ACC103 Accounting Best Practices - 20 hours Objectives This course Accounting Best Practices, Sixth Edition will teach you how to adopt best practices within your accounting department. This will allow you to enjoy a host of benefits, not the least of which include improved customer service, cycle times, product quality, and profitability, as well as reduced error rates. Course Outline Chapter 1 Introduction After completing Chapter 1, you should be able to: 1. Understand the concepts of best practices and when they come into play. Chapter 2 How to Use Best Practices After completing Chapter 2, you should be able to: 1. Know the types of best practices. 2. Understand the most fertile ground for best practices. 3. Know how to plan for best practices. 4. Know when to implement best practices. 5. Understand challenges when using best practice duplication. 6. Understand why best practices fail. 7. Understand the impact of best practices on employees.
Chapter 3 Accounts Payable Best Practices After completing Chapter 3, you should be able to: 1. Understand pay based on receiving approval only. 2. Reduce acquired approvals. 3. Use negative assurance for invoice approvals. 4. Use procurement cards. 5. Use a ghost card. 6. Negotiate procurement card rebates. 7. Route all invoices directly to accounts payable. 8. Split payables processing based on discounts. 9. Adopt a standard invoice numbering convention. 10. Automate three-way matching. 11. Digitize accounts payable documents. 12. Directly enter receipts into computer. 13. Fax transmission of accounts payable documents. 14. Include supplier numbers on invoices. 15. Receive billings through electronic data interchange. 16. Request invoices through a website. 17. Shift incoming billings to an EDI data-entry supplier. 18. Audit expense reports. 19. Automate expense reporting. 20. Eliminated cash advances for employee travel. 21. Link travel policies to an automated expense reporting system. 22. Centralize the accounts payable function. 23. Store late fees in a separate general ledger account. 24. Issue standard account code lists. 25. Link supplier requests to the accounts payable database. 26. Implement a reverse lockbox. 27. Outsource the accounts payable function. 28. Shrink the supplier base. 29. Withhold payments until the W-9 Form is received. 30. Verify taxpayer identification numbers. 31. Automate payments for repetitive invoicing. 32. Install a payment factory. 33. Eliminate manual checks. 34. Increase the frequency of check runs. 35. Have regularly scheduled check-signing meetings. 36. Implement positive pay. 37. Incorporate copy protection features into checks. 38. Avoid acronym payees on checks. 39. Use the universal payment identification code. 40. Revise payments terms for electronic payments.
41. Install advanced ACH Debit Blocking. 42. Use signature stamp. 43. Notify purchasing of lower invoiced prices and terms. 44. Create direct purchase interfaces to suppliers. 45. Create on-line purchasing catalog. 46. Install a low cost spend management system. 47. Use blanket purchase orders. 48. Issue a welcome packet to new suppliers. 49. Clean up the supplier master file. 50. Adopt a supplier naming procedure. 51. Assign payables staff to specific suppliers. 52. Create different supplier accounts for different terms. 53. Ignore supplier invoices and pay from statements. 54. Review supplier statements for open credits 55. Issue standard adjustment letters to suppliers. Chapter 4 Billing Best Practices After completing Chapter 4, you should be able to: 1. Avoid missed billings. 2. Add carrier route codes to billing addresses. 3. Mark envelopes with address correction requested. 4. Do early billing of recurring invoices. 5. Issue electronic invoices through the internet. 6. Issue single, summarized invoice each period. 7. Print separate invoices for each line item. 8. Transmit transactions via EDI 9. Enhance an invoice layout. 10. Add receipt signature to invoice 11. Automatically check errors during invoice data entry. 12. Proofread invoices. 13. Have delivery person create the invoice. 14. Computerize the shipping log. 15. Track exceptions between the shipping log and invoice register. 16. Eliminate month-end statements. 17. Reduce number of parts in multipart invoices. 18. Replace intercompany invoicing with operating transactions. 19. Improve shipping charge revenue.
Chapter 5 Budgeting Best Practices After completing Chapter 5, you should be able to: 1. Link the budget to key business drivers. 2. Clearly define all assumptions. 3. Clearly define all capacity levels. 4. Establish project ranking criteria. 5. Apply throughput analysis to capital budgeting. 6. Establish the upper limit of available funding. 7. Identify step-costing change points. 8. Budget for Attrition. 9. Budget by groups of staff positions. 10. Create a summarized budget model for use by upper management. 11. Include a working capital analysis. 12. Use activity-based budgeting. 13. Incorporate target costing into the budgeting process. 14. Link a bonus sliding scale to the budget. 15. Use flex budgeting. 16. Incorporate risk analysis into budget modeling. 17. Automatically link the budget to purchase orders. 18. Issue a budget procedure and timetable. 19. Preload budget line items. 20. Adopt two-stage capital budgeting. 21. Purchase budgeting and planning software. 22. Reduce the number of accounts. 23. Revise budgets on a quarterly basis. 24. Simplify the budget model. 25. Use online budget updating. Chapter 6 Cash Management Best Practices After completing Chapter 6, you should be able to: 1. Access bank account information on the internet. 2. Automatically apply cash. 3. Avoid delays in check posting. 4. Collect receivables through lockboxes. 5. Install remote deposit capture. 6. Consolidate bank accounts. 7. Implement physical cash sweeping. 8. Implement Notional Pooling. 9. Implement controlled disbursements.
10. Negotiate faster deposited-check availability. 11. Open zero-balance accounts. 12. Shift money with electronic funds transfer Chapter 7 Collections Best Practices After completing Chapter 7, you should be able to: 1. Accept check payments by fax. 2. Clearly define account ownership. 3. Optimize the collections staff. 4. Designate a skip tracing specialist. 5. Educate the sales staff about revenue recognition. 6. Utilize collection call stratification. 7. Base deduction management on transaction volume. 8. Require customer billing of marketing deductions. 9. Conduct customer conference calls with sales staff. 10. Grant percentage discounts for early payment. 11. Conduct immediate review of unapplied cash. 12. Outsource collections. 13. Prepare a customer bankruptcy action plan. 14. Sell your bankruptcy creditor claim. 15. Simplify pricing structure. 16. Write off small balances with no approval. 17. Create an accurate bad debt forecast. 18. Use automated ACH debits. 19. Compile customer assets database. 20. Maintain customer orders database. 21. Subscribe to special event notifications. 22. Setup automatic fax of overdue invoices. 23. Issue Dunning letters automatically. 24. Automate email delivery of overdue invoice information. 25. Use a collection call database. 26. Access up-to-date collection agency information. 27. Implement customer order exception tracking system. 28. Install a dispute tracking system. 29. Report on ongoing customer complaints. 30. Link to comprehensive collections software package. 31. Use real-time cash application techniques.
Chapter 8 Credit Best Practices After completing chapter 8, you should be able to: 1. Create a credit policy. 2. Modify the credit policy based on product margins. 3. Modify the credit policy based on changing economic conditions. 4. Modify the credit policy based on potential product obsolescence. 5. Centralize credit risk analysis. 6. Preapprove customer credit. 7. Subscribe to a credit report database. 8. Create an internal credit scoring system. 9. Modify credit application terms to favor the company. 10. Create a credit application guidebook. 11. Create standardized credit level determination system. 12. Require a new credit application if customers have not ordered in some time. 13. Review the credit levels of all customers who stop taking cash discounts. 14. Call new customers and explain credit terms. 15. Issue a payment procedure to customers. 16. Join an industry credit group. 17. Refer a potential customer to a distributor. 18. Require intercorporate guarantees. 19. Obtain check verification and guarantee coverage. 20. Obtain credit insurance. 21. Obtain an export credit guarantee 22. Shorten the terms of the sale. 23. Insist on lien rights. Chapter 9 Commissions Best Practices After completing Chapter 9, you should be able to: 1. Automatically calculate commissions in the computer system. 2. Calculate final commissions from actual data. 3. Construct a standard commission terms table. 4. Periodically issue a summary of commission rates. 5. Simplify the commission structure. 6. Include commission payments in payroll payments. 7. Lengthen the interval between commission payments. 8. Pay commissions only from cash received. 9. Periodically audit commissions paid. 10. Install incentive compensation management software. 11. Post commission payments on the company intranet.
12. Show potential commissions on cash register. Chapter 10 Costing Best Practices After completing Chapter 10, you should be able to: 1. Audit bills of material. 2. Audit labor routings. 3. Eliminate high-leverage overhead allocation bases. 4. Assign overhead personnel to specific subplants. 5. Use perfect standards for material variance reporting. 6. Eliminate labor variance reporting. 7. Follow a schedule of inventory obsolescence reviews. 8. Eliminate the tracking of work-in-progress inventory. 9. Implement activity-based costing. 10. Implement throughput accounting. 11. Implement target costing. 12. Track excess capacity. 13. Limit access to unit of measure changes. 14. Report on landed cost instead of supplier price. 15. Report on total customer price. 16. Review cost trends. 17. Review material scrap levels. 18. Revise traditional cost accounting reports. Chapter 11 Filing Best Practices After completing Chapter 11, you should be able to: 1. Improve the mailroom interface. 2. Reduce keystroke errors. 3. Use multiple OCR Engines for data capture. 4. Add digital signatures to electronic documents. 5. Archive computer files. 6. Implement document imaging. 7. Eliminate stored paper documents if already in the computer. 8. Extend time period before computer records are purged. 9. Extend use of existing computer database. 10. Improve computer system reliability. 11. Track documents with RFID. 12. Adopt a document-destruction policy 13. Eliminate attaching back-up materials to checks for signing.
