Checking in on the Key Points

Some quick updates to cross reference:

Find your way to the update lines at DCarsonCPA on Risk Management and on Taxation .

And the Daily Core Lines at Entity and Sector Lines and the LOBs .

We will be back with more soon to the key points but in the meantime these are some relevant lines on recent updates to follow where we meet on Services, Research and Outreach to help the needs of  Entities in the Economy and Financials.

Contact Us or e-mail info@dcarsoncpa.com 

Mapping in for the New Year 2015

Mapping in for the New Year 2015

The Key Points was originally the Launch point for Our Lines at DCarsonCPA as a centralized line to follow the points of updates where Financials and new regulations were meeting at that point.

We built strong skills with the lines for points to support Compliance and Legal Workflows in compliment to Financials and the needs on Strong Controls for Risk Management in the Financial and other sectors.

The journey we undertook to learn  about ALL of the points where Financials, Legal, Economics, IT and Communications meet for Industry, Non Profits, NGOs, Governments (Local, Multi-State, National and Global) was a rewrding one with many different directions and a substantial amount of resources and energy placed to Research working with Financials, Laws, Rules, Economics, Statistics and some to the best minds in Industry, Non Profit, NGO and Government lines to fill in the Gaps on Our Awareness on Calls, In Journals, On Research and mossaic sourced Analysis. We worked from a perspective of learning more about the many points where Financials are at work to help on needs on growth in the Economy.

Through the key points grew our interests and commitments to find ways to help Entities succeed more on growth with efficiency, and to find ways to help on the Economy where Our skills connect.

These days you can find many of the key points as follows:

DCarsonCPA by LOBs on Services

DCarsonCPA on Linkedin:

DCarsonCPA on Entity and Cross Sector Lines (on the Economy and Financials)

Covering Global and Domestic Economics, Financials, Legal Support Services, Project Management and Business Analysis (w/ IT Data and Cyber Security Lines along with Communications, Data, Research and Analysis), Core Financials, Tax Services lines and more. Our Business Model is based on Services, Research and Outreach to help on the Economy, Efficiency, Growth and Improvements as evolving on the pathway of Global Decision Making Research and the cross functional skills are also well suited for Risk Management and Deep Support lines to Economic and Policy Research as we grow to include Economic and Legal skills to a strong base of now 20+ years on Financials.

We trained up for the Leadership lines for Boards, Directors, Senior Management and the Staff Development points for the Industry lines and for the Executive, Legislative and Judicial points on Financials to optimally understand the moving parts of Industry, Government, Non Profits,NGOs and Individuals / Families and Communities working together in the Economy as we evolved a reduction template of Global Decision Making Research for most any needs where we meet on Services, Research and Outreach.

The Result of which is strong problem solving skills for on demand needs and a very large ability to help on challenges where cross sector lines meet Economics, Statistics, Financials, Laws,Rules and Governance and the IT lines help for Services, Research and Outreach.

We can help on Strategic needs at the overview level or map to specific lines of needs in more detail depending on Client needs on demand.

Tax Season 2015 is expected to be a challenging year based on IRS needs and budgets. Fortunately we began on the Tax lines several years back and mapped the strong lines of comprehensive research to be an Asset to Clients in times like these and we can help on Entity and Individual / Family lines of needs with strong skills on Tax Services. We've built strong skills through daily lines of research as overlays to a strong foundation of core skills in CFO/ Controlling and Lean Management Consulting and the net result is many a way to help on needs through Financials, Tax, Compliance and Managerial Accounting skills. The mapped in overlay is deep Economic, Legal, IT, Financial, Finance and Societal Research skills focused on the value of Financials to needs across sectors and those are skills that can help at many a varied point in the Economy for Leadership lines of Entity needs and related lines on Project Services and Research.]

Learn more at DCarsonCPA where we connect on Services, Research and Outreach.

