PACE Moments

Two similar stories. One from two centuries ago, and the other present day. In each case the navigator (the management accountant in the present day) knew his equipment was faulty and that he was providing the captain (executive) with bad information on which to base important decisions that would adversely affect a lot of people. Instead of informing the captain (executive) he kept it to himself leading to disaster.  Hear the stories as told by Doug Hicks, and how the management accountant could do things differently and become the hero of the story instead of the villain. 

To learn more on this and other subjects, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

Some of the “expenses” recorded in financial accounting should be treated as “investments” and some amounts not spent during a financial accounting period included as “expenses.” Doug Hicks, CPA discusses why and when this should be the case.

Periodicity is important in financial accounting. Expenses are measurements of the resources consumed during a specific period of time using measurable and auditable historical information in compliance with man-made rules and regulations.

Managerial accounting, on the other hand, is more concerned with the long-term, sustainable economics of an organization. Expenses are measurements of the resources that need to be consumed for the organization to sustain its business over the long-term whether or not those resources are consumed during a specific period of time. Find out more in this podcast. 

In the teaching profession, there is an ongoing debate over the value of standardized testing – testing designed to measure the performance of both the student and the educator. One of the more powerful arguments against standardized testing – or at least standardized testing in its current form – does not relate to the testing itself but to one of its unintended consequences. That unintended consequence is “teaching to the test” instead of teaching a core curriculum and critical thinking skills. When this problem exists among the organization’s C-level executives,  it usually permeates throughout the entire organization. Managing to the test turns decision makers into “game players” instead of “stewards” that work for the long-term success of the organization. Hear more from Doug Hicks about the issue and a remedy in this podcast. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

A gatekeeper is an individual who controls access to something. Ancient cities had gatekeepers whose job was to keep out undesirables. A college admissions officer is a gatekeeper who controls the makeup of the school’s student body. A newspaper editor is a gatekeeper who decides which stories will be included in that day’s edition. Gatekeepers are critical to an institution’s security, quality, and overall success. A key member of the gatekeeping team is its cost estimator but, when they are provided with outdated and inaccurate methods of linking the company’s operating costs with the products, services, or customers whose potential value to the company is being evaluated, they may let in undesirable customers. In this podcast, Doug Hicks explores cost estimators as part of the gatekeeping team, and provides several examples of how flawed information leads to poor decisions. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

Finance is charged with being the ethical concience of their organizations helping to ensure adherence to company policies. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Blockchain have impacted how financial employees capture, analyze, and report finanical and non-financial data. In this episode, Raef Lawson discusses possible ethical risks. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

One major informational gap, from an internal decision support point of view, with typical financial accounting and reporting information is insight into intangible investments as they are typically lost in the operating budget and expenses. Today, the capital market value of companies across the market as a whole is 10 times their capital asset value.  This is because of two primary factors: future expectations of growth and income, and the investment in capabilities and assets that are not on the balance sheet, that is intangible.  Larry White explains why PACE thinks intangible investments merit much more attention and how this attention will support better internal decision making. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

PACE’s Profitability Analytics Framework is a strategic management framework that can be used by organizations to not only increase their profitability, but also to achieve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.  In this podcast, Raef Lawson describes the components of the framework and how they help organizations focus on simultaneously achieving these diverse objectives. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

Finance is often primarily focused on cost management. Cost and revenue management are two sides of the same coin, yet accountants often fail in being familiar with both of these and how they can impact the organization's profitability. In this podcast, Raef Lawson explores how to work cross-functionally to be more involved in the revenue creation process and contribute to organizational value. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

In this podcast, Raef Lawson interviews Kip Krumwiede, former Director of Research at IMA and currently a business consultant. Kip shows how anything really can be measured and gives several examples relating to revenue modeling, cost modeling, investment management and making forecasts when our COVID world seems so uncertain. To make it actionable, Kip gives tips on ways to implement and improve profitability analytics without causing a lot of extra work and stress. Listen in on an enjoyable and worthwhile podcast! To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.

A new role is opening up for accounting and finance professionals - that of analytics translator. This entails serving as a bridge between the technical expertise of data engineers and data scientists and the operational expertise of frontline managers. Serving in this role, accounting and finance professionals help harness the power of Big Data and create value for their organizations.  This role will require learning new competencies in the areas of data storage and transformation, analytics and visualization programming, and movement of data. To learn more, visit the PACE website and follow our LinkedIn page and Twitter page.