Most CEOs are great at hiring the key individuals they need to execute on the operational aspects of the business. However, oftentimes there is a struggle with the question of “when should I hire more senior financial support?” Generally it does not happen until there is a crisis, such as feeling pressure from the bank or other stakeholders to provide necessary financial information that the company needs in times of critical assessment. Time after time, AMS receives emergency phone calls from … [Read more...]

By RoseRyan CFOs’ résumés are getting longer and more complex. Naturally they are the stewards of the company’s finances and the operator of the treasury, financial planning and analysis, accounting and tax functions. Now, they are also embracing being strategists and catalysts. This is according to Kathy Ryan, CEO and CFO of RoseRyan, and Myles Suer, senior manager, CFO solutions, at data integration company Informatica. Ryan and Suer recently tag-teamed as speakers on a webinar about … [Read more...]

By Paul Konigstein, AMS Senior Consultant Not surprisingly, the sudden demise of FEGS has been dominating water cooler talk in nonprofit offices for weeks. The question on everyone’s mind, as New York Times columnist Rachel L. Swarns put it: “How does an 80 year old agency with an annual budget of over $200 million crumble with so little warning?” Unfortunately, the answers being discussed reveal some common myths about the work of auditors and accountants. Inspired by the Discovery … [Read more...]

By Pat Voll In a new small company, all the focus — and funds — tend to be on the development side, where the company’s product or service gets fine-tuned for the marketplace. The finance organization as a support function is often low on the priority list. But as the company grows — and tracking and managing the finances gets more complex — almost all spending will continue to be concentrated on other areas, leaving the finance department to fight over the bread crumbs. Continue Reading … [Read more...]

Information technology decision-making is often driven by the latest buzzwords.  “Shared computing”, “web services”, “service-oriented architecture”, “client/server and distributed processing” have all had their heyday. However, it seems that no IT buzzword has had more visibility in the consumer space than “cloud computing”.  So what is it and is it real? Continue Reading > … [Read more...]