Former WageWorks CFO, CEO Settle Accounting Case
Two top rated previous executives of worker gains administrator WageWorks have settled expenses that they misled company accountants and auditors, resulting in the improper recognition of $3.six million in profits from a consumer.
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, previous CEO Joseph Jackson and previous CFO Colm Callan unsuccessful to disclose that the consumer was balking at creating payments for progress and transition perform under a contract to deliver gains servicing to sure community-sector staff members.
At one particular issue, when an audit business associate questioned about an unpaid invoice, both Jackson and Callan allegedly mentioned the consumer had turned down the invoice for the reason that it had been submitted in the mistaken format and that WageWorks expected to be compensated after it resubmitted its invoice.
In 2018, after the company’s auditor figured out that the consumer did not intend to pay out the $3.six million, WageWorks restated its financials for the next quarter, 3rd quarter, and fiscal 12 months of 2016, reversing the complete total of profits it had beforehand acknowledged.
Jackson and Callan resigned from WageWorks when the restatement was declared in April 2018. Callan had joined WageWorks as CFO in September 2014 after doing work at PayPal and eBay.
To settle the SEC’s expenses of accounting violations, Jackson agreed to pay out a $75,000 penalty and reimburse WageWorks about $one.9 million in incentive-based mostly payment and earnings from the sale of shares, and Callan agreed to pay out a $one hundred,000 penalty and reimburse WageWorks $157,590 in payment.
“Jackson and Callan consistently unsuccessful to share critical information and facts about WageWorks’s capability to acquire a major receivable with WageWorks’s interior accounting personnel and exterior auditor,” Erin Schneider, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Business, mentioned in a information release.
“Public firms and their executives need to take into account all content points — not just the kinds that are favorable to their situation — when creating fiscal reporting decisions,” she extra.
The March one, 2016 contract essential WageWorks to undertake progress and transition perform to get ready for assuming responsibility for processing statements on Sept. one, 2016. As early as April 2016, the SEC mentioned in an administrative get, Jackson and Callan “were aware of [the client’s] situation that it did not intend to pay out for” the preparatory perform.
The SEC famous that based mostly on WageWorks’s 2016 fiscal overall performance, Jackson and Callan both gained cash bonuses.
WageWorks was acquired by HealthEquity for $2 billion in August 2019.