I just followed a discussion on WBS' intranet and wanted to share one piece of advice by my friend Singean. The intranet platform at WBS is, for some reason, the one which students use more effectively. The intranet at Queen's was high quality too and the one at MBS is very functional, although old fashioned (they are changing that, though). Maybe it is because of the big number of Distance Learning students who use the intranet as their main source of interaction. In any case, at WBS the contact between the different master courses is much stronger than at the other schools.
But back to accounting, I am publishing the question which started the discussion and one of the answers to it. I hope that the authors don't mind.

Greetings Everyone,

I was looking for a bit of advice and thought that I would try to reach out to the accountants out there ...

I am doing some consutancy for a small business that has a very healthy turnover and some fairly big clients - unfortunately they have no administration in place and there seems to be a fair amount of loss through the lack of control.

I was wondering if any of you can spare a moment to give some advice about what would be the best accounting package to put them on -

I have been looking at Peach Tree and Quick Books - as it turns out though quick books apparently fails to handle currencies ... has anyone got any suggestions? Please bear in mind I am not an accountant and I may end up having to set the whole thing on my own ..

The company has to :

1 Invoice Clients
2. Pay wages
3. Handle Multiple currencies as the TZ shilling is linked to the dollar and they are interchangeable -
4. Buy/sell inventory

- they are a services company

Thanks in advance

Gian

And my friend Singean's response:

Saw this thread and thought I would throw in my full penny worth too. It sounds to me like you are being pushed back on in a very classic way. Be very careful with any claims that "everything will be okay or nothing can be done until the new software comes". This is a very common excuse for poor performance which conveniently masks any need to improve things in the present. Software is just a tool not a panacea.

The start of controlling is to make sure you sit with people and make sure what they are doing actually makes sense, you don't need to be an accountant or have fancy software to do that. If you are reasonably bright and you still can't understand it then probably something is wrong. You can begin this process now without the software being in place.

Just go and sit at peoples desks and have people explain to you what they do, follow a couple of specific transactions all the way through the system. Tell tale things to look out for is if ever you hear the following: someone says they do something "because it's just like that", or "for historic reasons', or they do it "unofficially" then you need to circle back on the point later as there is a very good chance you have a financial leakage just at that point. I suggest you don't jump on the first instance of suspected leakage you see but instead quietly take a note of it because otherwise you will never get to see what is happening further downstream.

Don't expect to win many buddies doing this as unfortunately you may expect significant resistance and avoidance but if you are patient you will gradually regain control of the business. If you do not regain control first then you can buy the best software in the world and it still won't help you.

Good luck with it.

Singean
FTMBA 08

After having met so many great people because of my involvement in on line harmonica communities, this shouldn't surprise me anymore. But it does, every time: the power of belonging to an international network of like minded people is astounding!
I am at the moment in the Silver Dollar bar, on Spadina next to the University. On stage is Jerome Godboo from the Brokenjoe band, a harmonica player I had heard on the Internet because somebody recommended him on Harp-L, the (mostly) American harmonica on line discussion group. On that same discussion, Manfred, a Toronto based harmonica enthusiast, encouraged me to call him up once I arrived.
I did, and Manfred was kind enough to give me great tour around downtown Toronto yesterday, and we ended up talking shop in his house for a couple of hours.
He then called Mark "the bird" Stafford up and arranged for us to meet today (the 31st of Dec) and again I spent a great afternoon discussing and learning about the harmonica.
Mark made then sure that I came to hear Jerome, to whom I introduced myself passing regards from Mark.
And so it goes almost everywhere I go. I let the folks from Harp-L know that I will be in town and somebody gets in touch. I have already written that I saw Miguel Weissman in NY and met both PT Gazell and Jelly Roll Johnson in Nashville.
In Germany I have visited players in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hannover, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Muenster, Berlin, Klingenthal and Trossingen (of course!), to name a few places.
In England I met Brendan Power almost by chance in London and got to know and meet again a bunch of very friendly people in Bristol, at the National Harmonica League's convention. In Brazil some of my best friends are harmonica players and, during the years I have got to know or at least meet many of my harmonica role models, also in Moscow, France or Hong Kong.
And if I don't forget that my last and coolest job I owe to these connections and the Internet (thanks Steve Baker!), then I shouldn't be surprised by all this anymore.
Now I just have to find out how to apply all this in a business setting.

Obs.: Jerome played a good set, the bar is cool, but the ticket was really expensive: CA$ 40,00! But I figured out that it is New Year and didn't want to spend the evening in the hostel, even though it really is a damn cool hostel!

Today we had the best company presentation so far in the MBA course. The folks from Morgan Stanley drove up from London to talk to us about working for their company.

They started with a very impressive video where several employees from all over the world talked about why they liked to work for MS. I personally liked the way the video was built and the images laid out on the screen. And people where quite convincing there too.

Then Stuart Guest, VP of private wealth management, presented some basic facts about the company and opened the session for questions, which were many. He had with him other 5 people from the office London, 3 of them quite recent hire (1 month, 3 months and 1 year). Everybody seemed very happy to be working for MS (and I wouldn't have expected otherwise).

All in all a well rounded presentation, which made the time go by quickly. Some extracts from the session:

• Russian and Chinese languages are in high demand, even though MS has a dedicated language programme with over 10 languages.
• "It is genuinely a nice place to work. ... I even find time to run a marathon." Stuart Guest
• First time I heard the phrase: "to export a CEO".
• They offered us best in class clients. That's an interesting offer.
• "Clients like dealing with interesting people." Yes, quite obvious, but I had never heard it put so clearly.
• Employees own 25% of the shares.
• ROI expected: 20%
  
• "There is a collaborative effort in Europe, in the US this is a bit different." C.

After the presentation we had some snacks at the lounge and, for the first time, I did really "network" a bit. The fact that MS was represented by 6 people made getting involved in a conversation with one of them easier.
And everybody, both from Morgan Stanley and from WBS, made a good impression, looking smart in suits.