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The Big Four

Author: Ian D. Gow

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1523098031

"Messrs. Gow and Kells have made an invaluable contribution, writing in an amused tone that nevertheless acknowledges the firms' immense power and the seriousness of their neglect of traditional responsibilities. 'The Big Four' will appeal to all those interested in the future of the profession--and of capitalism itself." —Jane Gleeson-White, Wall Street Journal With staffs that are collectively larger than the Russian army and combined revenues of over $130 billion a year, the Big Four accounting firms—Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG—are a keystone of global commerce. But leading scholar Ian Gow and award-winning author Stuart Kells warn that a house of cards may be about to fall. Stretching back to the Medicis in Renaissance Florence, this book is a fascinating story of wealth, power, and luck. The founders of the Big Four lived surprisingly colorful lives. Samuel Price, for example, married his own niece. Between the world wars, Nicholas Waterhouse collected postage stamps while also hosting decadent parties in his fashionable London home. All four firms have endured major calamities in recent decades. There have been hundreds of court cases and legal prosecutions for failed audits, tax scandals, and breaches of independence. The firms have come so close to “extinction level events” that regulators have required them to prepare “living wills.” And today, the Big Four face an uncertain future—thanks to their push into China, their vulnerability to digital disruption and competition, and the hazards of providing traditional services in a new era of transparency. This account of the past, present, and likely future of the Big Four is essential reading for anyone perplexed or fascinated by professional services, working or considering working in the industry, or simply curious about the fate of the global economy.

The Big Four

Author: Stuart Kells

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1743820445

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Across the globe, the so-called Big Four accounting and audit firms – Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG – are massively influential. Together, they earn more than US$100 billion annually and employ almost one million people. In many profound ways, they have changed how we work, how we manage, how we invest and how we are governed. Stretching back centuries, their history is a fascinating story of wealth, power and luck. But today, the Big Four face an uncertain future – thanks to their push into China; their vulnerability to digital disruption and competition; and the hazards of providing traditional services in a new era of transparency. Both colourful and authoritative, this account of the past, present and likely future of the Big Four is essential reading for anyone perplexed or fascinated by professional services, working in the industry, contemplating joining a professional services firm, or simply curious about the fate of the global economy. Stuart Kells is a Melbourne-based author. His history of Penguin Books, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the Ashurst Australian Business Literature Prize. Ian D. Gow is a professor at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Melbourne Centre for Corporate Governance and Regulation. He previously taught at Harvard Business School.

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance

Author: Jane Gleeson-White

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2012-10-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0393089681

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“Lively history. . . . Show[s] double entry’s role in the creation of the accounting profession, and even of capitalism itself.”—The New Yorker Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance. At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses. Luca Pacioli—monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci—incorporated Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations. As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fueled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy. John Maynard Keynes would use it to calculate GDP, the measure of a nation’s wealth. Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures. With the costs of sudden corporate collapses such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human costs, the time may have come to re-create it for the future.

Advice for a Successful Career in the Accounting Profession

Author: Jerry Maginnis

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1119855284

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Practical guidance to optimize the benefits of your accounting degree—no matter what stage of your career! Originally conceived and designed to provide helpful advice to college and university accounting majors and early-career professionals, this book evolved into a valuable resource for those groups as well as others who may be further along in their accounting careers. It contains many practical examples and real-life experiences from a long and successful career in the profession that you won't find in any accounting, auditing, or tax textbook. And it is written in a fun and engaging style with a simple goal in mind: to share lessons learned and insights that will help accountants of all ages optimize their career opportunities! Jerry Maginnis, CPA, the former Office Managing Partner for the Philadelphia office of KPMG, one of the "Big Four" Accounting Firms, currently serves as the "Accounting Executive in Residence" at Rowan University in Southern New Jersey. In this role, he has counseled and mentored dozens of students and early career professionals. The book leverages Jerry's real-world experience and his advice and counsel is delivered in a fashion that will make you feel like you are having a one on one conversation with him! Readers will also enjoy: Advice delivered concisely: each chapter is succinct and provides essential takeaways and action plans for all points in a career A guidebook that is efficiently organized into three sections—for college and university students, for early-career professionals, for accountants of all ages and experience levels—allowing the reader to focus on the sections that are most applicable to them An excellent refresher or reminder of concepts or principles that are important to even the most successful and experienced accountants Loaded with "real world" tips and techniques, Advice for a Successful Career in the Accounting Profession is an ideal resource for accountants and auditors, tax and advisory professionals, and University professors and high school instructors teaching Accounting, undeclared business majors, underrepresented populations, and students aspiring to become CPAs.

More Than a Numbers Game

Author: Thomas A. King

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-02-17

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1118044614

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The world certainly suffers no shortage of accounting texts. The many out there help readers prepare, audit, interpret and explain corporate financial statements. What has been missing is a book offering context and discussion for divisive issues such as taxes, debt, options, and earnings volatility. King addresses the why of accounting instead of the how, providing practitioners and students with a highly readable history of U.S. corporate accounting. More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting was inspired by Arthur Levitt's landmark 1998 speech delivered at New York University. The Securities and Exchange Commission chairman described the too-little challenged custom of earnings management and presaged the breakdown in the US corporate accounting three years later. Somehow, over a one-hundred year period, accounting morphed from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud. How this happened makes for a good business story. This book is not another description of accounting scandals. Instead it offers a history of ideas. Each chapter covers a controversial topic that emerged over the past century. Historical background and discussion of people involved give relevance to concepts discussed. The author shows how economics, finance, law and business customs contributed to accounting's development. Ideas presented come from a career spent working with accounting information.

