He Said, She Said: Terminology Confusion in Payroll Auditing

Posting by Phil Vivirito

As payroll auditors, one of our tasks is to determine if the employer is reporting all covered employees.  This includes employees working in covered job classifications or bargaining unit employees. However, an employer may use different terminology when referring to covered and non-covered employees. This can be somewhat annoying to the experienced auditor, but it can become confusing and troublesome to the new or inexperienced payroll auditor.

Some employers may call non-covered employees ‘non-union’; other employers may […]

April 15, 2011 Payroll Audit Read more...

Succession Could Be Just Around the Corner

Posting by Geoffrey D. Brown, CPA, Principal

I recently had a head-on collision with my own mortality when my doctor told me that I needed open-heart surgery to fix a rather unusual problem with my heart. Fortunately we live in a time when it could be fixed, the surgery was successful and I’m back in the swing of things.

Of the many things that I thought about, one item – in my role as a family business advisor – was about […]

April 11, 2011 Family Owned Businesses Read more...

Family Business Facts

From sports stats to TV ratings, political polls to weather forecasts, people just seem to love statistics. They’re easy to digest, encourage debate and can turn us on to things we may never have thought of before. From the oft-quoted “What percentage of family businesses survive into the third generation?” to the obscure, “How does compensation for CEOs in family companies compare to CEOs in non-family companies?” — here are a few of our favorite facts and stats about family business, […]

April 6, 2011 Uncategorized Read more...

Should a Payroll Audit Program Be Rigid or Flexible?

Posting by Larry Beebe, CPA

Payroll auditors continue to debate whether payroll audit programs should be rigid or flexible.  Here is what our book, Payroll Auditing: A Guide for Multi-Employer Plans, says on the subject:

There are two types of audit programs.  One is very rigid.  The auditor must perform every step in the audit program and should not deviate from the steps shown.  The other audit program allows flexibility and audit judgment on the part of the auditor.  Certain steps […]

March 29, 2011 Benefit Plan Accounting, Payroll Audit Read more...

Top Ten Fraud Prevention Tips for Small Businesses, Tip #6: Know Your Suspects

Mark A. Buckberg, CPA, CFE, CFF

As a small business owner or senior executive, it is your responsibility to promote integrity and ethical values to your employees and implement the proper controls and procedures to prevent fraud.  In this series, we are highlighting ten basic fraud prevention steps you can take to keep your organization safe.

The Typical Fraudster: Exceedingly Ordinary
A report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) showed that the typical white collar criminal is, well, typical.  He’s […]

March 29, 2011 Accounting, Forensic Accounting Read more...

The Unknown Treasure Chest for Fraud

Alex Helfand, ENCE, Computer Forensic Specialist

It would be unheard of for a company to take a notebook of customer social security numbers and throw it into a trashcan. Most often, these types of documents are run through a shredder to ensure that they can never be seen again. But how can a hard drive be destroyed? Sometimes deleting files and then wiping the drive is not enough.

A trend in the digital world is solid state drives (SSD) – much […]

March 29, 2011 Accounting, Forensic Accounting Read more...

Bond Beebe’s Michael Rockefeller Receives Distinguished Service Award from WASTEC

Bond Beebe, a certified public accounting and advisory firm with offices in Bethesda, Maryland and Alexandria, Virginia, is pleased to announce that Michael Rockefeller, CPA, a Senior Manager with Bond Beebe, has been selected to receive the Distinguished Service Award from the Waste Equipment Technology Association (WASTEC).  WASTEC is a body of the Environmental Industry Associations dedicated to the development and utilization of equipment technologies in the safe and environmentally responsible management of wastes.  Rockefeller will be presented this […]

March 24, 2011 Firm News & Events Read more...

“How To” Series: To Reconcile or Not To Reconcile – That is the Question

Posting by Phil Vivirito

Over the next few weeks, Phil Vivirito, Bond Beebe’s Director of Payroll and Compliance Auditing, will explain several fundamental payroll auditing principles.  This week he reviews the best practices for determining whether or not to reconcile the payroll.

One of the arguments among payroll auditors is whether or not the auditor should reconcile the payroll. If your client’s payroll audit program states that you must, then you have no choice but to do so. But, if the […]

March 22, 2011 Payroll Audit Read more...

Landlords Beware: The IRS is Watching You!

In the near future the IRS will likely be performing more examinations of individual income tax returns reporting rental real estate activity.  On March 9, 2011, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) published the results of an internal audit to identify ways to improve enforcement activity in the area of rental real estate income.  The audit was undertaken in response to an August 2008 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found, “at least 53 percent of individual […]

March 18, 2011 Tax Read more...

If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It: Marketing the Fact that Your Business is Family-Owned

Posting by Joel C. Susco, CPA

For some people long ago, it was preferred to keep the “family-owned” status of your company hidden, as it might imply to prospects that your firm was very small or less professional.  As members of the Greater Washington DC Family Business Alliance, naturally we believe that being a family business carries many advantages, for both the company and for its customers.  So why not point out some of those advantages in the marketing of […]

March 17, 2011 Family Owned Businesses Read more...