FP&A
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Business Gift Giving Etiquette Failures
Our company has made just about every mistake possible with business gift giving. We’ve given liquor to recovering alcoholics, we’ve given men’s cologne to ladies (hey, it was already wrapped), we’ve been subtly criticized for client bribery, we’ve been not-so-subtly criticized for the skimpiness o…
21
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Consolidation Entries
I am reviewing year end entries from last year. There is an audit adjustment between a foreign sub in Euro and the US parent for the intercompany accounts, a note payable and the retained earnings account done at 12-31-2013. Perhaps that was recommended by the auditors for consolidation/reporting p…
3
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Does anyone use E-signatures or Document Signing programs?
And your reasoning for or against. If for, how many of your relationships also use this technology?
15
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Inputs for Black-Scholes Pricing of Options
In pricing stock options for some of our key employees, we are using a Black-Scholes calculator which asks for the following items: 1) Strike Price, 2) Share Price, 3) Maturity, 4) Risk Free Interest Rate, 5) Volatility. Our Board has confirmed the strike and share prices (based on internal revenue…
9
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What is the average or target mix of revenue for a software company?
I am looking to find the average or target mix of software license revenue, professional services (tranining/consulting), and annual maintenance and support for a software company on an annual basis.
10
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Has your company ever admistered a cost savings recognition program?
I am very interested in hearing if you or your company has introduced a company cost savings recognition program. This would involve employees submitting ideas within a company that, if enacted or executed and yielded a savings, the employee was financially recognized. If you have any experience …
6
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Startup Salary vs Equity Compensation
We are a private, venture capital backed company. in a recent meeting with our Comp Committee there was discussion about increasing use of stock grants to high performers to mitigate the effect of lack of significant cash compensation increases. I am trying to see if that thought process is “marke…
18
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Foreign Currency Hedge Strategies
What is your advice for setting F/X rates in the budgeting process? Should the "budgeted rates" drive hedging strategy?
5
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Average Equity Grant to CFO's at PE/VC Portfolio Company's
Does anyone have any average PE/VC industry statistics of the equity grant to CFO's at Portfolio Company's? I have heard common range is 1-5% with the average hovering around 1-2% and 5% being on the very high end. Interested if anyone has any insight on those figures or knows of data sources that…
6
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Professional Services Firm Forecasting Models
I am looking for a good model to use to forecast revenue at our management consultancy. I've seen one good concept that involved number of leads, closing ratios, etc. I wanted to see if any professional services CFO's or Controllers had some good models they found successful. Thanks, Mark
5
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Accounting For Prepaid Expenses
We are paying for a trade conference (event day in 2014) that over the next couple of months we will not be eligible for a refund. Should the prepaid trade conference to booked to an expense account or a prepaid asset account?
9
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Trial Balance
When I started my accounting career I used the trial balance every month to start my reconciliation process. Through the years however I have moved away from this method and reconcile the balance sheet and P&L each month instead for month and then YTD. Using this method I am able to catch incor…
17
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Direct Costs of a Service Organisation
Hi, I have a private investigator firm as a client. We are rewriting the chart of accounts and trying to determine the costs to be included in Direct Costs and therefore COS. It is obvious to include the investigators' costs in direct costs but we are unsure as to the following: 1. admin person who…
2
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Billing system for complicated revenue model
What's the best billing software that can automatically (non-manual) compute and prepare invoices for a revenue model that may be considered complicated? It is a professional service business that wants to go to a modified subscription model. It is also exploring if they can set it up as tiered pac…
3
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How do you introduce yourself virtually ?
I read an interesting LinkedIn post, How NOT To Introduce Yourself. This article focused on face to face introductions, and I wanted to put a spin on this question and pose it here on Proformative, how should you introduce yourself virtually? How do you make a good first impression virtually? What …
3
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Actual Peer to Peer Benchmarks: How Does a Company Create Them
I recently moderated a very thought provoking webinar,, Using Real-Time Financial Benchmarks to Drive Dynamic Decision-Making and Action, that suggested that relative performance management is the best, if not only way, to be a market leader. The concept of peer to peer benchmarking is key in this…
6
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Inventory Valuation Accounting
Can the valuation of Inventory be done on the basis of receipt of goods and valued based on the PO price or should we wait for the Invoice to come and then do the valuation. What happens when the Invoice comes at a later month and the goods have been received. I am assuming that the transfer of ow…
5
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Asked for a friend: I need to set up a data room for a fund raising and wanted to get advice/recommendations on third party providers
It's that simple. My friend is a CFO preparing for a funding and he needs to select and set up a data room. Suggestions and recommendations are welcome. If you have hints as to the best ways to set up and manage an virtual data room, along with platform recommendations, that would be welcome.
13
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Appropriate Activities
The holidays are approaching thus, company holiday parties. That makes this a good time to ask this question here, even though it was raised by something that happened at a recent industry conference and not a private, company party. I just saw a picture today from a recent national trade event of …
8
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Is it preferable to expense or capitalize costs of internally developed patents
I am working with an early stage/startup medical device company that has never been audited. They are in the process of raising capital. Historically they have capitalized patent costs (management time; legal costs (filing, clearance opinions, etc.) and ongoing patent maintenance fees. In some case…
2
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Structuring Product Codes in Quickbooks
I am CFO of an early stage, post Series-A SAAS startup. The set of offerings and description of the product segments has shifted significantly over the past year, so we are about to restructure our product codes to match our current perception of how they should work. We offer a base SAAS product t…
1
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What's the difference between dashboards and scorecards?
From a business intelligence point of view, when do you use one or the other or are they the same thing for the same purpose? Sorry for the confusion, but must admit I don't really get it.
3
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Is Monte Carlo simulation appropriate for forecasting models with a lot of variables?
My company has a complex mix of products and verticals. Some of our products have seasonality and a number of assumptions that go into our revenue model. Is Monte Carlo simulation appropriate for forecasting models with a lot of variables or would you stick to a smaller number of controlled assumpt…
4
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Managing Change In The Workplace
In the last month or so, I have heard "change management" and "managing change" at least half a dozen times in meetings and conversations. I have to say that I hear all of this as bureaucratizing change in the workplace. And if not bureaucratizing, then propagandizing a top-down change initiative. …
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