The congratulatory texts and tweets started the last week of November. Microsoft had overtaken Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, a stunning climax in a year that also saw it pass Amazon and Google’s Alphabet Inc. Longtime employees, who’d grown accustomed to thinking of Microsoft as far removed from its glory years, when it was run by Bill Gates and feared as the “Evil Empire,” were flooded ...

As Apple and Amazon compete for a greater share of consumer dollars and attention, they also have a particularly intimate business relationship: Apple is spending more than $30 million a month on Amazon’s cloud, according to people familiar with the arrangement. To read the full article in CNBC, click: Apple Spends More Than $30 Million on Amazon's Cloud Every Month, Making it One of the Biggest AWS Custome ...

Our firm bills clients in six-minute increments, so I've started tracking my beginning and ending time for each job in Excel. Is it possible to round my time calculations to the nearest six-minute increment (a 10th of an hour) in Excel? To read the full article in the Journal of Accountancy, click: Microsoft Office: Rounding Time in Excel. ...

Can you recommend a file-naming strategy that would make files easier to find on my computer—not just for me, but for others in my office in case I get hit by a bus? To read the full article in the Journal of Accountancy, click: Microsoft Windows: How to Best Name and Search for Files. ...

Q. I have a large Excel workbook with many worksheets, and I'd like to summarize the key elements of this workbook into a single dashboard-type report. What's the best way to do this? To read the full article in the Journal of Accountancy, click: Microsoft Excel: Create a Picture-Based Dashboard Report. ...

“One of the greatest powers is to be able to take one person’s idea [and] another person’s idea and make [them] more powerful by bringing them together.” To read the full article in Heleo, click: Know Thyself, Know Thy Company: Microsoft’s CEO on Seeking Purpose at Work. ...

FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board designed their converged revenue recognition standard to enhance comparability across industries.  But the standard has presented different implementation challenges to the various business sectors.  Ken Tysiac, Journal of Accountancy editorial director, explains. To read the full article in the Journal of Accountancy, click: How Revenue Recognition Chan ...

Microsoft Could Provide Early Test of New Lease Accounting Rules Microsoft had said it would adopt new lease accounting rules July 1 instead of waiting for 2019, when the rules take effect.  Microsoft's status as a large, high-profile company means other businesses will study its example. To read the full article in Bloomberg, click: Microsoft Among First to Give Fuller Picture of Lease Situation. ...

What is the difference between a company’s total capital value and enterprise value?  The difference between these two concepts is the treatment of cash.  In the following post, Z. Christopher Mercer, founder and CEO of Mercer Capital, examines the effect of cash on the relative valuation multiples of three public companies. To read the full article in Mercer Capital's Financial Reporting Blog, click: Marke ...

Will Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon continue to competitively price match, even if it’s not necessarily in the downward direction?  Barb Darrow, a senior writer at Fortune, discusses cloud pricing and how the changes may affect your company. To find out more on the Fortune article, click: Surprise!  The cost of cloud is about to rise. ...

  In the early days of the scandal surrounding LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, certain terms of his punishment by the NBA were a given. What no one was sure of was whether or not he would be forced to sell the team. As speculation turned into fact, it seemed as if valuation estimates for the team were coming out of the woodwork. Some said the team price tag could go as high as $1 billion. Earlier i ...

Because of increased IRS audit procedures, multi-national corporations face great risk when it comes to transfer pricing from both a compliance and tax planning perspective.  The familiar multi-nationals like Amazon or Microsoft have made headlines regarding transfer pricing disputes and adjustments that run into the billions.  In an excellent article by the Journal of Accountancy, small, closely-held compa ...