News Articles

The 2020 Virtual TFACC, offered in partnership with NSAC, NRECA and NTCA is the premier national conference for cooperative tax, finance and accounting professionals for cooperatives and rural, independent companies. This partnership means more learning opportunities for you and more opportunities to broaden your network.

So, who should attend the 2020 Virtual TFACC?

The conference is specifically designed for:

For more event information and to register, please visit bit.ly/2020VirtualTFACC

This year’s two-day, August 3-4, virtual program offers proven strategies, tools and resources to help your co-op, company or firm increase efficiencies, improve financial controls, streamline regulatory compliance and make transactions manageable.

For the first time, we are offering a self-study program after the conference – the 2020 TFACC Encore! The 2020 TFACC Encore provides attendees with the ability to earn up to 58 CPEs. Attendees can earn up to 14 CPE credits by participating in the live virtual event and will have access to conference session recordings with the ability to earn up to 58 CPEs! For more information about CPE through the 2020 TFACC Encore, please click here.

Moving your accounting and business applications to the cloud lets you and your employees access them from anywhere with an internet connection, including your own home, at any time. Working at home is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity, and the ability to work from home is becoming more important all the time. But just how difficult is moving your business to the cloud? What does moving to the cloud require? Not very and not much. In fact, it might be easier to discuss what it doesn’t require. Here are some answers to a few common misconceptions about moving to the cloud.

Homeland Security’s cybersecurity advisory unit is warning Windows 10 users to make sure that their systems are fully patched, after exploit code for a “wormable” bug was published online last week. 

The code takes advantage of a security vulnerability patched by?Microsoft??back?in March. The bug caused confusion and concern after details of the “critical”-rated bug were?initially published but quickly pulled offline. 

The exploit code, known as SMBGhost, exploits a bug in the server message block — or SMB — component that lets Windows talk with other devices, like printers and file servers. Once exploited, the bug gives the attacker unfettered access to a Windows computer to run malicious code, like malware or ransomware, remotely from the internet. 

Risk appetite plays an important role in organizational success and should be considered carefully by leaders as they make strategic decisions. 

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) has published?new guidance?on risk appetite focusing on how organizations can promote risk appetite as a key factor in decision-making. 

“Risk appetite is a fundamental part of setting strategy and objectives, providing context as the organization pursues a given level of performance,” COSO Chairman Paul Sobel said in a news release. “What is important is to recognize that the choice of strategies and objectives requires an understanding of the appetite for risk. While most often an organization can adjust to take on more risk, there may be times where it needs to adjust the appetite, or perhaps even strategy, to accommodate a shifting business environment such as the one we are currently experiencing.” 

The American Institute of CPAs has released some guidance on how to account for forgivable loans under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. 

The PPP was included as part of the CARES Act that Congress passed at the end of March and provides SBA-backed loans to businesses to help them deal with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and encourage them to retain their employees. The loans are forgivable if businesses keep their employees on the payroll for eight weeks. But the criteria and eligibility for the program and the loan forgiveness terms have been changing constantly. Congress passed changes to the program last week to give businesses more flexibility to use the funds, extending the period for when the loans must be used from eight weeks to 24 weeks or the end of the year, whichever comes first, and giving businesses up to five years instead of two to repay the loans. 

The FASB deferred by one year the effective date of the new revenue standard for entities that have not yet issued (or made available for issuance) financial statements reflecting the adoption of the standard. The FASB also deferred by one year the effective date of the new leases standard for private companies, private not-for-profit (NFP) entities and public NFPs that have not yet issued (or made available for issuance) financial statements reflecting the new standard. Early adoption is permitted for entities in the scope of both deferrals 

The global health and economic crisis triggered by coronavirus is a heavy burden for businesses. Even those for whom remote working is possible had to solve the problem of accessing the data they need in order to stay operational.

Traditional bookkeeping software is typically installed on a dedicated computer drive, only accessible by a licensed user through a desktop application on their machine.

Now take your bookkeeper out of the office, and ask them to work from home.

Fortunately, fintech has evolved to a point that cloud accounting software resolves many of these accessibility issues. Bookkeeping software has, in most instances, been moved to the cloud, and what a relief that is in unprecedented times like these.

Ransomware attacks have overtaken credit card theft as the top form of cybercrime according to new data.

Ransomware attacks have become more commonplace than payment card theft incidents for the first time, as cyber criminals alter how they go about their malicious operations in an effort to gain the biggest financial reward for the least amount of effort.

Analysis of more than a trillion security events over the past year and hundreds of breach investigations by researchers at cybersecurity company Trustwave found that ransomware attacks have become the most common security incident.

It wasn’t that long ago that people drove their cars holding a large unfolded map in one hand, glancing at it now and then to determine when to make the next turn. Today, we look back and marvel at how antiquated this everyday practice has become.

Technology has a way of doing that to us, turning the conventional into the old-fashioned. Traditional accounting is a case in point. What once was considered the optimal means of processing financial data manually using spreadsheets now seems as archaic and risky as driving with a map in one’s hand.