News

Mayer Hoffman McCann has been censured by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The CPA firm has been ordered to pay almost $757,000 in disgorged profits, prejudgment interest and civil money penalties. The firm drew the action because one of its audit clients invested in CBIZ, with which it is associated. The SEC views Mayer Hoffman and CBIZ as one entity for auditor independence purposes.

The boom in subscribers for Intuit's QuickBooks Online shows no sign of slowing. The company this week reported there were 965,000 subscribers for the Internet-based accounting system on April 30 when the third quarter of the current fiscal year closed. It would take a major setback for the number to not pass 1 million in the July quarter.

The American Institute of CPAs has issued a Six-Point Plan to Improve Audits, which the organization says is part of its effort to drive higher audit performance. The plan concentrates on financial statement audits for American private companies, employee benefit plans and governmental entities.

Sage is preparing to release a new software product, Sage Life, that will be available in the cloud. Built on the SalesForce 1 platform, the application is anticipated to be ready for general availability when Sage hosts its annual Summit conference in late July. The company said pricing will be available with the general release.