Not all doom and gloom

While it’s been an intense few years for CFOs and treasurers, there’s some good news: Their salary increases have outpaced those of their colleagues in other parts of the company. That said, the rate of increase dropped between 2008 and 2009, according to the 2010 AFP Compensation Survey.

In 2009, corporate finance pros saw a boost in their pay checks of 2.5 percent on average. While fairly modest, and far below the 3.5 percent jump in 2008, the increases were about 13 percent above those going to employees in other parts of most companies. The average treasurer took home $171,000 in base salary in 2010, compared to $165,600 in 2009. Directors of treasury and finance earned $128,400 in 2010, versus $125,400 a year earlier. more

Small businesses are up in arms about a provision in the health reform law that will require them to submit a 1099 form to every vendor that they buy goods from, if their total annual purchase from that vendor comes to $600 or more (as I noted here). They’re worried that compliance will mean a heavy addition to their already crushing load of paperwork.

Republicans in Congress agree, and have proposed repealing the provision. But any such move would only perpetuate massive tax evasion by vendors, according to a report released today by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. more

One characteristic of high-performing sales-and-use tax functions is that they frequently conduct internal audits — aka reverse audits or refund studies — to make sure that the taxes they’ve paid were in fact due (see my June blog on a recent Aberdeen Group study). To get a better idea of how reverse audits work, I interviewed Michael Moore, managing director at audit firm CBIZ MHM, who says that his firm has been seeing a lot of interest in this area among clients. more

If your organization handles credit card data, there is no avoiding PCI. Most organizations treat it as an inconvenient fact of business life. They want to minimize the expense and effort of PCI compliance.

A month doesn’t go by that something isn’t in the news about PCI. Last month, it was reminders about the deadline to eliminate designated vulnerable PCI applications. That’s a serious concern. Click here for a list of these applications.

The goal of PCI efforts, however, should not be compliance for its own sake but better security of credit card information. It is about reducing risk to the organization and to the cardholders whose data is at risk. These are your customers. Losing sight of this goal leads organizations into making four critical mistakes, according to Tripwire, a PCI compliance tools provider. more