Apollo 11 - Personal Log

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  --  Lao Tzu

I would like to take my readers on a journey back in time…

Today is July 13^th, 1969.  Today is my 12^th birthday.  Every birthday is exciting but this one is extra special.  You see, it is T minus three days.  Any kid who grew up in Satellite Beach, Florida knows what that means.  Three days from today, a mission will lift off from the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center 25 miles up Route A1A.

The mission is called Apollo 11.  It represents the culmination of a promise made eight years ago by the President after whom the Space Center is named.  The mighty Saturn rocket will lift the command module and the lunar lander out of our planet’s gravity well and send the tiny spacecraft on their way to our nearest neighbor, the Moon.  One week from today, the lander will descend from lunar orbit and touch down on the barren surface.  If all goes well, Man will then set foot on another world for the first time.

My family has been part of America’s space program for the past six years.  We moved back to Satellite Beach when my dad took a job at the late lamented Pan American Airways, heading a science group that was under contract to NASA.  Their mission was to monitor downrange tracking stations, ensuring their continuing functioning, collecting and disseminating tracking data.  We had a personal stake in the success of every Gemini and Apollo mission through Apollo 11.

The crew, engineers and other support personnel are busy preparing for the mission while we are busy celebrating my big day.  This is the first entry in my personal log of the most exciting two weeks of my life.

Who Prepares Governmental Financial Statements?

Who prepares your organization’s financial statements for submission to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse?  Often, it seems that the answer is “the auditors.”  That can be problematic with respect to auditor independence, as discussed in this AICPA Q&A regarding SAS 112:

http://www.aicpa.org/interestareas/governmentalauditquality/resources/downloadabledocuments/qanda_from_gaqc_conference_call_on_sas_112%20-advance_questions-final.pdf

It is clear that the client must be able to prepare the financial statements, or at least review them effectively.  As the client-side reviewer, I have always taken that to mean that I need to tie out the financial statements to the adjusted trial balance.  That process yields benefits but also requires a map.  First, the benefits:

1. The client detects all mis-statements, but especially ones that are material.
2. The client understands how the auditors interpret the financial operating structure and can correct their understanding.
3. The client demonstrates the ability to understand and evaluate the work performed by the auditor.
4. Ultimately, the client can confidently sign the management representation letter with respect to the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements.

Now for the map.  Auditors slice and dice the trial balance in several ways to meet the reporting requirements of various financial statements.  Each account is coded with attributes that enables balances to be rolled up into the correct rows and columns.  The attributes include:

1. Classifications (e.g., asset, liability)
2. Leads (e.g., cash, fund balance)
3. Major funds (e.g., general fund, capital projects fund, major special revenue funds)
4. Functions (e.g., general government, public safety)
5. Natural or IDC class (e.g., governmental revenues, wages & fringes, contract services)
6. Funds (e.g., funds that make up the major health or housing funds)

At a minimum, the client needs a basic understanding of the map to perform the tie-out.  I recommend that the client work with the auditors to take the next step, which is to take over the mapping.  There are a couple of ways to go about it.

Some accounting systems have fields for account attributes.  If these can be imported on an ad-hoc basis and programmed to be created automatically when accounts are added, this may be the best approach.  However, its accuracy depends on account segments being used consistently across the organization.

Often (if not usually), the map will be created and maintained in Excel.  Programmed properly, the client will be able to draft the financial statements directly from the coded trial balance.  This may seem an impossibly tedious task but effective use of tables, filtering and other Excel tools will make it quicker and more efficient.

There is a “kicker” that I have not discussed, which is the linkage between the optional combining statements and the indirect cost proposal.  That is a topic for a future article.

As you can see, I am a proponent of the client “owning” the audited financial statements.  Does it matter to you?  Is it worth the effort?  What do you think?

Degrees of Connection

If you live long enough and move around, you can make connections in the oddest ways.  This past week I had the pleasure of learning about a former colleague's grandmother.

I recently announced in the Press-Telegram Alumni Group on LinkedIn that I started a new position with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.  My former colleague Brian Johnson was kind enough to offer his congratulations and volunteered that his grandparents had taught English to the Yaqui people several decades ago.  I asked for their names and he told me his grandmother's name was Lucille Hand.

