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How to Prepare for Year-End Physical Inventory Counts

As year end approaches, it’s time for calendar-year entities to perform physical inventory counts. This activity is more than a compliance chore. Proactive companies see it as an opportunity to improve operational efficiency.

Inventory basics

Under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), inventory is recorded at the lower of cost or market value. There are three types of inventory:

  1. Raw materials,
  2. Work-in-progress, and
  3. Finished goods.

Estimating the value of inventory may involve subjective judgment calls, especially if your company converts raw materials into finished goods available for sale. The value of work-in-progress inventory can be especially hard to assess, because it includes overhead allocations and, in some cases, may require percentage-of-completion assessments.

Physical counts

A physical inventory count gives a snapshot of how much inventory your company has on hand at year end. For example, a manufacturing plant might need to count what’s on its warehouse shelves, on the shop floor and shipping dock, on consignment, at the repair shop, at remote or public warehouses, and in transit from suppliers and between company locations.

Before counting starts, you should consider:

  • Ordering or creating prenumbered tags that identify the part number and location and leave space to add the quantity and person who performed the count,
  • Conducting a dry run a few days before the count to identify any potential roadblocks and determine how many workers to schedule,
  • Assigning two-person teams to count inventory to minimize errors and fraud,
  • Carving the location into “count zones” to ensure full coverage and avoid duplication of efforts,
  • Writing off any unsalable or obsolete items, and
  • Precounting and bagging slow-moving items.

It’s essential that business operations “freeze” while the count takes place. Usually, inventory is counted during off-hours to minimize the disruption to business operations.

Auditor’s role

If your company issues audited financial statements, one or more members of your external audit team will be present during your physical inventory count. They aren’t there to help you count inventory. Instead, they’ll observe the procedures, review written inventory processes, evaluate internal controls over inventory, and perform independent counts to compare to your inventory listing and counts made by your employees.

Be ready to provide auditors with invoices and shipping/receiving reports. They review these documents to evaluate cutoff procedures for year-end deliveries and confirm the values reported on your inventory listing.

Making counts count

When it comes to physical inventory counts, our auditors have seen the best (and worst) practices over the years. For more information on how to perform an effective inventory count, contact us before year end.

© 2018

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Accounting for Overheads Costs

Accurate overhead allocations are essential to understanding financial performance and making informed pricing decisions. Here’s guidance on how to estimate overhead rates to allocate these indirect costs to your products and how to adjust for variances that may occur.

What’s included in overhead?

Overhead costs are a part of every business. These accounts frequently serve as catch-alls for any expense that can’t be directly allocated to production, including:

  • Equipment maintenance and depreciation,
  • Factory and warehouse rent,
  • Building maintenance,
  • Administrative and executive salaries,
  • Taxes,
  • Insurance, and
  • Utilities.

Generally, such indirect costs of production are fixed, meaning they won’t change appreciably whether production increases or diminishes.

How are overhead rates calculated?

The challenge comes in deciding how to allocate these costs to products using an overhead rate. The rate is typically determined by dividing estimated overhead expenses by estimated totals in the allocation base (for example, direct labor hours) for a future period of time. Then you multiply the rate by the actual number of direct labor hours for each product (or batch of products) to establish the amount of overhead that should be applied.

In some organizations, the rate is applied companywide, across all products. This is particularly appropriate for organizations that make single, standard products — such as bricks — over long periods of time. If your product mix is more complex and customized, you may use multiple overhead rates to allocate costs more accurately. If one department is machine-intensive and another is labor-intensive, for example, multiple rates may be appropriate.

How do you handle variances from actual costs?

There’s one problem with accounting for overhead costs: Variances are almost certain. There are likely to be more variances if you use a simple companywide overhead rate, but even the most carefully thought-out multiple rates won’t always be 100% accurate.

