A Thought Leader Production by PKFTexas
Jen: This is The PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook®. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back again with Nicole Riley, a Director on our audit team and one of the faces of PKF Texas’ not-for-profit team. Nicole, welcome back to The Playbook.
Nicole: Thanks. Glad to be here.
Jen: So, audits. You know, it’s the beginning of the year, people are starting to get things pulled together for their audit process. What could a not-for-profit organization do to make that process smoother when it comes time?
Jen: This is The PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook®. I’m Jen Lemanski and I’m back once again with Carlos Gomez, an audit manager, and one of the faces of PKF Texas’ Contract Compliance Services team. Carlos, welcome back to The Playbook.
Carlos: Thanks for having me, Jen.
Jen: So, we’ve been talking about different kind of audits throughout the series, and how about you share a little bit about what a royalty audit is.
Carlos: A lot of royalty audits that we performed is on behalf of a client who is not necessarily in a certain industry, whether it be consumer goods, toys, apparel, those types of things. And for this specific instance, we have a client who is in the automotive industry, and a way to build their brand recognition and loyalty is to have toys and have apparel. And so, a kid gets a truck, and his dad has a Ford F-150, and they get a Ford F-150 toy car for Christmas. It kind of builds that loyalty and brand loyalty.
Jen: So, when they’re building that brand loyalty, where does the royalty audit come in?
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Continue Reading Royalty Audit – What is it and What are the Benefits?
Jen: This is The PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook®. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back again with Carlos Gomez, an audit manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Contract Compliance Services team. Carlos, welcome back to The Playbook.
Carlos: Hey Jen. Thank you.
Jen: In a previous episode, we talked about operational management audits, and you mentioned about findings and how we could find up to 10%. That sounds like a lot to me. What do we do in that process and what do findings look like?
Carlos: When we say 10% like that, that’s an industry standard throughout most contract compliance engagements. It’s 10% upon the amount of what we’re auditing or what our coverage is; whether it be gross sales or royalties, 10% is what we typically see. But we’ve had cases where certain clients I’ve seen have recovered 45% up to 100%, and that includes interest and audit fees on top of that, once those are recovered, because they meet a certain threshold within the agreement that now that third party is responsible for the fees. And then another great thing to keep in mind, too, is that the return on investment, like, our fees are never going to encompass the total amount that we find for you.
Jen: So, when we say recovered fees, what does that exactly mean? Is it something that was missing in the contract? Was it something that one of the parties didn’t do? Explain what that looks like.
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Continue Reading Recovering Fees in Operational Management Audits – A Closer Look
Jen: This is The PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook®. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m here with Kristin Ryan, an Audit Senior Manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Employee Benefit Plan Team. Kristin, welcome back to The Playbook.
Kristin: Thanks. Good to be back.
Jen: So, in the past, we’ve talked about fiduciaries, risk, that kind of thing, and I’ve heard that there’s been some litigation against fiduciaries. What kind of issues are you seeing in this space right now?
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Continue Reading Reducing Risk of Litigation Against Fiduciaries
Jen: This is The PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back again with Carlos Gomez, an Audit Manager and one of the faces of our PKF Texas Contract Compliance Services team. Carlos, welcome back to the Playbook.
Carlos: Hi, Jen.
Jen: Can you give me a little bit of background – what is a management or an operational agreement audit?
Carlos: What these typically entail is we have a client who has a third party that manages – whether it’s residential or commercial buildings – for them and their tenants.
Jen: What types of things are involved in this audit? Are there any risks associated with doing this type of audit?
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Continue Reading Navigating Management Operational Agreement Audits
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back once again with Kristin Ryan, an Audit Senior Manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Employee Benefit Plan audit team. Kristin, welcome back to the Playbook.
Kristin: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jen: Well, with all the M&A activities starting to happen and expected to ramp up, how does that impact benefit plans and sponsors’ and fiduciaries’ decisions regarding plans?
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Continue Reading The Impact of M&A on Employee Benefit Plans
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back once again with Kristin Ryan, an Audit Senior Manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Employee Benefit Plan team. Kristen, welcome back to the Playbook.
Kristin: Thanks for having me.
Jen: So, we’ve had a webinar on it, you’ve done some Entrepreneur’s Playbooks on it, but there’s so much to cover between the SECURE Act and the CARES Act. What else do our folks need to know?
Byron: Welcome to The PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. My name is Byron Hebert. I’m the Chief Growth Officer here at PKF Texas, and today I want to introduce you to two of the faces of PKF Texas, Matt Goldston and Sam Razmandi.
We’re going to talk to you today about one of the services PKF offers: our Outsourced Controller and CFO Program in the Entrepreneurial Advisory Service Department. Both these guys are experts in this area, and so I’m really excited to introduce them to you. Let’s start with Matt.
Matt, why would a company outsource their controller or CFO function?
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Continue Reading What are Outsourced Controller and CFO Services?
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back once again with Carlos Gomez, an Audit Manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Contract Compliance Services team. Carlos, welcome back to the playbook.
Carlos: Hey, Jen.
Jen: We’ve talked about a whole bunch of different agreements with Contract Compliance Services, and I know you’ve mentioned management operation agreements. Are those kind of the whole agreement over everything?
Carlos: It has to do a lot with real estate or energy production. There’ll be cases where you may own some land or a building and someone’s actually doing the renting out of it on your behalf. Whether it be commercial, residential or you have the rights to a well, and someone’s doing the production of the oil from there.
Jen: So, what would trigger a company to say, “Yes, I need a management or an operation agreement?”
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Continue Reading Management Operation Agreements – Locally and Globally
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back once again with Carlos Gomez, an Audit Manager and one of the faces of the PKF Texas Contract Compliance Services team. Carlos, welcome back the Playbook.
Carlos: Thanks, Jen.
Jen: So, Carlos, you and I have talked off video about licensing and royalty audits. Are they the same thing?
Carlos: They’re just a term that’s synonymous with licensing. Royalties are just the funds that you receive from your contract agreement, whether it be a licensed franchise or just a vender.
Jen: So, are these very commonplace in the contract compliance services world?
Carlos: They are. Royalties is basically your revenue, as rather being a licensor; that’s where you get your money from. It’s your third party that’s collecting their share and then paying forward your share.
Jen: Is there a chance of misreporting going on during a license agreement?
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Continue Reading Red Flags in Licensing and Royalty Audits