... of
time on the success of a bestpractices implementation.
TIMING OF BEST PRACTICES
Both the timing of a best practice implementation and the time it takes to com-
plete it have a major impact ... that maintains a mainframe computer that receives messages from
a number of subscribing companies. The message recipient dials into its elec-
tronic mailbox at the third-party’s mainframe (usually ... this problem involves a fun-
damental lack of communication, especially to those people who are most
impacted by change. When a single implementation is completed without
Why BestPractices Fail...
... con-
siderable amount of programming time should reserve that time in advance
with the programming staff to ensure that the programming is completed on
time. Also, the management team must have a ... can
reduce the number of transaction errors, by such means as automated employee
expense reports, automated bank account deductions, or a simplified commission
calculation system. By implementing a plethora ... 110
Chapter 7 Collections BestPractices 128
Chapter 8 Commissions BestPractices 154
Chapter 9 Costing BestPractices 167
Chapter 10 Filing BestPractices 184
Chapter 11 Finance BestPractices 206
Chapter...
... con-
siderable amount of programming time should reserve that time in advance
with the programming staff to ensure that the programming is completed on
time. Further, the management team must have ...
reduce the number of transaction errors, by such means as automated employee
expense reports, automated bank account deductions, or a simplifi ed commission
calculation system. By implementing a ... bestpractices implementation.
Timing of Best Practices
The timing of a best practice implementation, the time it takes to complete it, and
the pacing of installations have a major impact on the...
... essentially eliminates the time saved by the originating company
when it first set up the ACH payment system. Some companies have created a
system that issues separate payment notifications by mail, but ... Payable Best Practices
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82 Billing Best Practices
Exhibit 4.1 Summary of Billing BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
Invoice Delivery
4–1 Avoid missed ... system, specifically targeted at payables. It features
complex software with many interfaces, since it must handle incoming payment
information in many data formats, work-flow management of payment...
... suitable time lag been built into the plan to account for the ramp-up time
needed to implement the automation? Some of these problems are present in all
but the best budget models.
The best practice ... contracts to pay fixed monthly amounts. In these cases, a com-
pany issues invoices for the same amount every month to all of its customers. The
customers then pay the same amount every month and the ... problem is that the
most efficient EDI systems require some automation. A standard EDI system
requires one to manually enter all transactions, as well as manually extract them
from the EDI mailbox...
... customer are extremely small—the cost of contacting them may
exceed the profit from annual sales to them. Thus, a company with a small num-
ber of customers or many low-volume customers may not ... cable, or T1 phone
130 Cash Management Best Practices
Exhibit 6.1 Summary of Cash Management BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
6–1 Access bank account information on
the Internet
6–2 ... Structure Using Best Practices
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Total Impact of BestPractices on the Cash Management Function 143
Exhibit 6.3 Impact of BestPractices on the Cash Management Function
this...
... Commissions Best Practices
Exhibit 8.1 Summary of Commissions BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
Commission Calculations
8–1 Automatically calculate commissions
in the computer system
8–2 ... final commissions from
actual data
8–3 Construct a standard commission
terms table
8–4 Periodically issue a summary of
commission rates
8–5 Simplify the commission structure
Commission Payments
8–6 ... BestPractices (Wiley, 2005).
186 Credit and Collections Best Practices
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198 Commissions Best Practices
Exhibit 8.2 Impact of BestPractices on the Commissions...
... to
operate. By making these changes, a number of system reliability problems
can be eliminated.
• Scheduled downtime. One of the most common employee complaints regard-
ing system downtime is that maintenance ... Practices
Exhibit 10.1 Summary of Filing BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
Mailroom Improvements
10–1 Open envelopes with a belt sander
10–2 Improve the mailroom interface
Computer-Related ... into your
computer system and bypass the mailroom.
• Mailroom opens all mail. Don’t just let the mailroom forward envelopes to
employees without first opening them (unless they are marked “confidential”),
since...
... commitments for which a
company may be liable. The problem for company management is that the employ-
ees who may be creating these commitments (especially in the purchasing and
legal departments) ... 270
Implementation Issues for Financial Statements BestPractices 267
Exhibit 12.1 Summary of Financial Statements BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
Financial Reports
12–1 Move operating ... income and does not allow a company to pay down the opti-
mal amount of debt.
These problems can be mitigated by implementing regional treasury manage-
ment centers, usually one per continent. By...
... employees on training issues. Thus, implement-
ing these bestpractices will require detailed management by the internal audit man-
ager to see when auditor time can be made available to complete ... from which the information is drawn. If any of the information from mul-
tiple locations is to be combined to create summary-level reports, then either a
custom interface must be built to combine ... the same information and to develop an automated solution for them
first. Any remaining tax forms requiring special programming to automate should
be reviewed on a case -by- case basis to determine...
... assemble materials for the production department to
use.
This is an extremely difficult best practice to implement. The concept that
only a relatively small number of companies have fully implemented ... recommend the implementation of the system in which
the person is an expert, since he or she can offer valuable implementation tips to the
local management team in regard to installing the system. ... travel-
ing to remote company locations. Further, this information is then available to all
auditors, anywhere in the company, for immediate review.
If audit documents must be approved by multiple people,...
... requiring greater implementation effort and that
Implementation Issues for Payroll BestPractices 415
Exhibit 17.1 Summary of Payroll BestPractices
Best Practice Cost Install Time
Employee Deductions
17–1 ... formal training in any incremental improvements made to the system over
time.
Cost: Installation time:
16–27 Record Inventory Transactions with Radio
Frequency Communications
Even if a company ... For
example, a person picks a part from stock, scans the item’s bar code and the loca-
396 Inventory Best Practices
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Summary 413
Exhibit 16.2 Impact of Best Practices...
... steps.
Impacted best practices:
•• Disallow prepayments
• The company does not make purchases on behalf of employees. This policy
keeps the accounting staff from making a series of deductions from employee
paychecks ... the old 401(k) administrator may require a
separation fee if the company is terminating its services inside of a minimum time
interval, which may involve a small penalty payment. These issues ... time
they have left. In most companies, this information is kept manually by the pay-
roll staff, so employees troop down to the payroll department once a month (and
more frequently in the prime...
... con-
siderable amount of programming time should reserve that time in advance
with the programming staff to ensure that the programming is completed on
time. Further, the management team must have ... 7
Accounting
Best Practices
Fifth Edition
Steven M. Bragg
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ch00_FM_4773.qxd 12/29/06 9:07 AM Page iii
multiple bestpractices at the same time or one after another, there is more ... this
book.
xiii
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Accounting
Best Practices
Fifth Edition
Steven M. Bragg
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ch00_FM_4773.qxd 12/29/06 9:07 AM Page iii
20 Accounts Payable Best Practices
Exhibit...
... can
reduce the number of transaction errors, by such means as automated employee
expense reports, automated bank account deductions, or a simplified commission
calculation system. By implementing a plethora ... should reserve that time in advance
with the programming staff to ensure that the programming is completed on
time. Also, the management team must have a sufficient amount of time
available to properly ... odds become even smaller if multiple depart-
ments are involved. The main reason is that there is now an extra manager
involved, who may not have the commitment of the accounting manager to
make...