A Salary.com survey ranked public accounting among the best jobs for career-changing professionals, citing a projected 10-year job growth rate of 22% and salary range of $36,800 to $90,700.

More than 30% of career-switchers surveyed said they’d spend “as long as it takes” to complete the required schooling and certification. But what are these professionals looking for in their new CPA career? As expected, increased pay and advancement opportunities, but also mental stimulation and challenges, passion for the work, flexible schedules, business networking and peer interaction.

Source: www.salary.com. 

The study found that, although employers held a particular interest in the retirement forecasts of their older workers, only one-third had made projections about retirement to a great (10%) or moderate extent (24%).

Source: The National Study Report, www.bc.edu/agingandwork.

Nearly 80% of adults in serious relationships have never hidden financial information from their spouses or partners, according to a Harris Interactive Personal Finance Poll.

Despite this apparent honesty, more than half (51%) of survey respondents still argued about finances. The most common disagreements included: irresponsible spending (19%), not saving enough (10%), not paying bills on time (7%) and not consulting with one another before making a purchase (6%).

Source: Harris Interactive, www.harrisinteractive.com .

Have a long-term goal to reduce your overhead and operating budget? Every few years firms can schedule professional energy audits, which pinpoint where your office is wasting energy and suggest how to increase efficiency. Follow these simple tips to keep your employees comfortable while cutting your summer energy bill:

Install a programmable thermostat. If your office is empty at night, don’t waste energy and money by cooling it when you’re off the clock—set it to click on an hour or two before employees arrive in the morning.

Replace standard light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. While slightly more expensive than the traditional bulbs used in desk lamps or hanging fixtures, fluorescent bulbs use less energy, last for several years and produce little heat.

Turn up the thermostat two or three degrees. Employees will barely notice the negligible temperature change, but you’ll see a huge difference on the monthly bill.

Set computers to “sleep” or “hibernate” when not in use. Choose this energy-saving setting for your work computer while at home and vice versa. And remember to turn off and unplug all electronics while on vacation.

Also, the next time you’re in the market for new breakroom appliances, office equipment or electronics, look for products with the “Energy Star” sticker, which meet or exceed Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency standards, or browse the program’s Web site, www.energystar.gov, before you head to the store.

Source: www.bankrate.com.

According to a survey by Robert Half International and CareerBuilder.com, only 44% of workers are satisfied with executive performance and 40% believe executives are trustworthy. The percentage of employees who think executives lead by example and are able to motivate staff drops even lower, to 36% and 34%, respectively.

Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder.com, notes, “Line managers have the benefit of being able to build rapport through daily interactions, whereas corporate executives typically must rely on more formal communication channels, which may not always be effective.”

Source: www.roberthalf.com/pressroom.

About 54% of the fake currency collected was produced digitally, most likely using home computers and printers; in 1996, only 1% was made using digital technology.

Source: USA Today.

As technology advances, so do the tricks spammers use to deliver junk mail to your inbox. Save time, energy and IT resources by following these tips to reduce the unsolicited, and sometimes dangerous, messages:

Don’t reply to spam, even to request removal. Any reply to spammers will confirm your e-mail address is active, often increasing the number of messages you’ll receive.

Remove your e-mail address from public sites. On business sites, install a Web-based mail form for potential client inquiries. On public sites, such as newsgroups and bulletin boards, use an alternate free address.

Read privacy policies. Opt out of third-party offers and avoid submitting your address completely to sites that don’t post a privacy policy. The option to receive these “partner” offers is often selected automatically, so look for a box to uncheck.

Block graphics in HTML messages. Only download pictures in HTML e-mails sent from sources you know and trust. Graphics are often linked to spammers’ Web servers, which, when downloaded, verify your e-mail address.

Source: U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, www.us-cert.gov, and Microsoft, www.microsoft.com.

Like the proverbial elephant described by blind men, company performance and value are parts of the same beast but feel vastly different to managers and investors. In Performance Dashboards and Analysis for Value Creation, former public-company CFO Jack Alexander, now head of Value Advisory Group LLC, shows how they fit together. While the dashboard metaphor of the title may be familiar to many readers, the book goes beyond management assessment to demystify finance and link it to business operations, with an emphasis on long-term sustainable growth.

The first section covers metrics of business fundamentals—many of them basic but some, like economic value added and return on invested capital, especially useful in building what Alexander in the middle section expounds as a “value performance framework.” He then describes tools to promote performance and value simultaneously. Often in many companies, obvious factors such as sales growth are overemphasized at the expense of operating and capital efficiency, cost of capital and intangibles, all of which can be crucial in contracting markets.

Alexander strives to bridge what often is a chasm between finance and performance management. Where other books might dwell on the accounting niceties of a capital assets pricing model, for example, he offers a common-sense explanation of how cost of capital affects value.

An accompanying CD-ROM contains more than 30 Microsoft Excel workbook models and exercises in which readers can plug in their own financial data to put the book’s concepts into practice. 

The percentage of financial institutions with a chief risk officer on staff. Another 8% plan to add this position.

Source: Deloitte & Touche USA LLP’s Accelerating Risk Management Practices , www.deloitte.com .

According to Grant Thornton’s 14th Annual Survey of Bank Executives, more than seven in 10 bankers (73%) plan to increase technology spending in 2007. Respondents cited several technology issues as important to their banks’ success, including:

Protecting customers’ information (96%).
Assuring the security of Internet services (94%).
Verifying systems operations and controlling technology risks (89%).
Complying with regulations (88%).

Source: www.grantthornton.com/banksurvey .

The latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report found the underground networks and servers used to sell stolen data are becoming increasingly collaborative. During the last half of 2006, the number of computers infected by malicious bots grew by 29% to 6 million, while the number of servers relaying commands to these bots actually fell by 25%. The majority (51%) of all identified underground servers are in the U.S.

Hackers are going after particular pieces of confidential information, such as birthdates and Social Security, credit card and bank account numbers, which together form an identity. Symantec reported the rising number of Trojans and bot networks, which allow hackers to remotely access computers, caused a 48% increase in threats to this confidential information. In the underground economy, complete identities are worth $14 to $18, whereas individual credit card numbers only fetch $1 to $6.

Source: www.symantec.com/threatreport.

Ramona Tucker, of Greenville, S.C., just can’t seem to keep from helping herself. She faces 24 to 30 months in prison for embezzling money from her employer to pay restitution from two previous embezzlement convictions.

Masakazu Kamitanida, of Tokyo, picked the wrong location for his scam. He went to the top floor of a three-story apartment building and tried to pass himself off as a fellow resident who needed to borrow cash due to a death in the family. It didn’t take the authorities long to figure out what was going on; the fraudster had inadvertently picked a building that housed executives of the Tokyo police department.

—Joseph T. Wells, CPA, CFE, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners