Six Sigma for Financial Professionals (Wiley Essentials) by D. H. Stamatis

Product Description

Praise for Six Sigma for Financial Professionals
"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."
-Roderick A. Munro, PhD
Business Improvement Coach
"A strong and thorough blueprint to follow for companies that are planning to implement Six Sigma. The book helps one understand how to focus on processes, not just projects, to help achieve business transformation."
-Tammy S. Mitchell
Vice President Controller
TRW Automotive
"Dr. Stamatis's approach to Six Sigma is insightful and would benefit readers outside the quality sector and quality professionals alike. The book is refreshing in truthfully identifying Six Sigma as a collection of proven methodologies, not a new 'silver bullet.'"
-William M. Harral, CQA, CQE, CQMgr, CRE, ASQ-Fellow
CEO, Arch Associates LLC
"As a rule, financial executives focus on the bottom line for directions and ultimate decision-making. Dr. Stamatis's manuscript is clearly written, easily followed, and absolutely describes the potential benefits of Six Sigma and the need to incorporate it for long-term survival in any industry."
-William P. Lianos
President and Treasurer
Michigan Rivet Corporation
"Amid the crushing time crunch to compete, effective leaders have found an important tool in the Six Sigma method. Yet the plethora of information in the field often generates a confusing light without generating the necessary heat. Dr. Stamatis has penned an important, coherent, and complete contribution without cheerleading a single-minded approach. If you only have the time for one book to help you plan, prepare, or advance your Six Sigma effort, this is it."
- A. J. Deeds
President
Team Quality Development, Inc.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #1648309 in Books
Published on: 2003-09-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
320 pages
Editorial Reviews

Review
“A clearly written book on the benefits of Six Sigma, this is an ideal book for those using or advancing this methodology.” (Accounting Technician, June 2004)

Download Description
Praise for Six Sigma for Financial Professionals
"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."
-Roderick A. Munro, PhD
Business Improvement Coach
"A strong and thorough blueprint to follow for companies that are planning to implement Six Sigma. The book helps one understand how to focus on processes, not just projects, to help achieve business transformation."
-Tammy S. Mitchell
Vice President Controller
TRW Automotive
"Dr. Stamatis's approach to Six Sigma is insightful and would benefit readers outside the quality sector and quality professionals alike. The book is refreshing in truthfully identifying Six Sigma as a collection of proven methodologies, not a new 'silver bullet.'"
-William M. Harral, CQA, CQE, CQMgr, CRE, ASQ-Fellow
CEO, Arch Associates LLC
"As a rule, financial executives focus on the bottom line for directions and ultimate decision-making. Dr. Stamatis's manuscript is clearly written, easily followed, and absolutely describes the potential benefits of Six Sigma and the need to incorporate it for long-term survival in any industry."
-William P. Lianos
President and Treasurer
Michigan Rivet Corporation
"Amid the crushing time crunch to compete, effective leaders have found an important tool in the Six Sigma method. Yet the plethora of information in the field often generates a confusing light without generating the necessary heat.

Book Info
Text provides a quality improvement guide for the financial industry, explaining the practice of Six Sigma methodology from top to bottom. DLC: Six sigma (Quality control standard).

Accounting Best Practices (Wiley Best Practices) by Steven M. Bragg

Product Description

Adopting accounting best practices can improve efficiency and reduce error rates in the accounting department, but less obvious are the benefits gained from better reporting of information to other parts of the company. More accurate data, reported faster, can play an integral role in both short- and long-term strategic planning. Accounting guru Steven Bragg explains how to leverage this and other opportunities in Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition. This revised and updated text features numerous new best practices in such critical areas as accounting management, inventory, billing, and payroll. This Fourth Edition highlights the dos and don’ts of best practices implementation, and a new reference system renders the expansive collection of best practices readily accessible. Accounting and financial managers, internal and external auditors, and consultants will find it to be a peerless resource.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #206116 in Books
Published on: 2005-07-29
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
464 pages
Editorial Reviews

Book Info
Provides the most advanced techniques and strategies available today to help your business cut costs and improve accounting operations-regardless of your company's size or holdings. DLC: Accounting.

From the Inside Flap
Accounting Best Practices

Fourth Edition

Adopting best practices can bring about a wealth of benefits for any accounting department, including improved customer service, cycle times, product quality, and profitability, as well as reduced error rates. Continuing the long tradition of his cornerstone resource, renowned accounting authority Steven Bragg has added numerous new best practices to Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition, including twenty new best practices in each chapter on payroll, billing, and inventory, as well as fifteen in the new chapter on accounting management.

This seminal reference comprises more than 330 best practices, making it the most comprehensive collection available. As with its predecessors, Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition covers a wide variety of accounting functions, including:
Accounts payable
Billing
Budgeting
Cash management
Finance
Financial statements
Inventory
Payroll

Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition also features a new chapter packed with more than thirty successful policies that support the implementation of best practices. Also, a new Appendix B lists contact information for fifty-six suppliers whose products and services are mentioned in the book.

As the scope of Accounting Best Practices continues to expand, the need for a quick and simple index system becomes increasingly apparent. Answering this call, the author has created a table at the beginning of each chapter, itemizing and enumerating the best practices contained within. The tables also graphically describe the cost and duration of implementation required for each item, and, for easy reference, all tables are collected in an appendix.

This Fourth Edition shows how to use contract management software to avoid revenue recognition violations and notes best practice implementation pitfalls, so managers can troubleshoot in advance. It not only shows how to improve efficiency and reduce error rates, but also how to deliver better information to other parts of the company. It remains the perfect do-it-yourself book for the accounting manager who wants to improve his or her department.

From the Back Cover
"In Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition, Steve has provided an excellent step-by-step manual of best practices to enable the CFO or head of accounting to have a major positive impact on his or her organization. The implementation of accounting best practices optimizes accounting expenditures while providing the information and control foundation, which provides management with the information it needs to position the organization to fulfill its goals and objectives."
—Richard V. Souders, President and CEO Premier Data Services

Everyone knows that adopting accounting best practices can improve efficiency and reduce error rates in the accounting department, but less obvious are the benefits gained from better reporting of information to other parts of the company. More accurate data, reported faster, can play an integral role in both short- and long-term strategic planning. Accounting guru Steven Bragg explains how to leverage this and other opportunities in his authoritative Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition.

This revised and updated Fourth Edition features numerous new best practices in such critical areas as:
Accounting management
Inventory
Billing
Payroll

Accounting Best Practices, Fourth Edition highlights the dos and don'ts of best practices implementation, and a new reference system renders the expansive collection of best practices readily accessible. Accounting and financial managers, internal and external auditors, and consultants will find it to be a peerless resource.
Customer Reviews

For every business executive
This book has so many great accounting best practices it should serve as a goal for every company. It is an invaluable reference guide to anyone who is just starting a business, or needing to improve the efficiency of their accounting functions.
I most liked the fact that the book is so easy to read. You won't have to be a CPA to understand this book.
My only suggestion is that the book should have a companion CD or web site with all of the best practices already in an electronic format.

A 10,000% return on the investment.
This book has the right idea of putting the main points in the tables for quick reference and the narrative for each point. In addition, I like the Ease, Duration and Cost of implementation of each best practice which gives me an idea for prioritization. Ordered more copies for the departments. Wish they had more books like these that give practical suggestions instead of theory.

A Valuable Resource
I found Accounting Best Practices a valuable resource for objectively evaluating my accounting department's business practices and procedures. Mr. Bragg has identified the specific tasks of each of the accounting departments's functions and has made suggestions for efficiencies. The author states the key factors in the successful implementation of the best practices in accounting.

Each chapter presents an exhibit of "Implementation Issues Best Practices" describing the implementation costs, ease and duration of each suggested practice change. This information allowed me to implement the easiest and least costly changes to my accounting department's procedures, thus gaining credibility with upper managment to support the changes involving addional resources.

As a Controller, Best Practices assisted me to focus on the value-added tasks of my department and identifying where my staff's efforts are best utilized to support the corporate objectives. My department has become more efficient, allowing for individual growth opportunities. I highly recommend this book for anyone managing an accounting department. A very concise book that is easy to read and use.

Divisional Controller, CMA

Inventory Accounting: A Comprehensive Guide (Wiley Best Practices) by Steven M. Bragg

Product Description

Dramatically improve inventory accuracy with bestselling author Steven Bragg's step-by-step guidelines

Inventory Accounting is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to setting up an inventory accounting system and keeping it running at maximum efficiency. This hands-on book provides accounting professionals with essential information on how to:
* Set up an accounting system that efficiently handles accumulating inventory costs, summarizing accounts, and standard journal entries used to record transactions
* Use best practices to increase the efficiency of inventory-tracking and costing functions
* Install unique controls to combat inventory fraud
* Implement a step-by-step checklist of activities for inventory counting procedures
* Save hours of valuable time researching various GAAP reference manuals
* Adapt inventory tracking and costing systems to accommodate a variety of manufacturing systems