The result? Large accounts that many managers don’t understand and that require constant adjustment. This situation creates opportunities for errors — and for dishonest people to commit fraud. Fortunately, you can reduce the chance of overhead anomalies with strong internal control procedures, such as:

  • Conducting independent reviews of all adjustments to overhead and inventory accounts,
  • Studying significant overhead adjustments over different periods of time to spot anomalies,
  • Discussing complaints about high product costs with nonaccounting managers, and
  • Evaluating your existing overhead allocation and making adjustments as necessary.

Allocating costs more accurately won’t guarantee that you make a profit. To do that, you have to make prudent pricing decisions — based on the production costs and market conditions — and then sell what you produce.

Need help?

Cost accounting can be complex, and indirect overhead costs can be difficult to trace. We can help you understand how to minimize the guesswork in accounting for overhead and identify when it’s time to adjust your allocation rates. Our accounting pros can also suggest ways to monitor cost allocations to prevent errors and mismanagement.

© 2018

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Cybersecurity Matters

Investors, lenders and other stakeholders have been vocal in recent years about pushing companies to provide more information in their financial reports about cybersecurity. Could your company do a better job disclosing cyberrisks and recent hacks?

Most public companies could do better, according to recent testimony during congressional hearings by Jay Clayton, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Here are ways his agency is attempting to “refresh” the disclosure guidance.

Updating the guidance

The SEC doesn’t expect to overhaul its Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 2, Cybersecurity. Rather, it plans to consider whether important information about cybersecurity should be disclosed to stakeholders within the context of the existing rules. For example, companies may need to beef up their management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) and footnote disclosures to reflect potential cyberrisks and material financial implications of data breaches.

The current guidance on cybersecurity, which was published in 2011, doesn’t include a specific requirement for companies to disclose computer system intrusions. The SEC’s effort to update the guidance comes amid concerns that more public companies have been experiencing attacks to their computer systems, but their disclosures haven’t been timely or informative enough.

Changes in the works

Regulators in the SEC don’t know whether the update will be issued in the form of staff-level guidance or a regulatory release approved by the SEC’s commissioners. But they’ve decided to address two key areas in the update:

  • Financial reporting controls and procedures that identify and disclose cybersecurity threats in a timely manner, and
  • Corporate strategies and policies regarding cybersecurity prevention, detection and breach response.

Many companies welcome additional guidance from the SEC, because it can be difficult to determine the appropriate time to disclose a hack into their systems.

On the one hand, companies feel a responsibility to share relevant information openly and honestly with stakeholders. On the other, they don’t want to prematurely disclose information about a breach before they know the extent of the damage or to release inaccurate information that later needs to be revised. Company insiders may also be working with law enforcement, in which case they don’t want to disclose information that could compromise the investigation.

Team approach

Regardless of whether your business is public or private, it’s important to assemble a team of professional advisors — including legal, insurance and financial experts — to identify risk factors and to handle breach response, measure the impact and mitigate potential losses. We can help you provide transparent and timely information to your stakeholders.

© 2018

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4 Steps to Auditing AP

At most companies, the accounts payable (AP) department handles an enormous volume of transactions. So, the AP ledger may be prone to errors or used to bury fraudulent journal entries. How do auditors get a handle on AP? They use four key procedures to evaluate whether this account is free from “material misstatement” and compliant with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

1. Examination of SOPs

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are critical to a properly functioning AP department. However, some companies haven’t written formal SOPs — and others don’t always follow the SOPs they’ve created.

If SOPs exist, the audit team reviews them in detail. They also test a sample of transactions to determine whether payables personnel follow them.

If the AP department hasn’t created SOPs — or if existing SOPs don’t reflect what’s happening in the department — the audit team will temporarily stop fieldwork. Auditors will resume testing once the AP department has issued formal SOPs or updated them as needed.

2. Analysis of paper trails

Auditors use the term “vouching” to refer to the process of tracking a transaction from inception to completion. Analyzing this paper trail requires auditors to review original source documents, such as:

  • Purchase orders,
  • Vendor invoices,
  • Journal entries for AP and inventory, and
  • Bank records.

The audit team may select transactions randomly, as well as based on a transaction’s magnitude or frequency. They’ll also ascertain whether the company has complied with invoice terms and received the appropriate discounts.

3. Confirmations

Auditors may send forms to the company’s vendors asking them to “confirm” the balance owed. Confirmations can either:

  • Include the amount due based on the company’s accounting records, or
  • Leave the balance blank and ask the vendor to complete it.

If the amount confirmed by the vendor doesn’t match the amount recorded in the AP ledger, the audit team will note the exception and inquire about the reason. Unresolved discrepancies may require additional testing procedures and could even be cause for a qualified or adverse audit opinion, depending on the size and nature of the discrepancy.

4. Verification of financial statements

Auditors compare the amounts recorded in the company financial statements to the records maintained by the AP department. This includes reviewing the month-end close process to ensure that items are posted in the correct accounting period (the period in which expenses are incurred).

Auditors also review the process for identifying and recording related-party transactions. And they search for vendor invoices paid with cash and unrecorded liabilities involving goods or services received but yet not processed for payment.

Get it right

These four procedures may be conducted as part of a routine financial statement audit — or you may decide to hire an auditor to specifically target the AP department. Either way, your payables personnel can help streamline fieldwork by having the formal SOPs in place and source documents ready when the audit team arrives. Contact us for more information about what to expect during the coming audit season.

© 2018

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LIFO Lessons Learned

You have choices when it comes to reporting inventory costs. One popular technique — the last-in, first-out (LIFO) method — assumes that merchandise is sold in the reverse order it was acquired or produced. That is, it allocates the most recent costs to the cost of sales. Although this method is often preferred for tax purposes, internal accounting personnel may be hesitant to use it for various reasons.

Tax benefits

Assuming your inventory costs generally increase over time, LIFO offers a definite tax advantage over other inventory reporting methods. By allocating the most recent — and, therefore, higher — costs first, LIFO maximizes your cost of goods sold, which minimizes your taxable income.

In contrast, the first-in, first-out (FIFO) method assumes that merchandise is sold in the order it was acquired or produced. Thus, the cost of goods sold is based on older — and often lower — prices.

Financial reporting challenges

Before you jump headfirst into using LIFO, it’s important to recognize that it’s not permitted under International Financial Reporting Standards. The approach also involves sophisticated record keeping and calculations.

For example, the “LIFO conformity rule” generally requires you to use the same inventory accounting method for tax and financial statement purposes. Switching to LIFO may reduce your tax bill, but it could also depress your current earnings and reduce the value of inventories on your balance sheet, thus giving the appearance of a weaker financial position.

LIFO also can create a problem if your inventory levels are declining. As higher inventory costs are used up, you’ll need to start dipping into lower-cost “layers” of inventory, triggering taxes on “phantom income” that the LIFO method previously has allowed you to defer.

Moreover, if a C corporation elects S corporation status, the business must include a “LIFO recapture amount” in income for the C corporation’s last tax year. The recapture amount is the excess of your inventory’s value using FIFO over its value using LIFO. Fortunately, you can spread out the tax payments over four years in equal, interest-free installments.

One of the biggest challenges in using LIFO is the need to measure changes in inventory costs. If you currently use LIFO, you may be able to enjoy additional savings by electing to use the inventory price index computation method. It may enable you to reduce administrative costs — and it might even generate greater tax benefits — if you rely on government indexes to calculate LIFO values rather than developing an internal index.

Right for you?

If you’re contemplating a switch to LIFO, there are various issues to address and forms to complete. Contact us to help decide whether it’s right for your business.

© 2018

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Audit Opinions: How Your Financial Statements Measure Up

Audit opinions differ depending on the information available, financial viability, errors discovered during audit procedures and other limiting factors. The type of opinion your auditor issues tells stakeholders whether you’re in compliance with accounting rules and likely to continue operating as a going concern.

