Strategic Finance articles from October 2007

Strategic Finance archives from October 2007

Our future.(Perspectives)
October 1, 2007... Last month I devoted my column to membership, particularly the need to engage young professionals. Not only are we designing programs to attract young professionals, but we also have a fantastic program for students. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

A time for change.(Top Line)
October 1, 2007... The opportunity to improve the accountancy profession is massive. If we were to focus just on providing education and certification for entry-level professionals that actually addressed the nature of the work they will be performing in...

Does terror-free investing help stop terrorism?(Ethics)
October 1, 2007... One of the latest investment trends gaining momentum is the concept of terror-free investing. By choosing to divest in or avoid buying the stock of companies that do business with or in countries that are listed by the U.S. government as state...

COSO releases internal control discussion document.(News)(Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission)
October 1, 2007... Last month the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) released Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems,a discussion document whose information is designed to help organizations monitor the quality of...

More accountants are audit committee chairs.(News)
October 1, 2007... Over the last five years, the number of accountants sitting on audit committees has doubled from 6% to 12%. Also, 23% of audit committee chairs are accountants, up from less than 10% in 2002. But accountants are still three times less likely...

Quick note.(News)
October 1, 2007... We hope we didn't mislead anyone who was reading the Strategic Plan insert in the September issue. Under the "China Market Development" section, we said there were no locally based accounting training and certification programs available in...

New rules on foreign investments in U.S. go into effect.(Government)
October 1, 2007... The congressional struggle to fix the federal oversight process for clearing sales of U.S. companies to foreign buyers came to an end this summer with the passage of a CFIUS reform bill. The new rules prescribed by the Foreign Investment and...

Managing the supply chain.(Books)
October 1, 2007... Supply chain management (SCM) encompasses the many tasks of sourcing, routing, assembling, and delivering a product or service to the right place at the right time in the right amount. SCM incorporates key business processes from across the...

XBRL-US market outreach working group.(Advocacy)(eXtensible Business Reporting Language )
October 1, 2007... As part of IMA's professional advocacy efforts, staff has attended conferences and participated in webinars in order to inform members about eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). As many of you know, XBRL is a royalty-free, open...

Anatomy of plan: Better practices for management accountants.(Cover Story)
October 1, 2007... Planning, budgeting, and forecasting. On various occasions, I have called these topics the "heart and soul" of management accounting and, on others, its "lifeblood." Therefore, I thought it appropriate to use the term "anatomy" to describe the...

Creating a Best-in-clas: KPI program.(Purchase-to-Pay)(key performance indicators)
October 1, 2007... It can help you run operations efficiently and maybe even save money. As all management accountants know, to run operations efficiently it's essential for organizations to get their financial houses in order. They must have real-time...

Will RFID change inventory assumptions? Perhaps in a few years when prices are lower and the technology is more common.(Technology)
October 1, 2007... Wal-Mart made headlines when it announced that it would require its top suppliers to place Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags on all their cases and pallets shipped to the retailer. This technology currently gives businesses the...

Quality of "work life": have you invested in your organization's future?(HR Resources)
October 1, 2007... There are two trends in the global business community that show no signs of changing in the near future: Change is constant, and complexity is increasing. We have to look no further than almost any organization's information technology...

Want more effective and efficient data analysis? Use access!(Careers Skills)
October 1, 2007... HAVE YOU EVER NEEDED TO ANALYZE DATA to help answer a question only to discover that your current system isn't designed for the analysis you want to perform? Or have you ever needed to perform an analysis that required data from several systems...

What accounting skills do managers value?(Careers)
October 1, 2007... Competitive pressures in the U.S. economy keep demanding that accounting managers and nonaccounting managers work closely together if their companies are to generate adequate profits. As we all know, management accounting provides managers with...

Custom sorting in excel.(Excel)
October 1, 2007... You asked. We listened. Here, by popular demand, is Strategic Finance's new column that offers tips and techniques on using Excel. Do you think that Excel only offers the ability to sort ascending or descending? Think again! Excel offers a...

Tools of the trade.(Nokia N800 Internet Tablet)(Flash Padlock USB 2.0)(Futura Laptop Desk)
October 1, 2007... The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is the most recent version of the N series available here in the U.S. The Tablet provides Web access over wireless network 802.11, Bluetooth 2.0, and USB 2.0. The screen is a little over four inches with amazing...

Gadgets--an essay.(Tech Forum)
October 1, 2007... IT'S NOT THAT IMPORTANT, BUT first maybe we should distinguish between gadgets and gizmos. According to Wikipedia, both are devices that have "a useful, specific practical purpose and function." A gizmo differs in that it has moving parts, so...

The data warehousing disconnect.(XBRL)
October 1, 2007... In the pantheon of famous last words, which includes Julius Caesar asking, "Et tu, Brute?" and Civil War General John Sedgwick claiming, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance" just before being killed by a Confederate sharpshooter,...

Ben meets the 21st century: securing the C-note.(End note)
October 1, 2007... When Benjamin Franklin was printing money for a number of the colonies, he included the following line on the front of his 10 and 20 shilling notes: "To counterfeit is death." Although it sounds like a pretty sinister warning, the punishment...