Features

Management Accounting and Control: Lessons for and from the World’s Tiniest Businesses
By Srikant M. Datar, Marc J. Epstein, and Kristi Yuthas
Microfinance has been an important method for helping individuals in developing countries gain access to financial services. Yet experience has shown that access to capital isn’t enough to guarantee success. Many microentrepreneurs lack the same skills that management accountants rely on every day. Helping them learn these basic concepts can help ensure microfinancing efforts have an even greater positive impact.

Cost Leadership for the Current Challenge
By Jonathan B. Schiff, CMA, and Allen I. Schiff
Finance and accounting professionals must adapt to meet the needs of the challenging economic landscape. By refocusing their efforts toward areas where their skills are needed most, accountants can become cost leaders within their organizations, helping to instill a strong commitment to low costs, customer focus, and process improvement that will lead to successful growth initiatives even in difficult financial times.

What’s Ahead for Global Standards?
By Ramona Dzinkowski
Sir David Tweedie, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), discusses the progress in global adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as well as the impact the recent economic crisis has had on the pace of adoption, the role that accounting can play in restoring economic growth, and the state of convergence within the United States, Asia, and other major markets.

Achieving Top Quality
By Larry Weinstein
Classifying cash flows as operating, investing, or financing is usually straightforward, although the sorting of some items has been controversial. Modeling the statement of cash flows after the income statement is a logical approach, the authors contend, and should enhance the statement of cash flow’s usefulness by providing greater consistency between the two financial statements.

Columns

PERSPECTIVES
Don’t Just Follow the Money

TOP LINE
IMA Is Broadening Its Global Presence

TAXES
Do Certain Excess S Corporation Expenses Carry Over?

ETHICS
Empty Promises Aren’t Enough to Prevent Unethical Behavior

FINANCIAL REPORTING
Revenue Recognition: New Answers to “How Much?” and “When?”

IMA LIFE
I Recommend IMA

Departments

SF BULLETIN
• Derivatives Bill Splits Corporate Community & Obama Administration
• SEC/FASB Report to Congress Passes House
• We Want Your Stories
• Letters: Increase Profits at All Costs
• Books: Driving New Growth

EXCEL
Using Named Ranges in Excel

ACCESS
Make Table Queries

XBRL
XBRL Implementation Strategies: The Deeply Embedded Approach

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Sprint Mobile HotSpot, WaterField Sleeve for Netbooks, Netbooks: The Missing

TECH FORUM
Netbooks—A First Look