The basics

To find out what type of audit opinion you’ve received, scan the first page of your financial statements. Known as the “audit opinion letter,” this is where your auditor states whether the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects, compliant with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and free from material misstatement. But the opinion doesn’t constitute an endorsement or evaluation of the company’s financial results.

Most audit opinion letters consist of three paragraphs. The introductory paragraph identifies the company, accounting period and auditor’s responsibilities. The second discusses the scope of work performed. The third paragraph contains the audit opinion.

In general, there are four types of audit opinions, ranked from most to least desirable.

1. Unqualified. A clean “unqualified” opinion is the most common (and desirable). Here the auditor states that the company’s financial condition, position and operations are fairly presented in the financial statements.

2. Qualified. The auditor expresses a qualified opinion if the financial statements appear to contain a small deviation from GAAP, but are otherwise fairly presented. To illustrate: An auditor will “qualify” his or her opinion if a borrower incorrectly estimates warranty expense, but the exception doesn’t affect the rest of the financial statements.

Qualified opinions are also given if the company’s management limits the scope of audit procedures. For example, a qualified opinion may result if you deny the auditor access to a warehouse to observe year-end inventory counts.

3. Adverse. When an auditor issues an adverse opinion, there are material exceptions to GAAP that affect the financial statements as a whole. Here the auditor indicates that the financial statements aren’t presented fairly. Typically, an adverse opinion letter contains a fourth paragraph that outlines these exceptions.

4. Disclaimer. Even more alarming to lenders and investors is a disclaimer opinion. Disclaimers occur when an auditor gives up midaudit. Reasons for disclaimers may include significant scope limitations, material doubt about the company’s going-concern status and uncertainties within the subject company itself. A disclaimer opinion letter briefly outlines the auditor’s reasons for throwing in the towel.

Ready, set, audit

Before fieldwork starts for the audit of your 2018 financial statements, let’s discuss any foreseeable scope limitations and possible deviations from GAAP. Depending on the situation, we may be able to recommend corrective actions and help you proactively communicate with stakeholders about the reasons for a less-than-perfect audit opinion.

© 2018

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Cash vs. Accrual Reporting: Which is Right for Your Business?

Small businesses often use the cash-basis method of accounting. As businesses grow, they usually convert to accrual-basis reporting for federal tax purposes and to conform with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Starting this tax year, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has increased the threshold for businesses that qualify for the simpler cash method for federal tax purposes. Here’s how these accounting methods compare and how the TCJA could affect your financial and tax reporting decisions.

Cash method

Companies that use the cash-basis method of accounting recognize revenue as customers pay invoices and expenses as they pay bills. So, cash-basis entities often report large fluctuations in profits from period to period, especially if they’re engaged in long-term projects. This can make it hard to benchmark a company’s performance from year to year — or against other entities that use the accrual method.

Cash-basis entities also tend to postpone revenue recognition and accelerate expense payments at year end. This strategy can temporarily defer the company’s tax liability. But the flipside is that it can make a company appear less profitable to lenders and investors.

Accrual method

The more complex accrual-basis accounting method conforms to the matching principle under GAAP. That is, revenue (and expenses) are “matched” to the periods in which they’re earned (or incurred).

Accrual-basis entities report several asset and liability accounts that are generally absent on a cash-basis balance sheet. Examples include prepaid expenses, accounts receivable, accounts payable, work in progress, accrued expenses and deferred taxes.

TCJA considerations

Under the TCJA, for tax years beginning after 2017, businesses with average annual gross receipts of $25 million or less for the previous three tax years are eligible for the cash method of accounting for federal income tax purposes. Under prior law, the gross-receipts threshold for the cash method was only $5 million.