2010 - 2012 was a robust period of 3 years on deep research to the lines where Laws and Financials meet in the Economy, By 2013 we had moved into the next level of following the lines on Economics and Statistics at work as the key tools to help on the Economy and working in ever increasing ways on background research on Laws, Rules, Financials, Industry, Non Profits, NGOs,  Gov and Individual / Families and where we all meet in the Aggregate. More can be found and understood at www.dcarsoncpa.com find ther readers on Financial Decision Making Research, Knowledge Support and more as key point and DCarsonCPA by LOBs is a fast track to many but not ALL the points we can help in as many lines are held for services where we bring the pieces together for applied value to Client needs. We focus Our lines on Growth, Efficiency, Improvements, Strong Controls, Financials and Change Management within the relevant framework of working with the knowledge that runs through Financials, To Entities, to the Economy and Back for Value.

The Dewey Bankruptcy and Insurance ( 1 of 2)

Backgrounders:

Some observations from news updates  today on the Dewey Bankruptcy via Reuters :

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/07_-_July/A_surprise_$50_mln_insurance_policy_surfaces_in_Dewey_talks/

Placing us back on track for an Earlier look we took at the Lehman Bankruptcy:

http://dcarsoncpa.blogspot.com/2011/09/tri-point-nature-of-bankruptcy-reaching.html

Bankruptcy and Insurance:

Unfortunately in this Economy for the past several years the dimension of Bankruptcies has been an important element due to business failures and stretched finances. Bankruptcy courts are where extremely challenged Financial Entities seek remedy through Restructuring of Debt or through Cancellation of Debt under the various provisions of the US Bankruptcy Laws. At some other point we can recap on those mechanics but at this point our interest was captured by the Insurance element of the Dewey Bankruptcy case above as it had prompted an idea to better communicate with you on the lines of Insurance overall.

We had previously touched upon Bankruptcy in the Lehman case and reaching out to the Three Parties of the Estate with respect to the Assets. They never officially acknowledge or replied to our offer, but I was able to confirm that they took action on the insight we shared. The channels of communication we used would have been sure to have connected with parties that pursued the opportunity. I don't mind because at the end of the day we have built out so many avenues to connect and support Financial Decision Makers that this was just a small dimension of opportunities we see continually. For purposes of this analysis we are focusing on Insurance and then will go back to the Dewey Case. Read on for the element of Insurance:

Focusing on Insurance:

Whether or not it is directly relevant to this specific case one of the key activities in your Entity Accounting Operations work with  is Accounts Payable. Through Accounts Payable, the Balance Sheet and Risk Management Accounting for Purchased Insurance Policies then rolling through the Profit and Loss statement as expenses (subsequent to entry in the Accounting Software). It is an important task at Accounts Payable to make sure Invoices are coded correctly. If they are not there is a cross check on expenses at the month's end where through various methods like vendor checks and accounts analysis the expenses are reviewed. Through these two steps and hopefully not subsequent steps of Internal or External Audit the Insurance Expenses will be correctly Accounted for, properly classified and appropriately picked up on an Insurance schedule.

Controls:

This is a key process with Insurance that helps to confirm that your Insurance Policies are in place and in force so that they are serving as value added viable elements of Risk Management. If this is not happening you run the risk of having issues like lapsed coverage or cases where you have missed coverage, If you have missed coverage you paid the invoice and have coverage but it get's lost in financials and your management may not even know there is a coverage policy when losses are incurred. It is not a common case but it is a real and present danger in Risk Management to have either lapsed coverage or missed coverage that get misclassified may be immaterial to overall accounts and then gets mixed with other class expenses and therefore not seen later. This is a key point where well trained and knowledgeable Accounts Payable and Staff Accountants can make a difference. Responsible parties booking entries need to be aware of ALL vendors and expenses and be appropriately trained to code expenses.

Risks:

As a business becomes larger the risk grows and so do chances for things to be potentially misclassified and overlooked, In Practice there are more control steps as you grow - a Formal Risk Manager, a CCO or COO and others along with the key accounting team that help but cannot guarantee that 100% of the entries will be correctly classed. There will always be some element of risk, but the idea is that through materiality and through awareness and the use of control checklists and compensating duties that all areas will be covered in your financials.

In the outlier of occurrences consider the risk that an expense gets miscoded in AP, missses the cross check at months end and then is misclassified and not material enough to be found. It's a risk that can happen and is prevented by compensating controls through risk management and check lists, Insurance Schedules and other compensating controls including that if you have a good Insurance Broker they would be watching out for you. But there is always the risk and this can happen where controls or procedures are lax. The outlier chance is that when the policy is miscoded and misses the cross checks, Management may not be aware and may miss that a coverage may be dropped or may have been paid and is misssed in reporting.

