Month: September 2011

Free agent status for everyone!

The world of work has changed. We are all free agents.

Even if we don’t change jobs or stay with one employer for decades, we are all now free agents.

That will be the theme of a series of posts. Probably the theme for a new blog, since those discussions will wander far away from issues of immediate interest to the nonprofit community.

What has happened?

The nature of work has changed.

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Jim Ulvog

Panel members announced for Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations

The Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations has announced the members of three panels that will advise the commission.

See my previous comments on the Commission for background here, here, and here.

The Commission’s website can be found here.

A short description of the Commission from their website: (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Filling up a bucket – word picture for levels of assurance in audit, review, and compilation

     

(cross-post from my other blog, Attestation Update.)

In a webcast on August 31, 2011, Mr. Michael Glynn, CPA, of the AICPA staff, gave a wonderful word picture of the levels of assurance in a review and audit.  Here’s his idea:  Filling up a bucket with procedures produces different levels of assurance.  I would like to expand Mr. Glynn’s description and provide an illustration.

  • In an audit, the accountant obtains provides reasonable assurance that there are no material errors in the financial statements.
  • In a review, the accountant obtains provides limited assurance that there are no material errors in the financial statements.
  • In a compilation,the accountant does not obtain provide any assurance that there are no material errors in the financial statements.

Notice the similarity and difference?  The overlap between these definitions is how much assurance the accountant obtains for himself or herself provides that there are no material errors in the financial statements.

The differences? (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Scam watch – you don’t have to pay someone $370 to help renew your fictitious business name

If you want to conduct your ministry or business using anything other than your legal name, you have to get a fictitious business name.  This is also called a DBA, or “doing business as” name.

Let’s say you are on staff at Southside Community Church and are starting a major summer program as an outreach to the community.  This would be a big, ongoing project. If you’re going to be collecting money and trying to reach out beyond your local congregation, you just might decide to run the program under the name Southside Summer Swim.  If that is the case, you need to file for a fictitious business name with the county clerk’s office.

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Jim Ulvog

Scam watch – the IRS will not send a fax asking for your bank account info

William Vaughan Company CPAs, reports one of their clients got a fax that seemed to be from the IRS asking for bank account information.  See their post and a copy of the fax at: Recent IRS Scam Requests Bank Account Information.

How can you tell this is a scam?  That is not how the IRS does things.  Very simply, it fails the smell test. (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Aircraft carrier as illustration of “overhead” needed to get something done

4,100 people work so 200 can fly.

In August, my wife and I toured the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum in San Diego. Quite a treat if you enjoy either airplanes or naval ships.

One narrative plaque really caught my attention. It quoted someone as saying that 4,100 people are hard at work onboard so 200 can fly airplanes. Since the purpose of the carrier is to put planes in the air, everyone else on board is in a ‘supporting’ function.

Seems to me that this is a good illustration of the concept of overhead or functional allocation that we work with in the nonprofit world.

(more…)

Jim Ulvog