This past week I was chatting with Lina, who staffs our reception desk.  The topic of languages came up, so I took the opportunity to delve deeper.  She grew up speaking Spanish and Yaqui, not learning English until 6th grade.  Mrs. Hand was her 6th grade teacher in Old Pascua!  Lina shared fond memories of Mrs. Hand, telling me that she was the first teacher who took the time and care to make sure that her students really learned their subjects.  "Good enough" was not good enough for Mrs. Hand.

As it happens, two of the major influences in my life were also teachers.  One was Mrs. Tait, my American History teacher, who was a legend at Miami Edison Senior High and about whom I have written in a Facebook high school alumni group.  The other was my grandmother Jo Randall, who wound up her teaching career at Westview Junior High in a poor area of Miami.  She and I spent a lot of time together and several times when we were out and about, she was approached by someone who had been her student.  They all were very thankful for the impact she had on their lives and were eager to share their achievements, hopes and dreams.  I am very proud of her work and dedication to learning.

Brian and I had a work friendship for a number of years and I am glad we are still in touch, if for no other reason than having a second degree connection to his grandmother.  Judging by Lina's remembrances, she was a special woman.  Brian should be very proud of Mrs. Lucille Hand. 

F9 and MAS90 Refresh Speeds

Today I discovered an old post on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/F9-MAS90-refresh-speeds-51826.S.100899816?qid=217fadf9-d130-462a-a2f3-b447948f74bd&trk=group_search_item_list-0-b-cmr&goback=.gmr_51826) that I sent in response to a fellow group member's question about F9 and MAS90 refresh speeds.  It's a highly technical discussion, so definitely not of general interest, but it's content that I want to preserve.  It will be much easier for me to find it here than the haystack of LinkedIn groups.  :)

F9 with MAS90 is definitely resource-intensive.  There are ways to counteract the extreme slowness but no "magic bullet" to make it quick.  Here are best practices that I discovered.

MAS90 uses a flat-file database, so searching it will always be slow.   First you want to minimize the number of G/L accounts.  Try not to add new accounts; instead, merge or renumber as appropriate and purge (or inactivate) unused accounts.  Second, keep as few years of transaction history in your "live" database as you need for operational/audit reasons.  Third, get into the administrative tools (after backing up, of course) and run the routines that clean up or rebuild the database.   If you have the knowledge, get into the control file and hack out "ghost" users.  (This is an old problem, so maybe they have solved it by now.)

Your server is another potential bottleneck.  If you can, run a 64-bit OS and load it up with RAM, which is the cheapest investment you can make for more speed.  If you can't afford a dedicated accounting server, at least make sure that it is running no other processor- or memory-intensive tasks.

Next comes data transfer.  You need a fat pipe from the server to your desktop; i.e., gigabit ethernet.   Wireless or WAN/VPN performance will be painful.   Physically sit as close as possible to your data so that your desktop is not behind any routers or switches.  IT pros may tell you it makes no difference but you need even the slightest edge you can get.

On your desktop, also run a 64-bit OS and load it up with RAM.  Unload any RAM hog applications (browsers can be culprits) when you are about to crank up F9.  Eliminate items from your startup tray, keeping only what is absolutely necessary for security.

I'm sure you have already discovered to set Excel for manual recalculation.  Make Shift-F9 single sheet recalculation your best friend until it is time to validate the entire workbook.  Also set Excel to recalculate before save and save whenever you are interrupted.

I believe in modular programming for efficiency and debugging.   It won't necessarily help recalculation speed but it will help your programming performance.  Use BSPEC statements and have them refer to cells, not have values embedded.   The same applies to your GL and NGL statements.   Build the inputs outside the print range with visibility for editing and debugging.

In general, use as few F9 statements as possible.  For instance, build variances, sub-totals and totals the old-fashioned way.   Only use F9 statements to extract values, not to do calculations.

Avoid the wildcard (*).   It is powerful but hungry.  Instead use a range, such as 000..999.  Trim the range for efficiency while ensuring that you capture all data.

