Features

Six-Shot Economics
Christopher H. Volk
Just like the gunslingers of the Old West, well-armed business leaders of today have six shots at shareholder value creation. But rather than shooting one at a time and then stopping to reload, all six of these shots can be fired repeatedly and simultaneously. Driven in part by constant innovation, Six-Shot Economics represents the essential financial toolkit for every business leader. Click here for the October 1999 article.

Toward Compliant Performance
Bruce D. Downing and Andrew Spanyi
Increased regulatory and legal requirements have intensified the focus on internal controls and compliance. Tightly linking enterprise risk management and compliance initiatives with business process management (BPM) principles not only provides operational improvements but also delivers improved approaches to legal and regulatory compliance. This article outlines the five key steps to applying BPM for successful and sustainable compliance.

Convergence or Conversion? Let’s Be Clear
Ramona Dzinkowski
After attending a conference on the convergence of global accounting standards, the author notes there is still a lot of confusion regarding the “convergence” of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Many think it will involve gradually changing IFRS and GAAP until they are identical to each other, when the reality is that IFRS eventually will be adopted in the U.S. as it has already been in many other countries. And the sooner that happens, the better it will be for everyone.

Target Costing at a Consumer Products Company
Mohan Gopalakrishnan; Janet Samuels, CPA; and Dan Swenson, CMA
Target costing is often used in large companies in the transportation, automotive, and electronics industries, among others, but it’s far less common in the consumer products industry. A company that produces liquid hand soap uses target costing during its product-development process to help ensure that it only manufactures and sells products that it can produce at or below a target cost.

Boosting Management Accounting’s Stature on Campus
Saurav K. Dutta, CMA, and Raef A. Lawson, CMA, CPA
Despite numerous studies that routinely show a gap between the skills that accounting students need in their careers and what they are actually taught, the accounting curricula at most major U.S. universities continue to be focused on CPA-centric issues. To help bring about change, finance and accounting professionals need to do their part to raise the profile of management accounting on campus.

Reflections on a Half-Century as an Accounting Professional
Frank C. Minter, CPA
A Financial Accounting Foundation trustee, former IMA Chair, professor, and management accountant with 54 years of experience in the accounting profession provides some thoughts for those who are in the profession today or will enter it in the future. Certification, increased awareness of ethical issues, vigilance in not repeating past mistakes, and maintaining the independence of the accounting profession can all help move the profession forward.

Columns

PERSPECTIVES
Going global.

BEST PRACTICES
One hundred.

TAXES
Small business tax act: tax revenue provisions.

ETHICS
Who should be blamed the most for the subprime loan scandal?

ADVOCACY
Bryant University’s 7th Annual XBLR Conference.

EXCEL
Customize all future workbooks.

XBRL
XBRL: the logistics of moving data.

Departments

STREETWISE
CFOs, controllers, and IFRS
Coaching, mentoring help retain employees
How about a database as a financial tool?
Dems unhappy with “no reconciliation”
Books: Corporate sustainability
The XBRL US GAAP taxonomy project needs your input.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

TECH FORUM
Can you tell what letter that is?

END NOTE
Machine beauty.