The Hindu Business Line : Joint budgeting by ICAEW and CIMA

THE ICAEW and CIMA have produced a joint report on budgeting as the result of a forum organised together, according to Accountancy magazine. "Budgets are often pilloried as being out of touch with the needs of the modern business, accused of taking too long to complete and costing too much," is a comment from the report. Yet, "budgets and the accompanying processes are important." CIMA notes, "Instead of being about cost-cutting, budgets are now about contributing to value creations." The ICAEW observes: "Companies are looking to the finance team to work across the business to pull together both financial and non-financial information for the budget process today." Good teaming up.

Accounting is getting interesting

A QUESTION that AccountingWeb poses is: "Can accounting be viewed as a `sexy' career choice?" It answers, "Maybe," going by the number of new accounting majors among college freshmen. "Academics say the seemingly never-ending series of corporate scandals over the last few years has piqued the interest of today's students," notes the report, citing numbers provided by the AICPA and reported by the Wall Street Journal.

According to statistics, the number of accounting degrees awarded in the US in 2003 jumped 11 per cent; and the largest accounting programme in the US, at Florida International University in Miami, saw a 43 per cent increase in student enrolment between 2000 and 2003. In the Universities of Michigan and Illinois too, there is a 65-75 per cent increase in accounting students. Some credit may go to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act too because it has given students "a reason to feel a sense of security in entering the field". Research, however, seems to be the weak link, because the American Accounting Association has reported that there are more than twice as many faculty openings as there are applicants. Interested?

Penetration audits

A RECENT posting on www.pwcglobal.com is about information security where `penetration audits' are explained. Here are some inputs: "Ensure all machines are at the current patch level; ensure all accounts have complex passwords; ensure that local security settings are in place on workstations and that all local workstation accounts have passwords; reduce the number of domain administrator or root account accesses to the absolute minimum (this is normally the square root of the number of administrator root accounts that are "absolutely required"); permit accounts with restricted administrator rights for support and account maintenance."

Auditors can penetrate into areas that are the preserve of computer personnel, after all.

GlobeTrot@TheHindu.co.in

More Stories on : Accountancy | Globe Trot

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
FTA, worries and opportunities

Free, rooted in `friend'

Facts and forecasts are like news and views

Finality eludes forex accounting

Joint budgeting by ICAEW and CIMA

Fiscal management — Why not a financial stability unit?

WTO accord: Faulty frame, rude reality

Right of recall

Effective governance

Anguish of alienation