Spanning the entire spectrum of inventory accounting, Inventory Accounting deftly explores every facet of the field to help professionals eliminate inaccuracies from their inventory accounting systems.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #215178 in Books
Published on: 2005-02-18
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
243 pages
Editorial Reviews

Download Description
"Dramatically improve inventory accuracy with bestselling author Steven Bragg's step-by-step guidelines

Inventory Accounting is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to setting up an inventory accounting system and keeping it running at maximum efficiency. This hands-on book provides accounting professionals with essential information on how to:
* Set up an accounting system that efficiently handles accumulating inventory costs, summarizing accounts, and standard journal entries used to record transactions
* Use best practices to increase the efficiency of inventory-tracking and costing functions
* Install unique controls to combat inventory fraud
* Implement a step-by-step checklist of activities for inventory counting procedures
* Save hours of valuable time researching various GAAP reference manuals
* Adapt inventory tracking and costing systems to accommodate a variety of manufacturing systems

Spanning the entire spectrum of inventory accounting, Inventory Accounting deftly explores every facet of the field to help professionals eliminate inaccuracies from their inventory accounting systems."

From the Inside Flap

Accurate inventory accounting is vital to every company that has a significant proportion of its assets in inventory. It can also be one of the most difficult tasks faced by the accounting department. Accurate inventory valuation requires excellent inventory tracking systems, warehouse layouts, and cycle counting procedures, as well as detailed cost accumulation systems. In addition, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) contain a number of requirements for the proper treatment of inventory valuation. In Inventory Accounting, bestselling author Steven Bragg culls his decades of experience to help CFOs, controllers, accounting managers, and cost accountants track, cost, report, and budget their inventory with great success.

Inventory Accounting provides professionals with a wellspring of essential day-to-day information, including:
How to use coding, wireless data transmission, radio frequency identification, document imaging, and electronic data interchange to collect inventory data
How to flow inventory through basic manufacturing, manufacturing resources planning, and just-in-time systems
Sixty-eight unique inventory controls in such areas as in-transit inventory, inventory storage, obsolete inventory, and inventory transactions
How to recognize eighteen types of inventory fraud
A variety of measurements, forms, and reports for determining the status of inventory levels and related systems
A successful budgeting process for raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods inventories
How to use a number of inventory cost layering systems, including FIFO, LIFO, dollar value LIFO, link-chain, and weighted average methods
How to apply lower of cost, or market rule
Coverage of overhead cost pools and how to apply those costs to inventory (including activity-based costing)
Various cost allocation and pricing methodologies for inventory designated as joint products or by-products
How to locate, dispose of, and account for obsolete inventory
How to create an inventory tracking system and conduct periodic physical counts and cycle counts

An expansive compendium of inventory-related information, Inventory Accounting is a one-stop resource for everything pertaining to the proper accounting treatment of inventory, as well as the best practices for organizing a warehouse and conducting inventory counts.

From the Back Cover
Dramatically improve inventory accuracy with bestselling author Steven Bragg's step-by-step guidelines

Inventory Accounting is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to setting up an inventory accounting system and keeping it running at maximum efficiency. This hands-on book provides accounting professionals with essential information on how to:
Set up an accounting system that efficiently handles accumulating inventory costs, summarizing accounts, and standard journal entries used to record transactions
Use best practices to increase the efficiency of inventory-tracking and costing functions
Install unique controls to combat inventory fraud
Implement a step-by-step checklist of activities for inventory counting procedures
Save hours of valuable time researching various GAAP reference manuals
Adapt inventory tracking and costing systems to accommodate a variety of manufacturing systems

Spanning the entire spectrum of inventory accounting, Inventory Accounting deftly explores every facet of the field to help professionals eliminate inaccuracies from their inventory accounting systems.
Customer Reviews

much practical advice
The book is replete with much practical advice that can readily be understood and applied by a diligent reader. One example would be monitoring the scrap percentage for a manufacturing operation. As Bragg points out, this can be an indicator of poor workmanship, bad setup of the machinery or inferior raw materials used by the factory.

Another example is the rate of use of loading dock doors. Each door also implies an allocation of floor space next to it, for moving goods in and out of the warehouse. A door that is minimally used often suggests that floor space is not being fully utilised.

For these and many other examples, Bragg furnishes simple metrics to measure the effect. Most are trivial mathematically, and could be defined from first principles by a reader experienced in engineering. But the book seems to be aimed, in part, at a reader who does not have such a background. Perhaps you rose from the shop floor, to now have managerial responsibility?