Accounting & DisclosureTalking Shop
March 6, 2024

Talking Shop: Does IA Need Technical Accounting Black Belts?

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: In the world of accounting standards, a material weakness is “a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting (ICFR), such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.” The Sarbanes-Oxley…
BankingTalking Shop
February 28, 2024

Talking Shop: Bank Criteria for Granting Deposit Rate Premiums

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: The Federal Reserve’s 11 increases in the fed funds rate since March 2022 have changed bank deposit dynamics. NeuGroup senior executive advisor Jerry Olivo, a former banker who leads NeuGroup for Regional Bank Treasurers, says the higher rate environment means institutions now have to compete for so-called sticky deposits as customers move money elsewhere.…
Talking Shop
February 14, 2024

Talking Shop: Limits in Treasury for Approving Funds Transfers

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Setting limits on the size of funds transfers that individuals on a treasury team can approve is a basic part of effective risk management, good governance and sensible treasury policies. The question is how to determine the dollar amounts. For context on the issue, NeuGroup Insights reached out to members with longtime…
Talking ShopTax
January 17, 2024

Talking Shop: How Do You Process Tax Payments?

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Member question: “I wanted to ask how your organizations process tax payments (federal, state, sales and use, etc.)? Through your ERP system, via manual wires, direct debit or using outside vendors?”NeuGroup Insights asked the questioner about the circumstances at his company that led to his question. His reply: “Tax payments are very complicated,…
Risk ManagementTalking Shop
December 7, 2023

Talking Shop: Defining the Scope of Fraud Risk Assessments

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Fraud risk assessments performed by internal auditors are designed to identify a company’s vulnerabilities to internal and external fraud, including embezzlement, asset misappropriation, misstatement of financial information, corruption and cybercrime. According to a position paper by The Institute of Internal Auditors, “organizations should have robust internal control procedures to limit the risk of fraud,…
Senior ExecutiveTalking Shop
November 29, 2023

Talking Shop: Spend Authorization Limits for CFOs and CEOs

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Delegation of authority policies are an important part of good corporate governance and critical for companies structuring and implementing financial controls and setting limits for spend authorization as well as payment approvals. Financial authority policies cover employees inside and outside of treasury and other finance teams, and at some companies they are wide-ranging.…
Risk ManagementTalking Shop
November 8, 2023

Talking Shop: Bloomberg Usage Fees for IBOR Fallback Rates

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: For some corporates, the transition from the London interbank offered rate (Libor) to risk-free reference rates—such as the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR)—included the decision to adopt so-called fallback language in existing derivative contracts covered by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). During the yearslong process, ISDA created the IBOR Fallbacks Supplement to…
FXTalking Shop
November 2, 2023

Talking Shop: The Pros and Cons for FX of More Frequent Netting

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: The gross magnitude of inter- and intracompany payables and receivables at multinational companies has made intercompany netting processes essential for efficient global cash operations. With proper setup, an effective netting program will reduce foreign exchange and payment costs, simplify transaction and reconciliation processes and optimize cash concentration. Similarly, the practice of centralizing the buying…
Cash & Working CapitalTalking Shop
October 19, 2023

Talking Shop: Cleaning Up a Messy Short-Term Cash Forecast

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Cash forecasting is a perennial challenge for both treasury and FP&A teams, but the two functions tend to approach the problem from different perspectives. Treasury, responsible for short-term liquidity and cash management, depends more on bottom-up, direct forecasts. FP&A, concerned with planning and budgeting for the longer term, typically uses a top-down,…
BankingRisk ManagementTalking Shop
October 5, 2023

Talking Shop: Account Verification Solutions for Payments Fraud

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Payments fraud remains a significant threat to corporates—although some research shows it declined in 2022. The 2023 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey reported that 65% of organizations surveyed were victims of reported or actual payments fraud last year. That’s down from 71% in 2021 and the lowest percentage of fraud activity since 2014,…