Ya'll don't have to try to make me feel better if it is just me, okay? Really.

We have the hardest time keeping our bookkeeping numbers straight for costs. It is murder.

I'm thinking part of the problem is the size of our company, rather awkward.
We're a 35 million dollar company with about 60 to 70 employees that has been growing pretty rapidly. Too big to be "small", too small to be "big". We have an excellent controller (finally! the last one was a Loser!), who has been in place for about a year.

My favorite expression (which my controller loves ) is "Close enough for (company name) Accounting!"

The biggest problems we run into are how my division is accounted for. We run completely separate books, and accurate numbers are vital for measuring direct marketing. I'm good at developing logical and easy to follow systems, so, I'm usually the one who sets systems for accounting expenses into motion.

The problem is people don't do them right, or change the methods without telling me.



I just spent 3 days going through our Fed Ex bills for November and December. At the end of it, I'd identified over $10,000 in items that had been charged to my division that didn't belong. I won't ennumerate the mistakes that were made to charge those things inaccurately, but, yeah, it was people changing shit without talking to me first.

Since you don't know my business, you can't really give me practical advice...I just want to know.... is it just us? Are we stupid or something? I've worked with this company for 14 years, so I don't know what the internal working of other companies is like.

Andrea
who has finally beaten the inventory G/L into submission

Quote:Originally posted by pluckyduck
[BSince you don't know my business, you can't really give me practical advice...I just want to know.... is it just us? Are we stupid or something? I've worked with this company for 14 years, so I don't know what the internal working of other companies is like.

Andrea
[/b]

Nope. Happens at my company too. I don't know the ugly details but it seems that when they did the year end audit for '01 a couple of million dollars was misplaced. Misplaced?

Yep. They're still looking for it. It's there.

Somewhere.


Sara

And if that isn't bad enough, the federal government does it, too. They're always looking for misplaced millions or billions of dollars each year that seems to never be found.

Quote:Originally posted by poseidon
And if that isn't bad enough, the federal government does it, too. They're always looking for misplaced millions or billions of dollars each year that seems to never be found.

Yeah, well, my personal income is dependent on good numbers.

That $10,000 I found, for instance, is $10,000 that ends up being added back into our bottom line. A good chunk of my income is bonus, and my bonus is tied directly to the bottom line.

Let the government lose its millions and billions, but I need my numbers to be right.

Andrea
thinking "baby needs a new pair of shoes" :tongue:

Cost accounting is very difficult. And unless you have a really good project based accounting system set up, mistakes will happen. And they will probably happen anyway.

Your accountants should have been installing cost controls all along. You need not even move to cost-based accounting to do so. The problem may lie in your company's culture, which I don't completely know, but based on your previous comments here, seems to pride itself on being anti-bureaucratic. The fine line is finding the balance between bureaucracy and process.

You must have process.

Quote:Your accountants should have been installing cost controls all along.

:laugh: :laugh:

Our accountants are way too "big picture" to be of any help with this stuff. (I'm not a big fan of accountants, although I'm sure if we have some on this board they are fine human beings and nothing like the accountants our firm uses. These blokes seem to have no problem shifting 100 grand here, 100 grand there without caring if it is particularly correct.

Our new controller has been a huge help. He and I have been chipping away at the problem areas for the last year.

Quote:The problem may lie in your company's culture, which I don't completely know, but based on your previous comments here, seems to pride itself on being anti-bureaucratic. The fine line is finding the balance between bureaucracy and process.

You are completely correct. We've also got many long term employees, and they can be the worst at following systems. Our company culture has always been casual...and we've never been into bureaurcracy for its own sake. We've liked to say things like "We're too busy making money to be bothered with (fill in stupid bureaucractic procedure here)."

The problem is, everything has changed. We're not 20 people in a small office like we were when I started. And yeah, I meet a lot of subversive pushback when I insist that things be done a certain way. (Most of this is outside my division, so I can't even threaten to fire people because of it. )

Okay, I'm rambling.

I just didn't think it would be this hard. You think things out, you set up a system....and then find people ignoring the system and mushing up the numbers.



Andrea
who loves nice, neat numbers

Quote:I just didn't think it would be this hard. You think things out, you set up a system....and then find people ignoring the system and mushing up the numbers.

That's because you likely have as many ways of doing things as you have people employed. That happens in our company, even though we are massively regulated and are required by law to do things within certain timeframes, follow certain procedures, and arrive at swift conclusions in a precise manner.

Yet, even though I know the rules and regulations, there are faster ways of getting things done by cutting what are very unnecessary corners. Skip a form or two that needs to be sent back and forth, and it means the insured gets his/her money back faster and thus can do the repairs necessary faster. Accept a fax of a form instead of waiting 3-5 days to have it sent by mail (and possibly lost -- it was in our paper this past weekend that only 89% of the mail in Denver is delivered correctly) and get an original signature. Again it gets the insured paid faster.

The only time you get in trouble is when the insured isn't happy. The #1 reason for the insured being unhappy isn't customer service. It isn't how they were treated. It isn't whether something was covered or not by the policy. It isn't all the hoops the insured has to jump through in order to get his/her payment.

The #1 reason the insured is unhappy is the timeframe of the claim handling process -- and it is the timeframe in his/her mind that matters, not what happens in reality (we have, by contract and judicial review, 60 days to pay or deny a claim after we have all the information required). This is when the insured complains to the Insurance Commissioner, and this is when the state starts auditing a file.

So, if corners are cut in order to trim the amount of time it takes to process a claim, then the reality of a complaint dematerializes significantly.

The problem arises when our own company auditors review the file and ask how come the rules and regulations were circumvented and not followed to the letter of the rule (even though the result would have been exactly the same).

Sure, it's a pain in the butt for the auditors, but I don't report to the auditors -- I report to my company's clients. Without them, we'd be out of business.

Jeff - You are so right that company procedures should not hinder the customer's experience. (Although your auditors might not see it that way. ) We try very hard, in everything we do, to make taking care of the customer job one. I'll flip burgers at McDonald's before I create an organization that is so busy filling out forms they don't have time to take care of the customer.

Well, today I pulled an entire job function, order invoicing and supplier invoice vouching out from the main company and into our department. Instead of paying for a portion of the salary and benefits of a couple of the people in our main company's billing department, I'm going to be using my own staff (and hiring accordingly). !sigh I just, on paper at least, increased both my costs (by needing to hire) and the main company's costs (since I'm not paying for half the salary and benefits of these particular staffers anymore).

It'll end up working out fine for me. I needed to hire anyway, and there are plenty of ways I can crosstrain people and get more value out of the dollars I'm spending. I'm leaving the parent company holding the bag though since they just lost the money I was chipping in.

Oh well. At least I can threaten to fire somebody who screws my bills up now.

Andrea
who is not sure she has actually ever threatened to fire anyone