“How To” Skills and Knowledge That Will Move the Needle

Financial Planning & Analysis

Our Financial Planning & Analysis content is targeted to helping professionals that are responsible for organizational finance activities that include forecasting, budgeting, model building, forecasting and performance analysis.  This is with a focus on collaborating with senior management, department heads, and others. 

How to Value a Business

What Your Business Plan My Be Missing

Gaining a Competitive Advantage — Secret Revealed

Do Not Let Cost of Goods Sink Your Exit Plan

7 Steps to Improved Professional Services Profitability

Use ROE to Look Under the Hood and Super Charge Your Business

9 Steps to Generate Insightful Gross Margin Bridge Using Excel

6 Reasons Why Financial Planning Matters

Financial Reporting

Financial Reporting expertise includes the generation of profit and loss statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flow.  In addition to the basics, it also include analysis of performance using financial ratios, metrics and benchmarks.  Along with compliance to GAAP requirements, there is also a focus on identifying trends and efficiently disseminating information.

Leveraging Financial Reporting — a Hidden Asset

8 Steps to Building a Dashboard That Will Drive Action

How to Create CSV Data From Fishbowl Standard Reports

The Value of Business Benchmarking Your Company

How to Turn Your Financial Reporting Into Actionable Intelligence

Tools for Communication and Engagement

Data Analytics

The use of Data Analytics provides the tools needed to extract meaningful insights from large and frequently disparate data sources.  Delivering on these insights require skill utilizing statistical techniques that are typically reside in databases and ERP systems.  Accessing data in these systems requires experience working with SQL and other computer languages. 

The Value of KPIs — A Story From The Trenches

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Business Intelligence

Leveraging Your QuickBooks Data Using ODBC

How a Data Warehouse Can Leverage an Accounting Calendar

Designing Master and Transactional Tables for a Data Warehouse

Empowering Your Sales Team: Business Analytics Strategies for Success

Build a Versatile Accounting Calendar for Your Data Warehouse

Inventory Management

Effectively managing inventory is an imperative for any manufacturer or distributor given that it is, more than likely, the largest asset on the balance sheet.  This requires personnel that understand reorder points, lead times, cycle counting, lot tracking, lean principles and many other specialized skills required to maintain customer service levels and minimize back orders.

How to Improve Inventory Turnover Using Days Inventory On Hand (DIOH)

5 Steps to Improved Inventory Accuracy Using Cycle Counting

General Accounting

General Accountants need to have a deep understanding of financial accounting, especially as it applies to maintaining GAAP compliant financial statements.  This requires knowledge of advanced accounting, taxation, auditing combined with analytical skills, much of which is applied through Excel skills.

How to Get a Bank Loan – the 5 C’s of Credit

Six Reasons for Diligently Closing the Books

Smart Considerations For Configuring an Accounting System

How to Compute Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and Improve Cash Flow

How to Compute Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) and Improve Cash Flow

How to Compute The Cash Conversion Cycle to Better Manager Working Capital

6 Eye-Opening Questions to ask Your Controller

Cost Accounting

Proficient Cost Accountants exhibit both a good grasp of general accounting along with superior analytical skills in the areas for budgeting, planning, variance analysis and cost estimating.  Along with a deep understanding of ERP systems, they can delivery very valuable insights to an organization drive actionable intelligence.

How to Compute Earned Hours and Direct Labor for Standard Costing Plan

How Compute an Overhead Rate for Standard Costing & Utilize Variances

How to Create Direct Labor Rates For Costing

How to Create a Profit and Loss Statement for a Manufacturing Business

Ignite Profitability By Adding Labor and Overhead to QuickBooks BOMs