Features

Safety Inventory Analysis: Why and How?
By Scott W. Hadley
What's the right level for a safety inventory to protect your company from potential loss because you don't have enough product to fill an order? The first step, according to this inventory expert, is to think about safety inventory from the perspective of ensuring there's adequate inventory to cover desired levels of demand. Not only does demand impact inventory, but so does supply - and neither is 100% predictable.

Creating a Culture of Peak Performance
By Trevor Bromley
FreedomRoads, the largest recreation vehicle retailer in the world, knows that customer service is everything in its business. That is why it focuses on a peak performance strategy for employees, which is composed of a robust core benefits package supported by detailed and highly structured recognition and reward programs that both pat people on the back and put money in their pockets.

Trading Solutions for Lowering Air Pollution
By Christopher Annala and Harry Howe
Thanks to innovative markets for trading in greenhouse gas emissions, companies now have the option of investing in pollution-lowering equipment and technology or purchasing an allowance from a company that has reduced its emission below the level required by environmental regulations. Emissions trading markets give companies more flexibility in cost savings and business strategies. But the risks involved have to be carefully evaluated from both accounting and regulatory viewpoints.

Keeping Pace with SOX 404: Internal Control Certification at Guidant Corporation
By Ramona Dzinkowski
Complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is an expensive, tedious, and time-consuming project. Annett Such, director of global accounting at Guidant Corp., describes how her company took a process-owner strategy to comply with SOX.

Does Your Company Need a Workout?
By Glaydon Iverson, CPA
This $23 million manufacturer was headed for bankruptcy with vendors hounding the company for overdue payments. Realizing he would not be able to recover the original equity put in the company through the Chapter 11 route, the owner opted for an informal workout. As a result, the creditors and vendors were satisfied, and the company righted itself and returned to successful operation. The step-by-step process is outlined here.

Small Business Owners and ERISA Protection
By Milt Zall, CIA
Can a sole proprietor participate in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act that he established for his employees and still enjoy the same protections? A practicing physician under an involuntary bankruptcy petition appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that if a plan covers one or more employees the working owner may participate on equal terms with other plan participants.

Columns

PERSPECTIVES
Why look at German cost management?

BEST PRACTICES
The antidote to burnout.

CAREERS
It's about time: strategies for managing your work priorities.

TAXES
Advance pricing agreements: a chance for certainty amidst chaos, part 1.

ETHICS
Can organizational DNA exclude ethics?

XBRL
SEC assessing XBRL: may propose a rule by fall.

Departments

STREETWISE
Dennis R. Beresford named to Accounting Hall of Fame
Attmore named GASB chairman
Big Four auditing still questionable?
Books: Preventing crime in your company.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Handy memory.

TECH FORUM
Technology and us vs. them.

TRENDS IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Section 404 costs soar.

STRATEGIC FINANCE QUIZ
Successfully answer 70% or more of the questions based on selected articles from this month's issue, and you will earn three CPE credits.

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