Add this circumstance to a business loss and you have a missed opportunity for Risk Management with payout consequences or you may have worse the expense, be covered and then not file the claim. There are many types of Insurance policy and if the related policy happens to read "Claims Made"  - see the related post " Some Things you should know about Insurance" in our blog there is a risk that if the Claim is not made within the terms of the policy as "in force" that you will lose the coverage.

The consequence of not being insurred through errors in accounting, misclassifications, miscoding or droped coverages gives rise to the risk of Real Financial Losses and missed opporunities to mitigate the various losses that can occur across the lines of Insurable events. The summary of the matter has real financial consequence and potential to deliver sizeable losses that place your earnings, assets and very business continuity at risk through Financial Exposure. It makes sense to be diligent in Financial Coverages, Risk Management, Accounting Practices and Controls designed to verify that your coverages and Risk Management strategy has been fully deployed across your your Entity. We can help.

Conclusions:

The element of capturing, understanding and verifying your Insurance Coverages is Essential to your business (whether or not quantified here it is a self evident truth of Risk Management). We can help.

The role of your Accounts Payable staff is much more important then you would anticipate. Coding is all about pathways into Financials and if you take the wrong turn you can lose valuable decision making information, potentially this can lead to a succession of issues as momentum builds in errors of misclassification or ommission. You key Controls on Accounting are important at this step, as is staff training and awareness of specialized Vendors and their Expenses. We can help.

The key role of Risk Management and Insurance is to make sure you are covered on Risks to diminish high risk / high impact exposures at a minimum to protect your Financial Entity, Make sure that your Risk Management strategy as designed has been fully implemented across your Business or Other Entity. We can help (*).

(*) We will work with your Insurance Brokers and Risk Management Strategy to confirm matching Accounting Policies and Practices are in place and that you are finding the coverage you need at a price that makes sense from a Compliance Analysis and Financial perspetive. Insurance may also have Tax implications that we can help you to assess as needed.

One of the key roles of Controls in addition to preventing bad actors on financials is also to provide a neccessary system of checks and balances on the path to management, financial, tax and regulatory reporting. We can help.

We are here to assist you improve your practices on Accounting and Controls with the consideration of Four Critical and Concurrent Streams of Financial Reporting that we will cover for you in an article soon to follow. Our Business is about hands on skills, those skills include hands on ownership of Accoutning, Operations and Financials from Journals to Receivables and Payables to Financials to Financial Analysis and Output Reporting including Subsequent Audits and follow ups.The hands on skills with the entry and the experience of Business Analysis to not only consider the input and output data sets, but to also consider and connect with the underlying Data Tables, Calculations, export and import avenues are all good skills sets to work from. Connect that to the larger picture of Government Rules, Industry Standards, Sector needs on Financials, Tax Rules, Analysis, Strategy and more and we can be of significant assistance on your Consulting needs. Find us at http://www.dcarsoncpa.com/ or e-mail info@dcarsoncpa.com .


Outro:

Back on track as I read the Dewey Article it came to my mind that potentially this was one of those outlier cases where someone found an Insurance Policy for $50 Million that was overlooked, fortunately on further read it appears not to be the case. Never the less generically speaking when there are Financial issues like the collapse in this case of a Major Law Firm there are more risks that part of the problem was in the Financials and Reporting Practices. 

This is 1 of 2 Entries on this focusing on the first thought on Insurance the next article will focus on the fascinating and unusual financial case of the collapse of a Major Law Firm from what we can see in the Public Record.


DCarsonCPA,com is your web link to the practice of Dean T. Carson II, CPA following the line of Financials that connect Government, Industry, Non Profit and Individual Financial Decision Making we see the many opportunities for services through knowledge, experience, research and teamwork. The skills of discovery and the analytics are tools we use on a regular basis in many diverse ways to solve problems for Clients on Services . The points of discussion exist to share ideas and points of where we may be able to help on Services or Research or otherwise find interest in the topic matter. Learn more at http://www.dcarsoncpa.com/ or inquire at info@dcarsoncpa.com .