In addition, for tax years beginning after 2017, the TCJA modifies Section 451 of the Internal Revenue Code so that a business recognizes revenue for tax purposes no later than when it’s recognized for financial reporting purposes. So, if you use the accrual method for financial reporting purposes, you must also use it for federal income tax purposes.

These changes could prompt more companies to opt for the simpler, tax-deferred cash method for both financial reporting and tax purposes. But it’s not right for everyone.

Look before you leap

As your small business grows, you might be tempted to switch to the accrual method of accounting to reduce variability in financial reporting from year to year — and to attract more sophisticated lenders and investors who prefer GAAP financials. But doing so could accelerate your tax obligations. On the other hand, if you’re newly eligible for the cash method for tax purposes, you may want to switch to that method for the simplicity and tax deferral it offers.

If you’re in either situation, contact us to discuss the pros and cons of these two options to ensure you’re using the optimal method based on your circumstances.

© 2018

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It’s Important to Monitor Your SEC Filing Status

As public companies grow, they may move from one filing status or issuer category to another. Recent and proposed changes to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules for some categories could affect your company’s financial reporting and audit procedures.

Categories of public companies

Under existing rules, public companies fall into different filing categories, based on their public “float” (the amount of shares available to the public for trading):

  • Smaller reporting companies (SRCs) are nonaccelerated filers that meet certain other requirements, including annual revenues under $50 million if their public float is zero.
  • Nonaccelerated filers have a public float of less than $75 million and aren’t otherwise required to accelerate their filing deadlines.
  • Accelerated filers have a public float between $75 million and $700 million and meet other requirements.
  • Large accelerated filers have a public float of more than $700 million and meet certain other requirements.

Finally, there’s the emerging growth company (EGC). Generally, an EGC is a new public company that has gross revenues under $1 billion in its most recent fiscal year and meets certain other requirements. EGCs enjoy a variety of benefits during their first five years of existence, including scaled-back disclosures and exemption from the auditor attestation of a company’s internal control over financial reporting as required by Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

A company that ceases to be an EGC must begin complying with Sec. 404(b), except for nonaccelerated filers, which are exempt from that requirement unless they become accelerated or large accelerated filers. (Congress currently is considering legislation that would extend the exemption for certain companies, however.)

Changes to public float thresholds

On June 28, 2018, the SEC voted unanimously to issue the final rule in Release No. 33-10513, Amendments to Smaller Reporting Company Definition. The rule increases the public float threshold for SRCs to $100 million and nonaccelerated filers to $250 million.

To complicate matters, the SEC did not make conforming changes to the definition of an accelerated filer. Rather, it eliminated the automatic exclusion of SRCs in the definitions of accelerated and large accelerated filers. As a result, a registrant could be both an SRC and an accelerated filer. As an accelerated filer, a company would still be required to comply with Sec. 404(b).

The new SEC rule will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which normally occurs a few weeks after a rule is posted on the SEC’s website. The SEC said 966 additional companies will be eligible for smaller company status in the first year of the new threshold.

Annual assessment

Changes in filing status affect the form, content and timing of financial reports, as well as the extent of external audit procedures. So, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate your company’s status well before the end of each fiscal year. We can help you evaluate your filing status based on the SEC’s evolving guidelines. If a change is anticipated, we can help you prepare for new filing, disclosure and audit requirements.

© 2018

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Choosing the Right Accounting Method for Tax Purposes

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) liberalized the eligibility rules for using the cash method of accounting, making this method — which is simpler than the accrual method — available to more businesses. Now the IRS has provided procedures a small business taxpayer can use to obtain automatic consent to change its method of accounting under the TCJA. If you have the option to use either accounting method, it pays to consider whether switching methods would be beneficial.

Cash vs. accrual

Generally, cash-basis businesses recognize income when it’s received and deduct expenses when they’re paid. Accrual-basis businesses, on the other hand, recognize income when it’s earned and deduct expenses when they’re incurred, without regard to the timing of cash receipts or payments.

