Entries by Malcolm McLelland (10)
The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part V
Malcolm McLelland
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The evidence in "The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Parts I-IV" suggests a not-too-widely-held view that (1) the U.S. accounting industry's output is becoming less valuable over the last several years, and (2) although Sarbanes-Oxley has undoubtedly generated revenue for the industry the windfall has not really changed a broader trend. This posting examines trends in accounting industry IT capital costs to explore what might be going on ...
The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part IV
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Parts I-III of "The post-SARBOX accounting industry" suggest that real accounting industry revenues and unit output volumes were growing substantially more slowly post-SARBOX, and that real accounting industry output prices are decreasing markedly post-SARBOX. Since the primary input to production of accounting industry services is professional labor, to get a more complete idea of what's going on in the accounting industry it's worthwhile examining professional compensation costs and related factors. So this posting examines trends in accounting industry professional compensation, employment, wage rates, hours worked, etc. ...
The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part III
It was shown in "The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Parts I-II" that both accounting industry revenue and output growth rates were substantially lower in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment. It's of course possible that accountants and auditors are now working smarter (fewer hours delivering more valuable services), not harder (more hours delivering less valuable services), suggesting we're simply observing measurement error in the Bureau of Economic Analysis' data on accounting industry output volume. In this posting, trends in accounting industry output prices (Think: average billing rates) are examined ...
The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part II
In "The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part I" I presented a graph showing the accounting industry revenue growth rate had decreased significantly in recent years. We all know, of course, that revenues are the result of productivity; they really aren't production per se. So trends in accounting industry output volume (Think: total billable hours) are examined in this posting ...
The post-SARBOX accounting industry, Part I
What's going on in the accounting industry in the last few years as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? It's an interesting question, the answers to which I think would surprise a lot of people; primarily accountants. From one perspective, the future has never looked brighter for the accounting/auditing profession. The consensus among accountants seems to be that the profession is now gaining the respect it deserves and there is a lot of work to be done documenting and cleaning up clients' accounting, financial reporting, and internal control systems; not to mention a considerable amount of work to be done in a wide variety of consulting specialities. Is the outlook really that great? To answer the question I"ll begin by examining trends in accounting industry revenue levels ...
Ethos, pathos, and logos
A particular person's views on how weblogs could (better) improve the world ... To start with, we professionals emit and receive communications of widely varying quality all the time. Yet, as far as I can tell, we're often remarkably casual in how we evaluate such communication quality ... .
Why do accountants have to work longer hours?
A discussion of why accountants' exhortations to "Work Smarter, Not Harder" seem to have had no effect on the profeession ...
Where's the evidence that "accounting is just data"?
The evidence suggesting the theory that "accounting data isn't information until it's processed into information" is consistent with what goes on in the real world ...
What do you mean "accounting is just data"?
An interesting example of the proposition that ... Accounting information--as the term is commonly used--is not necessarily information at all, it is in general just data.
On philosophy of the site ...
Philosophy is *always* an interesting place to start a discussion! Please read on ...