Precision programming creates a risk of missing accounts that have been created in error outside the defined chart of accounts ranges.  You must build in proof totals with inclusive ranges and accept the performance hit, as financial statement accuracy is paramount.   It will help if you place all your proof totals (PT) in one sheet and recalculate it with Shift-F9 as seldom as possible.   Create a full set of check totals on that sheet that refers to the grand totals (GT) on each sheet.  It should have =GT-PT going across and down.   That way when you recalculate you can quickly see whether it has all zeroes.

If you are in a time crunch, ideally you will save, which will force a full recalculation, just once before you publish.  Plan that event for a coffee break, phone call, etc. and you will reduce your stress.   Also save if you are interrupted so your PC can crank away while you are attending to something else.  The more robust or complex the worksheet, the more important this is.   Even if you save without meaning to, walk away.  Take a deep breath and let the PC do its thing.

You can actually use F9's resource hoggishness to make yourself more accessible.   Again, you can mitigate but not eliminate the demand it places on your server and PC.  You can ignore my earlier advice, discipline yourself to save frequently, get out of your chair and interact with your staff.  Coming in early or waiting until after hours does speed it up a bit but doesn't do much for your work-life balance.  Always remember to get your head out of your spreadsheets and be a well-rounded CFO for your team and the people you serve.

Ken Mason's Professional Portfolio

This blog entry will read best if you read my Introduction first.

Let's see, why did I start a blog again?  That's right, it was to provide a platform for the files I want to share with my professional network.  This also gives me an opportunity to provide a bit of background for the files with no obvious reason for their being shared.  Let's dive in.

First a bit of housekeeping.  Box has limited options for sorting files:  name, date or size.  For simplicity, I am sticking with name.  However, I want to discuss the files in an order that flows more logically, so the discussion below is deliberately not in sync with the file list.  That said...

Ken Mason Resume 2013:  My resume is attached to my profile for obvious reasons.

Ken Mason Consultant Profile:  I was challenged early in my career by being assigned to lead the PBM Conversion Task Force at the Long Beach Press-Telegram.  The mission of the task force was to plan and execute the conversion of the pay-by-mail (PBM) subscriber database from an old in-house system (written in RPG, if memory serves) to the Collier-Jackson module that Knight-Ridder partnered in developing.  I was a brand new manager, new to the organization and joined the project mid-stream.  However, I quickly grew into the role of project lead, enjoyed leading a cross-functional team and was able to deliver a successful outcome to the company.  I came to view this and later projects as consulting roles, even though they were internal to the organizations, and am thinking about a future blog post on the topic.  I subsequently have performed consulting engagements as an outside contractor.  I developed this profile as a communication tool for the value I bring in that type of role. 

Ken Mason - reference letters:  LinkedIn provides its members a platform to recommend each other's work.  However, not all professionals are on LinkedIn or they may have written traditional letters of recommendation.  I scanned the letters that were in my files.

IFRS Update and Outlook cert:  There is a great deal of discussion about convergence of U.S. (FASB) and international (IFRS) reporting standards.  I attended this webinar to gain knowledge in an area of particular interest in my ongoing professional learning.

Loan Amort - Construction:  I participate in LinkedIn Groups to discuss issues of interest to fellow professionals.  There was a request in one of the groups for an amortization template.  Since I had previously obtained and improved one, I was only too happy to post it to my profile and invite my fellow group members to download it.

Simple Forecast Model:  As above.  Earlier in 2011, I had created a cash flow model for my then-employer, so it was a simple matter to re-create a generic version that incorporated additional elements in response to the request.

Introduction

I established a Google account for two primary professional reasons:  to reserve a space for my name and to drive any resulting traffic to my LinkedIn profile.  LinkedIn is continuously changing and I am continuously learning how best to leverage it.  The latest change is the new profile that is gradually being rolled out.  It has a very different look and no longer supports some third-party applications.

Poof!  The files that I linked to my profile using Box.net are longer accessible through that application.  How best to maintain my modest portfolio?  Naturally, I turned to the Q&A forum LinkedIn Answers Home for advice.  The advice that was easiest to implement came from my friend Ken Larson, who has a couple of blogs using this platform.  Establish a blog using Google's free tools and link my Box.net files to it.

Who knows?  Maybe I will even start blogging!