Tag: business intelligence

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Knowing More: CFO and Accountant Value in Understanding Business Operations

Knowing More: CFO and Accountant Value in Understanding Business Operations

Accounting professionals are being pressured to deliver more value and intelligence to their business clients every day.  The pressure comes from a variety of areas, not the least of which is the fact that a lot of do-it-yourself tools are now available which lead business owners and managers to believe that they know what’s going on in the business.  Lots of charts, graphs, and dashboard presentations make the numbers more readable, but they don’t say whether or not the numbers are even right.  Even more important, they don’t deliver insight based on experience and understanding.  This is where the accounting professional’s value really comes from – providing insight based on good data and quality data analysis backed by experience and understanding of the business.

You can’t be a good CFO or a strategic business partner to your CEO until you thoroughly understand operations and how they drive performance,
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1rtoZ)

Knowing what makes a business valuable is important, but what many business owners don’t fully understand is how to best increase that value.  Generalized reports which summarize financial information, distilling it into a standard set of metrics, often don’t tell the business owner what they really need to know – how to go about increasing the overall value of their business, whether it is through improved profitability or through growth.

The business owner understands the operations, but not necessarily how operational activities actually impact value and profitability.  Helping owners know more about their enterprises requires that the accounting professional also know more, where gaining a deep understanding of operations and learning what business functions are addressed and how becomes the key to bridging the gap between operational knowledge and business valuation. This is where the accounting professional or CFO can really make a difference, and can help to apply their knowledge in building business value directly towards those areas which fundamentally impact it.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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Reinventing your Business – What Happens When Systems Fail?

Reinventing your Business – What Happens When Systems Fail?

There is a lot of discussion today about how our children are growing up in a world where high technology is simply part of life and lifestyle.  I even read an article about how people are evolving because of the availability of information; evolving to the point where we no longer store and retrieve information, but store information on how to get information.  The article cited an example of someone who couldn’t recall the name of an actress in a movie they had seen, so the immediate response was to search for the answer on Google.  In the past, people relied upon memory, and found various ways to mentally associate and store information so it was able to be recalled.  Now, there’s an app for that.

Are we losing our ability to effectively store and recall information?  Are we forgetting how to do things before we had all this technology to help us?  It makes you wonder sometimes, how technology-dependent we are. We look at the ruins of past civilizations and view seemingly impossible structures, (impossible given what we know about the technology available at the time) and wonder how they came to be.  The knowledge was there at some point, but is now lost.

Is your business at risk from a similar fate?  Maybe it sounds silly, but it makes sense to at least think about it, because there are a lot of companies out there today that are not paying attention to critical issues such as knowledge management and sustainability.  Finding ways to capture business knowledge and protect it is essential in every organization, whether small business or large enterprise.

Small businesses are often centered on an owner who started the operation, and who just knows how things are done.  The primary goal in this situation is to capture that knowledge and turn it into process.   Only through this approach may a business begin to reduce its reliance upon a single individual, and this is a critical step in creating both sustainability and continuity in the business. In larger enterprises, process and structure are essential to keep the various parts and participants moving in the same general direction.

Once those processes are established, generally using technology to support or facilitate them, is that the end of the task?  Many businesses seem to believe so, and move along with the impression that they have things well in hand.  And then a major system or technology failure occurs, and folks are left standing around, unable to get their jobs done.  In the worst cases, there isn’t anyone in the business who really understands how to pull things back together or there is no longer access to electronically stored information necessary to continue operations.  How would you handle things if your systems – your computers and software and systems – were no longer available to you?

While GPS and high-tech auto-pilot systems can bring tremendous efficiencies to the process of flying, they also can give a false sense of security that encourages complacency. If something goes wrong, the auto-pilot will adjust and the computer will tell you where to go, won’t it?

Here is where technology has the ability to distract pilots–and entrepreneurs–from asking themselves if they’re both focused on and capable of solving the right problems.

http://www.inc.com/chris-mittelstaedt/business-lessons-from-air-france-447-crash.html

Each and every business must consider how they would address a severe information technology outage, and should take steps to protect and preserve business knowledge so that there is some hope of recovery from such an event.  In an article on Inc.com (Survival Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs), writer Chris Mittelstaedt makes this observation, and suggests that business owners address how they might get things done “old school”, just in case all this nifty technology fails us unexpectedly.

Make sense?

J

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Accountants and Small Manufacturers

rollingballGetting in Front of the Ball

There’s a lot more to accountability in a manufacturing or inventory-based business than simply keeping track of money in and money out.  Particularly in an economy when nobody can afford to build or stock products too far ahead of demand, it is essential that these businesses have a means to not only track and manage purchasing, manufacturing, distribution and stocking activities, but to understand conditions or trends which impact the flow of materials and cash through the business.  Further, this understanding must come in a timely manner in order for the business owner to make decisions and take action when it matters most.  Unfortunately, many business owners find themselves “behind the ball”, constantly pushing to make forward strides, and often due to not having the information they need to make business decisions that matter now, today.

Why is it so critical for these businesses to have more and better information to help them make strategic decisions and answer daily operational questions?  In a word: connectedness.  The Internet has truly made the world smaller when it comes to participation with even the smallest of local businesses.  Globalization of markets has impacted manufacturers in significant ways, and these businesses (like so many others) must now be prepared to address the realities of global supply chains, outsourcing, and a remote or mobile workforce and market.  While many of the software solutions addressing the functional business requirements of manufacturing and inventory or warehouse management are “locally implemented” solutions, extending and integrating these solutions to address the new global and mobile paradigm may represent a significant expenditure in time and resources for the small enterprise.