14. Eliminate reports. 15. Move records off-site. Chapter 12 Finance Best Practices After completing Chapter 12, you should be able to: 1. Use an investment strategy for short-term investments. 2. Securitize receivables. 3. Purchase debt directly from the government. 4. Sell securities under the regulation A exemption. 5. Sell securities under the regulation D exemption. 6. Set up supply chain financing. 7. Take a business unit public. 8. Automate opinion tracking. 9. Automate 401(k) plan enrollment. 10. Grant employees immediate 401(k) eligibility. 11. Consolidate insurance policies. 12. Obtain key ma life insurance for the CFO. 13. Obtain advance rating assessments. 14. Rent a captive insurance company. 15. Use netting to reduce foreign exchange settlements. 16. Install a treasury work station. 17. Connect to the SWIFT network. 18. Optimize the organization of treasury operations. 19. Hedge foreign exchange with forward exchange contracts. 20. Hedge foreign exchange with currency features. 21. Lock interest rates with an interest rate swap. Chapter 13 Financial Statements Best Practices After completing Chapter 13, you should be able to: 1. Move operation data to other reports. 2. Post financial statements in an excel PivotTable on the internet. 3. Restrict the level of reporting. 4. Write financial statement footnotes in advance. 5. Create a disclosure committee. 6. Automate recurring journal entries. 7. Automate the cutoff. 8. Avoid the bank reconciliation. 9. Defer routine work.
10. Eliminate multiple approvals. 11. Eliminate small accruals. 12. Reduce investigation levels. 13. Assign closing responsibilities. 14. Compress billing activities. 15. Conduct transaction training. 16. Continually review wait times. 17. Convert serial activities to parallel ones. 18. Create a closing schedule. 19. Document the process. 20. Restrict the use of journal entries. 21. Train the staff in closing procedures. 22. Use cycle counting to avoid month-end counts. 23. Use internal audits to locate transaction problems in advance. 24. Compress public company closing activities. 25. Use standard journal entry forms. 26. Complete allocation bases in advance. 27. Conduct daily review of the financial statements. Chapter 14 General Best Practices After completing Chapter 14, you should be able to: 1. Apply run charts to accounting processes. 2. Apply check sheets to accounting processes. 3. Apply value stream mapping to accounting processes. 4. Apply the production cell layout to accounting. 5. Create a best practices support center. 6. Consolidate all accounting functions. 7. Continually review key process cycles. 8. Create a policies and procedures manual. 9. Eliminated all transaction backlogs. 10. Implement process-centering. 11. Issue activity calendars to all accounting positions. 12. Post policies and procedures manual on the company intranet site. 13. Switch to online reporting. 14. Track function measurements. 15. Use balanced scoreboard reporting. 16. Discuss major accounting decisions with auditors. 17. Create a contract terms database. 18. Install a knowledge management system. 19. Monitor fixed assets with wireless sensors. 20. Create an online tax policy listing.
21. Designate a tax liaison for each government jurisdiction. 22. Assign tax staff to business units. 23. Outsource tax form preparation. 24. Submit electronic tax returns to the IRS. 25. Pay federal taxes online. 26. Subscribe to an online tax information service. 27. Move intellectual property to an offshore holding company. 28. Create accounting training teams. 29. Create an ongoing training program for all accounting personnel. 30. Create computer-based training movies. 31. Implement cross-training for mission-critical activities. Chapter 15 General Ledger Best Practices After completing Chapter 15, you should be able to: 1. Eliminate small-balance accounts. 2. Modify account code structure for storage of ABC information. 3. Create alphanumeric department/subsidiary codes. 4. Reduce the chart of accounts. 5. Use identical chart of accounts for subsidiaries. 6. Use data warehouse for report distribution. 7. Use forms/rates data warehouse for automated tax filings. 8. Use the general ledger as a data warehouse. 9. Restrict use of journal entries. 10. Avoid general ledger posting bottlenecks. 11. Have subsidiaries update their own data in the central general ledger. 12. Prescreen construction-in-progress entries. 13. Construct automated interfaces to software that summarizes into the general ledger. 14. Create general ledger drill-down capability. 15. Use automated error-checking. Chapter 16 Internal Auditing Best Practices After completing Chapter 16, you should be able to: 1. Annually update an internal control assessment of each business unit. 2. Issue self-audit guides to business units. 3. Recommend business process improvements to business units. 4. Track audit results through business unit surveys. 5. Train business unit staff on control issues.
