When most finance professionals hear the term “13 week cash forecast,” they view it as a burden—one more task to appease an overbearing lender. Most finance professionals do not get nearly as excited about building it as they do about building a projection model for an acquisition or investment. It doesn’t help that companies generally tend not to focus on their liquidity needs until they are forced to do so. Therefore, people often only prioritize the weekly cash forecasts in distressed situations, when it is too late to take corrective actions. And even still, the analysis is often hastily executed and inaccurate.

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In today’s challenging economy, there is more pressure than ever on small to mid-size firms from their banks, their CPAs, investors and the SEC (if they are public) to produce accurate and timely financial reports. In many firms this task, painful and slow if not automated, falls on the shoulders of the firm’s Accounting Team, usually the Controller.

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The following scenario is all too common. A CEO/CFO is inundated with chronic business problems: on-time delivery, customer service responsiveness, inventory inaccuracies or any of a handful of other afflictions. The management team blames a host of demons, most notorious amongst them, obsolete or dysfunctional systems.

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There are many lessons to be learned from the 2017 Equifax breach, (one of the three major national credit reporting agencies). A key one: pathetically weak IT disciplines leave businesses vulnerable to attack. Two months after an industry group discovered the coding flaw in their data systems and shared a fix, hackers took advantage of that flaw at Equifax.

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Group Purchasing Organization Plans (GPOs) have gained a lot of popularity lately. Most organizations have joined a GPO to combine their purchasing spend with other GPO members to get better pricing and streamline supplier spending. In many cases, GPOs deliver a valuable service. Not all GPOs are created equal and it is important to find right fit for your organization. In some cases, direct supplier negotiation is a viable alternative to GPO.

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