In most cases, a business is permitted to use the cash method of accounting for tax purposes unless it’s:

1. Expressly prohibited from using the cash method, or
2. Expressly required to use the accrual method.

Cash method advantages

The cash method offers several advantages, including:

Simplicity. It’s easier and cheaper to implement and maintain.

Tax-planning flexibility. It offers greater flexibility to control the timing of income and deductible expenses. For example, it allows you to defer income to next year by delaying invoices or to shift deductions into this year by accelerating the payment of expenses. An accrual-basis business doesn’t enjoy this flexibility. For example, to defer income, delaying invoices wouldn’t be enough; the business would have to put off shipping products or performing services.

Cash flow benefits. Because income is taxed in the year it’s received, the cash method does a better job of ensuring that a business has the funds it needs to pay its tax bill.

Accrual method advantages

In some cases, the accrual method may offer tax advantages. For example, accrual-basis businesses may be able to use certain tax-planning strategies that aren’t available to cash-basis businesses, such as deducting year-end bonuses that are paid within the first 2½ months of the following year and deferring income on certain advance payments.

The accrual method also does a better job of matching income and expenses, so it provides a more accurate picture of a business’s financial performance. That’s why it’s required under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

If your business prepares GAAP-compliant financial statements, you can still use the cash method for tax purposes. But weigh the cost of maintaining two sets of books against the potential tax benefits.

Making a change

Keep in mind that cash and accrual are the two primary tax accounting methods, but they’re not the only ones. Some businesses may qualify for a different method, such as a hybrid of the cash and accrual methods.

If your business is eligible for more than one method, we can help you determine whether switching methods would make sense and can execute the change for you if appropriate.

© 2018

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Transitioning to Remote Audits


Are you comfortable communicating electronically with your auditors? If so, a logical next step might be to transition from on-site audit procedures to a more “remote” approach. Remote audits can help reduce the time and cost of preparing audited financial statements.

21st century audits

Traditionally, audit fieldwork has involved a team of auditors camping out for weeks (or even months) in one of the conference rooms at the headquarters of the company being audited. Now, thanks to technological advances — including cloud storage, smart devices and secure data-sharing platforms — many audit firms are testing the feasibility of remote auditing as a replacement for sending auditors on-site.

In addition to saving time and audit fees, allowing auditors to work remotely improves the work-life balance for auditors and in-house accounting personnel. Your employees won’t need to stay glued to their desks for the duration of the audit, because they can respond to the auditor’s inquiries and document requests remotely.

Best practices

Changing the format of an audit requires flexibility, including a willingness to embrace the technology needed to facilitate the exchange, review and analysis of relevant documents. You can facilitate the transition process by:

Being responsive to electronic requests. Auditors who are out of sight shouldn’t be out of mind. Answer all remote requests from your auditors in a timely manner. If a key employee will be on vacation or out of the office for an extended period, give the audit team the contact information for the key person’s backup.

Giving employees access to the requisite software. Sharing documents with remote auditors may require you to install specific software on employees’ computers. But your company’s policies may prohibit employees from downloading software without approval from the IT department.

Before remote auditors start “fieldwork,” ask for a list of software and platforms that will be used to interact with in-house personnel. Give the appropriate employees access and authorization to share audit-related data from your company’s systems. Work with IT specialists to address any security concerns they may have with sharing data with the remote auditors.

Tracking audit progress. With less face-to-face time with your auditors, you have fewer opportunities to receive updates on the team’s progress. Ask the engagement partner to explain how they’ll track the performance of their remote auditors, and how they plan to communicate the team’s progress to in-house accounting personnel.

Wave of the future

Like remote working arrangements with employees and contractors, remote audits are a growing trend that could potentially reduce the costs of preparing financial statements. But not every audit firm or business is ready to embrace remote auditing. Contact us to discuss ways to make next year’s audit more efficient and cost-effective.

© 2018