Strategic Finance articles from April 2006

Strategic Finance archives from April 2006

Integrating project professionals into your team.(Careers)
April 1, 2006... In the past, many organizations viewed the use of temporary talent as merely a means of filling shortterm staffing gaps due to employee absences. Today's accounting and finance departments, however, engage interim staff to gain specialized...

Three-questions accounting: this proposed new name for Throughput Accounting shows that we have to answer three important questions to see if a decision is good for a company.(Management Accounting)
April 1, 2006... There has been quite a lot of discussion regarding the Theory of Constraints' (TOC) approach to management accounting, which has become known as Throughput Accounting (TA). Some people have called it a new paradigm in management accounting, but...

Who's reading your office e-mail? Is that legal?(HR Management)
April 1, 2006... YESTERDAY, as you sat working at your desk, you checked your e-mail and spotted a note from a friend. The message was an off-color joke complete with graphic illustration. Sure, some stick-in-the-mud might find it offensive, but it was awfully...

21st century paper.(End Note)
April 1, 2006... Due to be released later this spring, the Sony[R] Reader may take a significant step forward, improving a 2,000-year-old technology--paper. The most striking feature of the new book and document reader is its "screen." The E Ink[R] Imaging Film...

Tyco: an ethical metamorphosis.(Ethics)(Company overview)
April 1, 2006... Because of the sudden and untimely passing of Carl Menconi (see a tribute to his IMA service in "Perspectives," p. 6), it was necessary for the IMA Board of Directors to appoint a new chair of the Ethics Committee. We are pleased to welcome Bob...

Finding the right mix: how to match strategy and management practices to enhance firm performance.(Performance Management)
April 1, 2006... Lara was a new division manager at a poultry products company. During her first week on the job, she asked each staff member about the strategic purpose of major reports and business practices. Often the answer was, "I'm not sure. We've just...

The fallacy of safe harbors: managing for value in the private firm.(Financial Management)
April 1, 2006... A PRIVATE FIRM once prospered by churning out steady revenues and profits, gliding along like a schooner with fair wind in its sails. True, it passed first through a treacherous start-up, with survival far from certain, but thereafter it found...

As time passes by ...(Message from the Chair)(Obituary)
April 1, 2006... IMA lost a true friend in February when Carl Menconi, chair of IMA's Ethics Committee, passed away. Carl was what IMA is all about. He was a friendly person and always had a kind word for everyone. A true professional, he had a good perspective...

Establishing an effective internal audit department: it's a critical part of corporate governance and a good way to advance your business.(ANNUAL CONFERENCE TOPIC)
April 1, 2006... The demand for internal auditing services has skyrocketed with two recent events. First, Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) mandated public companies to include with their annual report an internal control report that contains an...

Leslie Seidman reappointed to FASB.(NEWS)
April 1, 2006... IMA member Leslie F. Seidman, CPA, has been reappointed to a five-year term as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Her new term starts on July 1, 2006, and runs through June 30, 2011. Before joining the Board in...

Thank you.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Dear IMA-This is just a quick note to say "thank you." My membership has already proved to be meaningful to me-and not in a way that I had initially intended. Just prior to completing my MBA, I was selected as a finance intern at a small...

One more SOX roundtable.(Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002)
April 1, 2006... The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) will hold its latest Sarbanes-Oxley complaint-fest on May 10 amid some signs that business grumbling about the SEC regulations implementing SOX and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's...

SOX as opportunity.(The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002)
April 1, 2006... Most management accountants regard the new internal control and attestation requirements brought by the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 with disdain. Not only are they time-consuming, but they're expensive to implement. A 2004 Financial...

Classic investment advice updated.(Book review)
April 1, 2006... Investors and creditors who hope to obtain more satisfactory long-term results and a higher total return than could be obtained using other investment methods might want to read The Aggressive Conservative Investor, by Martin J. Whitman and...

Digital handwriting.(Logitech Inc)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The Logitech(r) io2(tm) Digital Pen converts handwriting (print or cursive) into digital text and also drawings for use in notes, Word documents, and e-mails. The latest version of the io2 has improved handwriting recognition, the pen is...

Handy utilities.(tools of the trade)
April 1, 2006... TechSmith Corp.'s latest version of SnagIt, v.8,is a complete screen capture utility that lets you capture anything on your screen and then share it in the form of prints, e-mail, instant messages, and on the Web, or you can just save your...

Smart salvage.(tools of the trade)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... What do you do with your laptop when it dies? Depending on what caused its demise, there are a couple of salvageable parts you should consider. You might not want the removable 3.5" floppy drive, but if the hard drive is still O.K., it not only...

Paper's back.(Logitech's io2 Digital Writing System)
April 1, 2006... * O.K., SO MAYBE IT'S TIME TO ADMIT that the paperless office is, and always was, a chimera-an illusion, a fabrication of digital politics and marketing. And, no, that doesn't mean we'll be returning to the age of the ink-stained wretch of the...

Does XBRL cost too much?(XBRL (Document markup language))
April 1, 2006... Followers of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) have no doubt heard the claim that XBRL will increase costs for companies who prepare Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) filings in XBRL. Critics complain that additional costs...