American Greed

Author: Michael S. Rothberg

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2010-06-28

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1452022275

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American Greed is both a personal and professional look at how greed caused the Great Recession in 2008.Leading up to this particular recession were steep declines in the housing market combined with the banking system sliding to the verge of collapse. Thenews of the day were full of stories about the mismanagement of risk at financial service companies who nevertheless paid out huge bonuses to executives, rewarding them for ruining their own companies. Americans were largely over-extended, with tremendous amounts of debt on charge cards and mortgages they couldnt afford, combined with rising unemployment, tightening credit and increasing expenses such as gasoline, electricity, and food. All of these elements made for the perfect economic storm. As an Investment Advisor Representative for MetLife since 1992, I have seen how greed has impacted peoples lives. I witnessed patterns of abuse, the inability of people to plan for anything financial or personal and in some cases situations of illegalities. By meeting with numerous people over a long period of time, I gained first hand exposure and bore witness to what was happening in a very unique and particular way. At the time I was writing this book, I had 1,300 clients and met with thousands of prospects over the years to assist them with retirement planning.

Bean Counters

Author: Richard Brooks

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781786490285

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Behind the boring image, the world's accountants are running the world for their own benefit.

Disruption in the Audit Market

Author: Krish Bhaskar

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1000007863

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Focussing on the dominance of the Big Four auditing firms – PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG – this concise volume provides an authoritative critical assessment of the state and future of the audit market, currently the subject of much debate and the focus of significant government enquiries. Drawing on extensive research and a vast collection of evidence from interviews with insiders, experts and users, it explores the key issues of audit quality, independence, choice and the growing expectation gap. Just as disruptive technologies are overturning other established sectors, this book explores their impact on accounting, financial reporting and auditing. It questions whether the Big Four-dominated audit market is prepared not only for the inevitable disruption of new technologies, but also the challenges of negative public perceptions, cynicism about regulation and demands for greater transparency. In the context of increasing high-profile corporate failures, this book provides a compelling scrutiny of the industry’s failings and present difficulties, and the impact of future disruption. At this crucial time, it will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals in accounting and auditing, as well as policy makers and regulators.

Financial Statement Analysis

Author: Martin S. Fridson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2002-10-01

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0471264601

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Praise for Financial Statement Analysis A Practitioner's Guide Third Edition "This is an illuminating and insightful tour of financial statements, how they can be used to inform, how they can be used to mislead, and how they can be used to analyze the financial health of a company." -Professor Jay O. Light Harvard Business School "Financial Statement Analysis should be required reading for anyone who puts a dime to work in the securities markets or recommends that others do the same." -Jack L. Rivkin Executive Vice President (retired) Citigroup Investments "Fridson and Alvarez provide a valuable practical guide for understanding, interpreting, and critically assessing financial reports put out by firms. Their discussion of profits-'quality of earnings'-is particularly insightful given the recent spate of reporting problems encountered by firms. I highly recommend their book to anyone interested in getting behind the numbers as a means of predicting future profits and stock prices." -Paul Brown Chair-Department of Accounting Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU "Let this book assist in financial awareness and transparency and higher standards of reporting, and accountability to all stakeholders." -Patricia A. Small Treasurer Emeritus, University of California Partner, KCM Investment Advisors "This book is a polished gem covering the analysis of financial statements. It is thorough, skeptical and extremely practical in its review." -Daniel J. Fuss Vice Chairman Loomis, Sayles & Company, LP

Against the Gods

Author: Peter L. Bernstein

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-09-11

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0470534532

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A Business Week, New York Times Business, and USA Today Bestseller "Ambitious and readable . . . an engaging introduction to the oddsmakers, whom Bernstein regards as true humanists helping to release mankind from the choke holds of superstition and fatalism." —The New York Times "An extraordinarily entertaining and informative book." —The Wall Street Journal "A lively panoramic book . . . Against the Gods sets up an ambitious premise and then delivers on it." —Business Week "Deserves to be, and surely will be, widely read." —The Economist "[A] challenging book, one that may change forever the way people think about the world." —Worth "No one else could have written a book of such central importance with so much charm and excitement." —Robert Heilbroner author, The Worldly Philosophers "With his wonderful knowledge of the history and current manifestations of risk, Peter Bernstein brings us Against the Gods. Nothing like it will come out of the financial world this year or ever. I speak carefully: no one should miss it." —John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today. "An extremely readable history of risk." —Barron's "Fascinating . . . this challenging volume will help you understand the uncertainties that every investor must face." —Money "A singular achievement." —Times Literary Supplement "There's a growing market for savants who can render the recondite intelligibly-witness Stephen Jay Gould (natural history), Oliver Sacks (disease), Richard Dawkins (heredity), James Gleick (physics), Paul Krugman (economics)-and Bernstein would mingle well in their company." —The Australian