There’s nothing like a recession and economic crisis to get us all thinking about costs, efficiencies and productivity.  While it can be a painful period of time for some, this is also a fantastic period of time to re-focus and energize the business of the business.  On a daily basis, I continue to hear points of optimism - from sales professionals that see this as a time to develop new relationships, to CEOs who have gotten their troops looking for and implementing new ways of thinking.  It can be an invigorating time from which we will all learn lessons, making each of us stronger and smarter and positioned for growth in the future.

There is evidence of another by-product of current times that I’ve recently taken note of - a re-energized focus on the customer.  I see it happening in product-oriented companies, in service organizations, in non-profits and in early stage enterprises.  I’m sure that everyone reading this blog entry, myself included, would like to think that we continually and effectively maintain such a focus.  But there is a reality that when times are good and sales are brisk … discipline can wane and human nature can take over.  We may start to take ourselves and our customers for granted and complacency can settle in.  That may go unnoticed for short periods of time, or even longer when masked by new customer acquisition that offsets losses.

Try it now though, and I believe that you’ll quickly learn some expensive and painful lessons.  (more…)

As noted on the FEI blog, FASB is taking more steps towards addressing fair value.  Specifically, the organization has released staff positions that will help assess the environment and make appropriate determinations.  This kind of proactivity helps FASB to at least appear as if they’re prioritizing the issue, which we wondered about on MFA’s Business Insights back in January.

The IRS gave it’s official blessing to the new form 990 that is required filing for nonprofits. The move reflects the government’s effort to clamp down on misinformation and fraud coming out of the sector, and while we applaud the call for transparency we also recognize that this new version of 990 places onerous demands on the time of accounting professionals at these entities.

As outlined in an article in Accounting Today, the form is 11 pages and includes some new requests. A new section asks questions about the organization’s governance structure, policies and practices. Other important changes include new definitions of officers and key employees. Organizations must also now report on the compensation paid to their top five highest compensated employees and top five independent contractors.

For nonprofits, these changes mean that if an organization does not currently have all of its governance policies in place and in writing, they’ll have some work to do. Most if not all of these policies will need to be reviewed and approved by the governing board; for smaller organizations that are less formal this could be a time consuming project that will need special attention.