BOOKS
Bribe American
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Compliance Guidebook: Protecting
Your Organization from Bribery
and Corruption
Wiley; $65
Google says you’re a dog
Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and
Restore Your Online Reputation on the
Untamed Social Frontier
Amacom; $24.95
checklists, forms and worksheets to reduce
the pain and terror.
Once upon a time, U.S. businesses could
travel the world, happily dispensing envelopes full of cash in return for favors from local governments. The killjoys in Washington,
however, decided that American businesses
shouldn’t have any fun overseas, and passed
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to make
them behave.
With more and more small and midsized
companies selling outside the U.S., Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Guidebook is a must-read for understanding all
the many different ways that companies can
be exposed to the act’s harsh penalties, and
developing a compliance program. It also
gives an interesting history of the act, details
of current enforcement efforts, a couple of
in-depth case studies, and (our favorite) a
guide to worldwide hotspots for corruption.
As attractive as those places may sound,
though, enforcement of the FCPA is a high
priority these days, so businesses are well-advised to reserve their kickbacks for American officials.
A 1993 New Yorker cartoon shows a Web-surf-ing pooch saying, “On the Internet, nobody
knows you’re dog.” Nowadays, the Internet
might well be telling people you’re a dog
— whether you are or not. As Wild West 2.0
makes clear, the Web is an untamed frontier
where your reputation can be massively damaged without your even knowing. From the
embarrassing pictures you foolishly posted
on Facebook, to slander maliciously spread
by ex-employees or dissatisfied clients, the
Internet will host it all, and it’s up to you to
head it off. The book details the dangers with
some real-life stories of businesses damaged
by the Internet gone wild, and then offers up
a series of useful strategies for protecting
your reputation in cyberspace. You can start
by getting out there and owning your online
identity, and laying down a base of positive
or neutral content that will rise above any
later negative content. Should that fail, the
book also has tips for repairing a reputation
damaged by, for instance, scurrilous digital
accusations that you are, in fact, a dog.
mal style that communicates the key concepts without getting too bogged down in the
complicated numerical examples that terrify
so many people. While
it is primarily designed
to serve as a
textbook, we
imagine many
of your clients
could benefit
from reading
it as a refresher
course.
Alert
the FBI
The Risk Takers: 16 Women
and Men Share
Their Entrepreneurial
Strategies for
Success
Vanguard Press
(Perseus Books
Group); $29.95
Not just
for lawyers
Construction Accounting: A Guide
for Attorneys and
Other Professionals
American Bar Association; $159.95
Not rocks for jocks
Financial Accounting: A Course for All
Majors
Information Age
Publishing; paper
— $39.99, hardcover
— $73.99
Many colleges offer
courses that attempt
to explain complicated
subjects to non-experts,
making, say, geology or
astronomy or basket-weaving accessible to
someone who does not
plan to become a geo-logist or astronomer or
basket technician. The difference between those and
the course of study laid out
in Financial Accounting: A
Course for All Majors, by David O’Bryan, an accounting professor at Pittsburg State University, is that many people
who do not plan to be accountants still need
to be conversant with the basic principles of
financial accounting. The book is aimed at
them, written in a non-technical and infor-
Quis custodiet?
Guide to Quality Control for
Small- and
Medium-Sized
Practices
IFAC; free
When it comes to
quality control at accounting firms, one
might ask, in the spirit
of Roman satirist Juvenal, “Who controls
the quality controllers?”
And the answer, it seems,
might be the International Federation of Accountants, with its new Guide
to Quality Control for Small-and Medium-Sized Practices. The latest
edition of the free guide is aimed at helping firms implement its recent standards,
and includes an integrated case study, checklists and forms, and two sample quality control manuals. The question now becomes,
“Who controls the controllers of quality
controllers?”
Don’t be worried that Construction Accounting is put out by the American Bar Association: While some of the introductory material on basic financial accounting will be old
hat for you, much of what comes after delves
deeply into the arcana of accounting in this
particular field, and will prove a useful resource for accountants whose clients operate
in it — and for the clients themselves.
There are few better ways to learn
about business
success than by
studying successful
businesses, and The
Risk Takers brings together the stories of 16
high-achieving entrepreneurs to do just that. While
it contains plenty of useful pieces of advice,
the main message seems to be that successful
entrepreneurs ignore the advice of everyone
around them, trust their gut, and refuse to let
adversity defeat them. The interesting thing is
that these are characteristics shared by most
career criminals and international terrorists.
We wonder if the FBI and other federal authorities are aware of this.
Behind the curtain
Hire Your First Employee: The Entrepreneur’s Guide
to Finding,
Choosing and
Leading Great
People
The Planning Shop;
$24.95
As terrifying and
painful as the hiring process is for job
candidates, it’s just as
painful and terrifying
for the would-be employer — particularly if
they’re just starting out.
Hire Your First Employee
takes the wanna-be boss
through the whole process, with useful background on
labor laws, researching salary ranges, handling payroll and much more, with useful
The big choice
LLCs, LLPs and Partnerships:
Organization and
Operation
Lorman Education Services; CD and manual
— $369, manual only
— $129 (with WebCPA
discount)
With all the tax and liability issues surrounding the choice of business entity, it’s a decision
where your entrepreneurial clients can definitely
use sound guidance. This
CD and manual will keep
you up to date on the latest
developments and issues
regarding forming, operating
and terminating entities, as
well as transferring their interests.
