The Controller's Workshop

Behind every successful organization, there's a great financial manager …

Your job as your organization's controller means that it's up to you to juggle people, projects, finances, budgets, and purchases … not to mention other critical duties like staying on top of state and federal regulatory agency requirements, providing complex financial data at a moment's notice, and overseeing the financial policies and direction of your organization.

Managers, CEOs, CFOs, investors, and company stakeholders — all depend on the accurate financial data, forecasting, analysis, and reporting that controllers provide.

How can you work more effectively? Do your job more efficiently? How do other controllers at some of today's largest organizations manage their myriad of responsibilities (while keeping their sanity!)? What are the latest and greatest "best practices" you can adopt to make your own job easier?

The Controller's Workshop is an intensive, fast-paced look at how to improve your day-to-day job performance by working smarter — not harder or longer (you already put in enough hours in a day!). You'll discover an incredible amount of information, ideas, how-to's, and tools for improving your accounting team's performance, enhancing your financial reporting skills, maintaining successful internal controls, monitoring cash flow, controlling costs and much more.

Join your peers for a powerful day of results-focused learning!

This workshop is a golden opportunity for you to join other controllers who share your on-the-job responsibilities, challenges, triumphs, and frustrations. It's a day designed to deliver the training you need to streamline your processes and procedures, explore new ideas and strategies for improving productivity, and become a more effective leader, manager, and communicator.

Keep your finger on the financial pulse of your organization

As the driving force behind your organization's financial performance, it's up to you to develop and maintain the systems, policies, and procedures that ensure accurate reporting, analysis, evaluations, and asset management. The Controller's Workshop will help you:

• Evaluate your current accounting policies and procedures, and revise them if necessary

• Establish an effective internal controls framework

• Use forecasting tools to create a more accurate financial picture

• Utilize pricing models to price products and services

• Accurately track costs to maintain optimum cash flow

• Quickly identify and mitigate fraud within your organization

Your business looks to you for financial leadership. This intensive workshop will help you tackle a broad range of financial issues head on, from monitoring controls and cash flow to advising upper management on purchases, hiring, expansion, and other areas that are directly affected by financial performance.

Enhance your reputation as a first-rate controller

• How to use the expectations of your stakeholders to successfully define your role as controller

• Tips for "marketing yourself" to your organization's top executives and increasing your value

• What CEOs and CFOs really want and expect from the controller at their organization — and learn how to give it to them!

• How to let non-financial staff members know what they can do to make your job easier

Effective operations: heading up your accounting team

• How to ensure the structure of accounting operations aligns with the goals and objectives of the organization

• Five ways to ensure that your accounting team enjoys greater job satisfaction

• Eight critical directives for establishing effective accounting policies and procedures

• Tips for identifying and capitalizing on your accounting department's strengths

• How to pinpoint knowledge gaps within your department and work to fill them

• Do your outsourcing contracts align with the needs of your organization? How to ensure you've chosen the right outsourcing partner

• How to transform outsourced personnel into temporary team members

Reporting: strategies to streamline, organize, and improve performance

• Eight keys to a faster end-of-month close

• How to transform outsourced personnel into temporary team members

• Three steps that will help you become an expert on complex accounting matters

• Ways to safeguard and protect any judgmental accounting, reporting and disclosure decisions you make

• When general accounting principles aren't enough — how to use advanced analysis and forecasting tools to tell the true story of your company's health and performance

• How to accurately track costs to maintain optimum cash flow

• How to use the Variance Report as a tool in building your budget

• What you need to be aware of to price products and services accurately

• How to adjust pricing to reflect uncertain financial seasons

Internal Controls: how to improve processes and procedures

• Tools, tips and strategies for establishing a rock-solid internal control framework

• Preparation techniques that will set you up for a successful audit

• The auditor is your friend — how to foster a sound professional relationship that will benefit you both

• How to respond appropriately to audit findings and results

• Leverage a successful audit and internal control structure to increase your worth and value to your company

Fraud identification and mitigation

• Who in your organization is capable of fraud? The answers may surprise you!

• The fraud triangle: Perceived Pressure; Rationalization; Perceived Opportunity

• Accounting and analytical anomalies that may indicate trouble

• Are there any weak links in your internal control system? Dishonest characters will head for these first

• Out-of-the-ordinary spending habits, extravagance, unusual behavior and other employee red flags that may point to fraudulent activities

Communicating effectively with non-financial professionals

• Key terms non-financial people must understand to ensure accuracy and consistency

• Three ways you can encourage your staff to help make your job easier and less stressful

• Is there a financial "language gap" in your organization? We'll show you how to close it

• Methods to simplify your presentation style and create more user-friendly documents

• Do you speak in “financialese?” Here’s how to tone down the financial-speak and come across clearly and concisely when speaking with those outside your team

• Communication skills that will improve your relationships with your staff, management and others