&A activity, remaining mostly flat compared to 2011, saw
an increase of 1.1 percent in aggregate deal value and 3.5 percent
in the number of closed deals, thanks in part to a surge...
When a company ventures down the FDA approval process, they can
expect to communicate with four key groups. These groups include
regulators, the medical scientific community, the patient community
and investors. Although each group differs, companies should ensure
that the messages delivered throughout the process to each of these
groups are accurate and consistent.
In this e-book from our Life Sciences Group, we've laid out
some tips on how to deliver your message throughout each step of
the...
Your clients want to, and in some cases – need to, know that you have controls in place when you are dealing with their data. By completing this audit we agree that you can and should tell them, and shout from the highest mountain top, that you show due-care when dealing with your client’s data, and that you have audited controls in place to ensure this due-care.
How do you do that? Our best suggestion is to display the opinion page of your auditor’s report. (You can do this however you want –...
Read More >>Join me in a quick exercise… do a web search on the term “SSAE 16 Compliant.” (I know what you’ll find because I’ve done this search many times, myself.) What you’ll find is a listing of various companies announcing that they are “SSAE 16 Compliant.”
So, what’s the big deal with saying that?
“SSAE 16 compliance” doesn’t really exist.
An SSAE 16 (SOC 1) is an audit, and there is no “compliance” aspect to an audit. Think about a financial audit – have you ever heard anyone say that they are financial...
Read More >>This month's Special Delivery includes:
Update Your Email Preferences
As business advisors, we want to make sure we are providing our clients and business contacts with messages and updates relevant to your individual and/or...
Read More >>If your company is in a Life Science and Innovation industry, such as biotech, biomed, health IT, nanotechnologies, or communications, you may receive money from local, state or Federal grant programs to fund the research or clinical trials on your drug, medical device, or disruptive technology. Be knowledgeable about the agreements you’re signing - as a high school professor once taught me, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
These monies often come with extra responsibilities that can...
Read More >>In this inaugural issue of A&A Insights, we'll take a closer
look at recent accounting rule changes, review proposed accounting
rule changes and dive deeper into how new AICPA rules may provide
GAAP relief for private companies.
We hope you find these updates helpful. Feel free to contact our
Accounting and Auditing group at 440-449-6800
with any questions that you may have.
Accounting Rule Changes
Effective for 2012
Not all of us have the ambition to work until we drop. The majority of the population seems to look forward to those golden years when we get to travel, volunteer for the non-profits we love, and spend time with our families. But how are we expected to get there in the current environment?
For some of us, there’s little-to-no expectation that social security is going to exist by our retirement age. Investments in the stock market are precarious. Even investments in “conservative” employer...
Read More >>Lease Accounting
As we have previously discussed in other venues and publications, an FASB Exposure Draft was issued in 2010 that would significantly change lease accounting. Briefly, virtually all leases would be considered a form of financing and even today’s operating leases would become capital leases. An intangible asset consisting of the “right of use” of the asset equal to the lease liability is recorded at inception. Because debt would go up and what is presently rent expense would...
Read More >>There are several new accounting pronouncements as well as significant proposed changes for 2013 and beyond. There are also some “hot topics” in the areas of auditing and reporting that you should consider.
Fair Value Disclosures
Financial Accounting Standards, issued by the FASB, now require nonpublic companies to make some additional disclosures for calendar 2012, principally in the form of a discussion of the valuation process and certain quantitative details involving Level 3 investments....
Read More >>Convincing Third Party Users
Many third party users of an SME’s financial statements require GAAP basis financial statements. For example, credit agreements with lending institutions often refer to the need to have financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP, even though they may not be as useful in some cases as statements prepared under another principles-based framework, such as the FRF.
The FRF for SMEs will not have the official or authoritative status of GAAP. However, it can be...
Read More >>Differences Between the Proposed FRF and Current GAAP
The proposed FRF contains significant differences from current GAAP. There is much more use of historical cost basis in accounting for assets, as opposed to the migration to fair value that GAAP has made over the last several years. Some other differences include accounting for income taxes, goodwill and other intangible assets, other comprehensive income, financial instruments, investments, and consolidation of variable interest entities.
The...
Read More >>Current Rules-Based Approach & New, Practical
Principles Based Approach
Current Rules-Based Approach
Current U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) are very much a rules-based system that, in general, employs a “one size fits all” mentality. In other words, small to medium-sized entities (“SMEs”) are subject to the same basic set of accounting rules as large publicly traded companies, with only some very limited exceptions. Having to follow all of the same financial reporting...
Read More >>How do you determine which SOC report your client needs?
During this upcoming webinar and online Ask the Expert forum, Skoda Minotti's Robert Brenis will walk you through the questions to ask that will help in determining whether your client needs a SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3 or any combination of these reports. He will also help you understand why your clients are being asked for these reports, and what you can be doing to help educate your clients about these reporting standards.
To register for the...
Read More >>Third-party administrators manage various processes for their clients. And, no matter what processes they manage, their clients want to know that these companies are providing due-care and control over their items.
There are controls that nearly all companies have, regardless of what they do. For example, all companies probably want to have controls around their information technology in several ways.
Standard Information Technology Controls:
How Big Players Prepared
Elayne Starkey, the Chief Security Office for the State of Delaware stated “Don’t assume your most critical IT resources will be available and don’t wait for an incident to meet your incident response partners.”
Fortunately, many of the financial institutions within Sandy's reach knew this and planned accordingly. Banking institutions, including Citi, Chase and Bank of America, closed branches up and down the eastern seaboard to prepare. Some banks that stayed opened...
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