Cloud accounting company Xero plans an initial public offering in the United States for the year ending March 31, 2015. The company is already public in Australia and New Zealand. The company did not give a more precise estimate of when the offering would be made or how big it may be, only that the timing depends on market conditions.

Four North American accounting firms were selected to Microsoft's Inner Circle this year. The Inner Circle is the software publisher's highest category for reselling honors and goes to the top 1 percent of firms worldwide. Even more CPA firms were named to the President's Club at the recent Worldwide Partner Conference.

A Utah CPA firm and two of its partners rubber-stamped the audit work conduct by the predecessor auditor of a Chinese company, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged this week. The SEC ordered a hearing to be conducted on its allegations that Russell E. Anderson and Marty Van Wagoner conducted virtually no audit work of their own regarding the 2009 financial statements of Yuhe International, which sells day-old chicken for the broiler market in China, and issued an unqualified opinion within three weeks after accepting the engagement.

A problem with a survey has led the American Institute of CPAs to abandon its plans to issue a list of Top Technologies for 2014. Although a survey was conducted to provide information to assemble the list, what was described as a "technical issue" caused the AICPA to forego making results public.