<p>Link: <a title=”Microsoft Office metadata: What you don’t see can hurt you” href=”http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035-5034376.html”>Microsoft Office metadata: What you don’t see can hurt you</a>.</p>
<p>Interesting article on the “hidden” data in your Word/Excel files. You may want to download the trial of Metadata Assistant from <a href=”http://www.payneconsulting.com”>Payne Consulting Group</a> and see what you’re sending or receiving that may not have been intended by the sender…..</p>
<p>Of course, the nightmare scenario is leaving the changes in a set of financials so that any trial lawyer can recover the “hidden information” from your files. Or worse yet, when recycling a document for another client, disclosing a client’s confidential information to another client.</p>
<p>What is your CPA firm’s approach to dealing with metadata in MS Office files? What skeletons exist in your the closet of your electronic file cabinets? The sooner you analyze the situation, the more effectively you can manage this potential risk.</p>
Month: June 2005
Big Change in Audit Standards
The AICPA issued eight (yes, eight) exposure drafts on June 15th. These represent a huge change in how audit standards work, and will hopefully help auditors do better audits. How they will impact the profitability and cost-effectiveness of our profession’s premiere service remains to be seen.
Based on a cursory scan of the ED’s, they appear to continue the trend started with SAS 99 whereby we go look for things which shouldn’t be there. (or as we say in East TN, ‘go lookin for stuff that just ain’t right). The new ED’s extend this command to ‘go forth and look in many places’ from fraud (promulgated in SAS 99) to financial statement errors and omitted disclosures. The wording changes seem to also remove much of the wiggle room in existing standards.
While this is new as a requirement of standards, many auditors have been doing this for some time already. The new rules thus decree that it isn’t optional any more- so it’s going to be easier for those pesky lawyers to second-guess everything you do.
The changes also appear to bring ASB’s version of GAAS closer to that promulgated by PCAOB and GAO. Now mind you, this may not be such a terrible thing, but I’ve seen the other end of this equation- three workpapers to track down and document a $2 variance in petty cash. Let’s hope common sense is applied liberally to these new rules.
So….. are you and your partners sure you can explain why you did what you did to 12 people who couldn’t get out of jury duty- always a scary thought.
Bottom line: I see fees going up, number of audits and audit firms going down, and risk on engagements going up. What are you seeing out there?
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/%5D
As CPAs, we are entrusted with confidential client information on a daily basis. The net result of this added information is an increased vulnerability to scams, and one could argue that we have an increased responsibility to be more vigilant.
This morning, I ran across an email from PayPal (eBay’s payment service) listing their Top Ten Ways to Spot Spoofed E-mails. Essential reading for all staff and partners – because the people who generally get sucked into these scams are the people who know the least about computers. Although I don’t agree with the author’s premise that there’s a toolbar to solve any problem (I pretty much oppose any toolbar except the Google toolbar (sans information sharing)), I think the information is well written and communicates good tips to the average user.