Application hosting and web-based solutions have emerged to help businesses address the need to “modernize” legacy applications and enable greater levels of system management and access.  Introducing the applications into a centralized and remotely accessible environment allows the business to immediately deliver the necessary support for remote work and mobile access, and positions the system to facilitate collaboration within the business and with outside participants, such as outsourced bookkeepers, accounting and finance professionals.

These professionals can be instrumental in assisting their clients manage the change to new collaborative computing paradigms.  Where accounting was previously viewed as an after-the-fact process, accountability through detailed activity tracking and reporting is now a focus which begins at the front end of the business, and accounting professionals are finding far greater value in helping structure and manage this daily activity in order to deliver greater operational information and insight.  Rather than being the last people to know what is happening in the business, accounting professionals are recognizing that their ability to positively impact business performance requires getting “in front of the ball”, initiating process structure, data control and collection which ultimately results in better and more informed decision-making through better and more timely access to more meaningful information.

Businesses at all levels are realizing that new computing paradigms can ease the burdens of collecting and sharing information, yet most small companies need help in determining exactly how to approach this “enabling” of the business and systems.  While accountants are also experiencing dramatic change in how they do business, it makes sense for them to embrace the opportunity and recognize that enabling client systems will ultimately allow the accounting professional to work more closely and to deliver more tangible value to their client on an ongoing basis.  Online accounting approaches are no longer a fad but are the new reality supporting how many bookkeepers and accountants work with their business clients.  Extending access beyond accounting and bookkeeping systems, and incorporating support for operational and line-of-business solutions, is the next step which will bring the accountant closer to the client business, and position both to benefit from deeper collaboration and useful insight.

Make Sense?

J

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Changing the Way You Work With Clients | Intuit News Central

What makes one tax return better than another, if they are both accurate?

Many accountants and tax preparers simply don’t recognize the additional value they could deliver to their small business clients, if only they would become more involved at the beginning of the accounting process where the information is generated and collected rather than taking a purely after-the-fact position and reporting only at the end of the cycle. Providing information after it is too late to do anything about it has little value in today’s fast-paced and competitive landscape. Small business owners tend to rely on those who help them; if your professional practice isn’t helping your clients in tangible ways, they will find someone else who does.

 

via Changing the Way You Work With Clients | Intuit News Central.

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You Spent What?! Keeping Tabs on Travel Expenses

You Spent What?! Keeping Tabs on Travel Expenses

In the world of business, it sometimes becomes necessary to travel. Whether it’s sending an employee to your client’s business in the next town or across the globe to make a deal, travel incurs expenses. How do you track those? Usually by painstakingly collecting receipts and keeping a copy of any travel itinerary. That’s an awful lot of paper.

Think about it. You get a receipt every time you make any kind of transaction. Let’s say you stop for gas on the way. You get a receipt. Take your client out for lunch? Receipt. Fly across the country? Another receipt, and an itinerary. It almost becomes necessary to get a folio just for receipts, you get so many. As a matter of fact, many do. Folios, folders, organizers. I’ve seen them all. Not one of them makes compiling the expense report easier. It still requires sorting and entering the data by hand. Such a waste of time. Time better spent on what you really need done. Making money and growing your business. Getting a report on what was spent, where it was spent, and how much to bill or reimburse should be as easy as clicking a couple of buttons. It’s not, but it should be.

Look at it from the other side of things. Let’s say I’m an employee and you’re sending me to Nashville to attend a conference. I’m also supposed to have a “meet n’ greet” with some clients, just to ensure that they’re happy and content. I’m stressed because I have to remember to keep every piece of paper I get on this trip. Plane tickets, rental car, hotel, food for myself, food for the clients. Everything. Not only do I have to keep track of it all but I don’t get compensated until after I get back, and only if I manage to keep all of those receipts.

Making the process easier is the next logical step when it comes to tracking expenses. Finding a way to cut down on the time it takes to compile the report, cut down on the number of receipts kept, or even getting rid of the need to keep the receipts at all. Everything under the sun is online these days. Online and paperless. It’s just easier than keeping a pound of receipt paper in your carry-on. With all of the technology that is readily available on today’s market, shouldn’t it be easier than that? One click should be all it takes. Okay, maybe two. My point is that it shouldn’t be pulling teeth just to keep everything in line and under control.

Which is why Concur is such a good thing. Concur.com has taken the headache out of the entire process. Snap a photo of your receipt with your smartphone and send it using Concur. It filters all of the data and attaches it directly to an expense report. It even integrates with Tripit, which allows you to maintain an up-to-date itinerary and travel management capabilities. Concur even tailors travel options based on company policy and individual preferences. Paperless and painless. Just what the doctor ordered.

Make Sense?

See Concur’s innovative and incredibly useful travel and expense management solutions at Cloud Summit 2012.

Get Cloud Summit information here.

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Arrest for Sales Tax Evasion in Tennessee | TaxRates.com

Business owners and CFOs are experiencing a crackdown on tax liability nonpayments. Cash is tight everywhere, and agencies will only increase collection and enforcement efforts – especially when it involves a public trust. Whether it is sales tax or payroll tax, noncompliance can mean a whole lot more than just fines and penalties.

http://wp.me/p2hGOJ-ft

via Arrest for Sales Tax Evasion in Tennessee | TaxRates.com.