Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Private company financial chiefs are improving their accounting practices even though they’re not required to do so, a new survey by Robert Half Management Resources shows.
Forty-eight percent of chief financial officers surveyed say they have adjusted their firm’s processes since the introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley, new regulations for publicly held companies that call for more transparency and rigor.
Why? “There’s kind of a ripple effect from all the firms that private companies deal with,” says Jeff Meacham, senior account executive for Robert Half in Bloomington. But they’re not only following the lead of others.
“The really savvy private business owners know that this is a good thing to do,” Meacham says. “The accuracy of their financial information is not just up to their public accounting firm. It’s their personal responsibility.”
Payroll and benefits topped the list of areas where companies were making change, with 44 percent citing it. “Payroll and benefits is probably the No. 1 fixed cost most companies have,” Meacham notes. Once they hire a consultant or dedicate internal staff to examining those practices, they keep going.
Fifty-two percent of the 1,359 CFOs polled in the survey indicated they have not made any changes to their practices. “A lot of companies are taking their cue from public companies, but a lot are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” Meacham says. “More and more are going to jump on board.”
His advice: Look at accounting controls, either hiring a CPA firm or a consultant; create or expand an internal audit function; bring in an independent expert to look at policies and procedures; restructure boards to include independent outside directors, and remove the owner from the audit and compensation committees.
Jeff Meacham, Robert Half Management Resources: 952.831.7240; je**********@**mr.com; www.rhmr.com