6. Train new business unit manager on control issues. 7. Avoid overauditing of internal controls. 8. Complete all internal audit work papers in the field. 9. Create a control standard manual. 10. Create an online internal audit library. 11. Create and disseminate information from the best practices database. 12. Outsource the internal audit function. 13. Schedule some internal audits on a just-in-time basis. 14. Schedule internal audits based on risk. 15. Use workflow software for internal audits. 16. Implement continuous controls monitoring. 17. Fill internal audit positions from operations on a rotating basis. 18. Add specialists to audit teams. 19. Assign an auditor to be a relationship manager with each business unit. 20. Assign internal auditors to system development teams. 21. Create an auditor skills matrix. 22. Use Excel for continuous auditing. Chapter 17 Inventory Best Practices After completing Chapter 17, you should be able to: 1. Audit bills of material. 2. Conduct a configuration audit. 3. Modify the bills of material based on actual scrap levels. 4. Review inventory returned to the warehouse. 5. Modify the bills of material for temporary substitutions. 6. Use bills of material to find inventory made obsolete by product withdrawals. 7. Compare open purchase orders to current requirements. 8. Reject unplanned receipts. 9. Obtain advance shipping notices for inbound deliveries. 10. Eliminate the receiving function. 11. Use standard containers to move, store, and count inventory. 12. Use different storage systems based on cubic transactional volume. 13. Optimize inventory storage through periodic location changes. 14. Eliminate the warehouse. 15. Audit all inventory transactions. 16. Compare recorded inventory activity to on-hand inventories. 17. Eliminate the physical count process. 18. Cycle-count based on usage frequency. 19. Lock down the warehouse area. 20. Move inventory to floor stock. 21. Segregate customer-owned inventory.
22. Streamline the physical count process. 23. Track inventory accuracy. 24. Train the warehouse and accounting staffs in inventory procedures. 25. Initiate warehouse staff self-auditing. 26. Verify that all receipts are entered in the computer at once. 27. Record inventory transactions with bar codes. 28. Record inventory transactions with radio frequency communications. 29. Track inventory with radio frequency identification (RFID). 30. Eliminate all paper from inventory transactions. 31. Eliminate all transaction backlogs. 32. Immediately review all negative inventory balances. 33. Reduce the number of products. 34. Reduce the number of product options. 35. Obtain direct links to customer inventory planning systems. 36. Adopt just in-time purchasing. 37. Shift raw materials ownership to suppliers. 38. Drop ship inventory. 39. Reduce safety stocks by accelerating the flow of internal information. 40. Reduce safety stock by shrinking supplier lead times. 41. Reduce safety stock with risk pooling. 42. Use variable safety stocks for fluctuating demand. 43. Cross-dock inventory. 44. Use overnight delivery from a single location for selected items. 45. Focus inventory reduction efforts on high-usage items. 46. Eliminate redundant part numbers. 47. Standardize parts. 48. Identify inactive inventory in the product master file. Chapter 18 Payroll Best Practices After completing Chapter 18, you should be able to: 1. Dissallow prepayments. 2. Create employee self-service for payroll changes. 3. Minimize payroll deductions. 4. Prohibit deductions for employee purchases. 5. Post forms on an intranet site. 6. Avoid job costing through the payroll system. 7. Switch to salaried positions. 8. Use computerized time clocks. 9. Use biometric time clocks. 10. Track time with mobile phones. 11. Install additional time clocks.
12. Issue electronic W-2 forms to employees. 13. Post payroll remittances on company intranet. 14. Only allow online payroll remittance viewing if employees use direct deposit. 15. Transfer payroll to debit cards. 16. Use direct deposit. 17. Automate vacation accruals. 18. Consolidate payroll systems. 19. Create a payroll call center for employees. 20. Eliminate personal leave days. 21. Improve unemployment claim administration. 22. Link payroll changes to employee events. 23. Install manager self-service. 24. Link the 401(k) plan to the payroll system. 25. Link the payroll and human resources databases. 26. Minimize payroll cycles. 27. Electronically verify employee I-9 information. 28. Outsource employment verifications. 29. Outsource the payroll function. 30. Use web-based payroll outsourcing. 31. Post FAQs answers and issue a payroll orientation brochure.