Strategic Finance articles from February 2009

Strategic Finance archives from February 2009

Keeping our resolutions.(PERSPECTIVES)
February 1, 2009... If you haven't made your New Year's resolutions yet, try some different ones, such as keeping a positive outlook, continuing to act ethically, or volunteering in your community. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] More than a month has passed since...

Ready to pay it forward? Give mentoring a try.(CAREERS)
February 1, 2009... Mentoring is often as rewarding for the mentor as it is for the mentee. Here are some valuable suggestions to help everyone get the most out of a mentoring relationship. Often we're so busy managing the crisis of the moment that we don't...

Incorporating IFRS into the accounting curriculum.(ACADEMIC CORNER)(International Financial Reporting Standards)(Column)
February 1, 2009... International Financial Reporting Standards are coming to the U.S., and students will need to be familiar with them. Here's a plan for teaching IFRS and some resources that can help. We may soon need to teach International Financial...

G30 report calls for Financial Reform.(NEWS)(Group of 30)
February 1, 2009... In July 2008, the Group of Thirty (G30), a private, non-profit international body of senior financial experts from the public and private sectors and academia, launched a project to examine the global financial crisis and make any...

IFAC issues paper on standards setting.(NEWS)(International Federation of Accountants)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has issued a paper that describes the international standards-setting process. Titled International Standard Setting in the Public Interest, it explains how public- and private-sector...

Schapiro era at SEC.(GOVERNMENT)(Mary Schapiro)(Securities & Exchange Commission)
February 1, 2009... Mary Schapiro, the new head of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), doesn't have much of a profile on financial reporting issues, coming as she does from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. That 3,000-employee agency is charged...

A taxes error?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... In the tax column article appearing in Strategic Finance, January 2009, I believe there is an error in the second example. When addressing the repayment of the tax credit, the calculation should be based on the initial credit taken by Genie...

SEC clears XBRL filing requirement.(GOVERNMENT)(Extensible Business Reporting Language )(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... One Chris Cox SEC initiative unlikely to be reversed is his drive to get corporations to file financial reports using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The SEC issued a final rule in mid-December that requires domestic and foreign...

CMA exam question writers wanted.
February 1, 2009... If you would like to use your experience and knowledge to help make the Certified Management Accountant (CMA[R]) exam better for everyone, then now is your chance. The Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA) updates the exam...

Improving employee-manager relationships.(30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers )(Book review)
February 1, 2009... Beyond having a catchy title, 30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers also contains some very relevant information for anyone in a supervisory position. The 30 reasons were gathered by Bruce Katcher over the past 15 years by reviewing and...

Healthy Savings: Health Savings Accounts and high-deductible health plans help fight the spiraling cost of health insurance for companies and employees.(COVER STORY)(Cover story)(Statistical data)(Column)
February 1, 2009... IF OUR OLD HEALTH INSURANCE PROVIDER hadn't announced it was going out of business a few years ago, I might not have had the push I needed to dive into other alternatives for our employees. Our premiums, like nearly everyone else's locally, had...

A Six Sigma approach to internal audits.(INTERNAL CONTROLS)
February 1, 2009... Regardless of whether your organization is large or small, as a management accountant or internal audit specialist, you're always trying to increase the effectiveness of various operational internal controls. You've no doubt heard about the...

Leading with your soul: the Comprehensive Ethical Leadership Model[TM] shows you how to create an ethical workplace that will lead to sustainability for your company.(ANNUAL CONFERENCE TOPIC)
February 1, 2009... One of the fundamental challenges of our time is ethical leadership. It has been discouraging to see the parade of corporate executives epitomizing corruption and wrongdoing in the recent past. The breach of trust brought about by Enron, Tyco,...

Mastering conditional formulas in Excel.(EXCEL)(Institute of Management Accountants)
February 1, 2009... You've probably used the IF function in Excel to perform simple conditional calculations. You can dramatically expand the power of the IF function by using functions such as AND, OR, and NOT. This month's article will take a look at these...

Reports: professionally present your query results.(ACCESS)
February 1, 2009... Once you have selected data in your query, it can be professionally presented in a report. Reports can be categorized as detail reports, summary reports, or exception reports. The choice of report type depends on whether you want to present...

Simpler isn't always better.(XBRL)
February 1, 2009... "Simple" is a great keyword to grab anyone's attention for marketing purposes. There's an ongoing tendency from inside and outside the XBRL community to propose assumptions or restrictions in the use of the XBRL 2.1 Specification in order to...

Tools of the trade.(TECHNOLOGY)(Consumer Electronics Show)
February 1, 2009... There were a number of devices announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 (CES) last month that were impressive enough for us to relax our usual rule of only covering hardware that has been released and is somewhere on store shelves....

Management skills are key.(IMAlife)(Personal account)
February 1, 2009... In 1985 I passed the Certified Management Accountant (CMA[R]) exam, which became a key milestone in my professional career. For the first time I began to view business information and decision making from a new perspective. Preparing for the...