Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Letter From the Editor

2016; Wiley; Volume: 27; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/jcaf.22135

1097-0053

Joanne Edwards,

Financial Reporting and XBRL

Dear JCAF Reader, Our new JCAF team is about settled in, and we are gaining traction in improving our performance as a major player in the international world of corporate accounting and finance media. Our goal is to present ideas to transform accounting and finance from the industrial to the information age. As with many economic endeavors, we are always seeking additional abilities and capacities to serve our readers and authors. Our current Editorial Advisory Board of Tom Pryor, Dr. Gregory Prescott, and Dr. Caroline Strobel continue to promote JCAF and provide valuable guidance. Tom is writing the book reviews until we find a permanent columnist. Tom also promotes JCAF at professional meetings and solicits authors. Greg writes and encourages other academic authors. Caroline is the senior member of the Board and is a long-time columnist writing about taxes. All three perform editorial reviews. We have a very competent group of columnists, including Caroline Strobel (IRS), Paul Munter (FASB), Oscar Holzmann (FASB), Shirley Dennis-Escoffier (IRS), and Don Walker (SEC). We hope to add more columns in the near future. We are looking for someone to provide book reviews, a column featuring tools for accountants and finance, a column focusing on finance issues, and a column providing news releases relevant to accounting and finance. Suggestions and recommendations to the editor are welcome at jcaf.editor.edwards@gmail.com. Our Associate Editor, Dr. Michael Ehrlich, has organized an anonymous peer review team for refereeing scholarly manuscripts. He, along with Wiley staff, has installed ScholarOne Manuscripts, a system for managing submitted manuscripts and peer reviews. Refereed peer review manuscripts should now be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/JCAF. We would like to add volunteer members to the editorial review (ER) team and to the refereed (double-blind peer review) (R) team. If you would like to recommend someone and/or volunteer yourself, contact Associate Editor, Michael Ehrlich at michael.a.ehrlich@njit.edu for the R team or contact Jim Edwards at jcaf.editor.edwards@gmail.com for all other classifications (ER, commissioned [C]). Additional volunteer reviewers would enable us to respond to authors more quickly and effectively. Kelly Sullivan is our Publishing Manager/Editor, and she watches over JCAF with a keen eye for detail and support. Monica Calibeo is our cleanup batter in the role of Production Editor. She patiently schedules and manages the production process to ensure each issue meets the best quality standards and deadlines. Most of all, we need to increase our pipeline of contributing authors for the features and commentaries sections. All three categories (R, ER, C) of feature articles are needed. When submitting your manuscripts, please indicate the category in which you wish for your work to be processed. C—Commissioned: These manuscripts are commissioned by the senior editor in advance or upon review by the senior editor. This classification is intended primarily for authors who do not need any form of peer review and those who fill an immediate need for current content in JCAF. They may be modified by the senior editor or his designee. This process is usually completed in less than two weeks. This category provides efficient and effective opportunities to bring developing information to accounting and finance executives. Do not make the reader work to read your article, so keep the thought threads in line. Reveal the leading theme in an orderly way. Post review. Read it yourself as a reader rather than author. Manuscripts should be submitted as Microsoft Word files. Single-spaced. We wish to publish the work of academic researchers and other visionary thinkers. We simply ask that these contributions be written in a style that is easy for business executives to read effectively and efficiently. Even the most complicated subjects need to be presented in a manner that makes the utilization of these ideas usable by practical businesspeople. We hope to improve marketing efforts to place JCAF in more corporate libraries and company internal distribution channels. Your ideas and suggestions are welcome. Just contact the editor. Finally, we invite the readers of JCAF to tell us what you would like to see added, changed, or deleted. Your preferences for content and presentation formats are solicited. Please tell us what you would like to see in JCAF. This issue features articles on Cost Management, Performance Metrics, and Strategic Business Analysis. Some say, “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” Alan Dybvig leads off this issue with “A Next-Generation Application of TRUE Optimization for Finance: The Optimized Income Statement (OIS).” The author suggests that the time has come for Finance to get started to apply optimization/advanced analytics. By applying advanced analytics to the income statement, the “one report every organization needs,” it is now possible to optimize it, creating an optimized income statement (OIS). The key deliverables of an OIS are an updated forecast that is maximally profitable and an updated supply chain that is the optimally feasible one required to make and fulfill the new forecast. In “Big Data and KPIs: A Valuable Connection” by Kurt Fanning, the author suggests that the first step in the start-up of a Big Data project is to think critically about the firm's key performance indicators. As the firm moves forward with the Big Data project, in addition to the improvements made to the Big Data project in capturing and storing the data, the firm should be also improving its key performance indicators (KPIs). In summation, just as a body and mind duality is important for the proper growth of a person, so is the hardware/software and measuring techniques in growing a Big Data project. Carol E. Vann, in “Strategic Benefits of Integrating the Managerial Accounting Function With Supply Chain Management,” examines recent academic research to offer practitioners insight into the benefits of incorporating three-dimensional concurrent engineering and strategic cost management into the design of their supply chain. It has been shown that this integration can enable companies to achieve their strategic goals of improving their organization's operational and financial performance, reducing costs, increasing customer value and satisfaction, and maintaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace. “The Simple Analytics of Matrix Accounting, Activity-Based Costing, and Linear Programming” by Melvin Hughes develops a matrix model of cost accounting and integrates activity-based costing with linear programming. The “analytics” are simple; one only needs to understand the basics of matrices in this article. While the “simplex” algorithm of linear programming (LP) is not so simple, computer programs do the mathematics. Thus, a technical treatment of LP is not needed. Just a general intuitive knowledge of LP is sufficient. There will be two follow-up articles that work through the model step by step on the computer. This article may be considered somewhat complex, but the message in this article is judged to be valuable for the readers of JCAF. Readers are encouraged to read this article prospectively. In the May/June 2015 issue of JCAF, 12 articles were recognized as being among the all-time best in JCAF based on reader accesses. Several articles worthy of recognition were not included due to space limitations. When space permits, we will revisit several of these articles as “Honorable Mention” articles worthy of revisitation. In this issue, we are recognizing “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing: An Implementation in a Manufacturing Company” by Figen Öker and Hümeyra Adigüzel, previously published in the November/December 2010 issue of JCAF. In 2010 this article was viewed as a cutting-edge development in the advancement of activity-based costing. Today, it serves as a demonstration of the implementation of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC), showing how it can provide further benefits for activity-based management (ABM). “A Qualitative Assessment of GE's Performance Prospects” by Louis P. Le Guyader discusses the final elements of GE's reorganization plan to produce a stronger, streamlined industrial giant that has shed an increasingly burdensome finance arm. The simplest assessment is that the full benefits of the reorganization may take time to emerge. The final result may not deliver as clear an industrial earnings signal as first expected. The plan may not be executed as cleanly as expected, making that signal noisy. In “Why Profit Doesn't Translate Into Cash” by Reginald Tomas Lee, the author suggests that there is a disconnect between profit and cash flow. Ultimately, you will need to build models to help you understand and manage cash flow. Central to this insight will be capacity modeling. Capacity is the largest expenditure of most companies, yet most fail to realize and manage capacity. Most accounting approaches fail to accomplish this. “Managing IT Change—Financial Management” was written by Art Worster, Thomas R. Weirich, and Frank Andera. This is the fourth installment in a series of articles in which the authors address matters that arise during and after the implementation of integrated information technology (IT) applications in a business. While attempting to manage IT change, financial management needs to focus on two important issues: the typical financial business requirements and the configuration issues associated with the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This article focuses on the implications for the financial management function. In “Cyber Warfighter,” Peter O. Morrill, the old Marine, brings another interesting way of dealing with the continuing trials faced in business involved in cyber warfare. Cyber war has the same components to the warfighter as in any other domain. The battle is won and lost in the mind-set and willingness to win. Though we are still in the frontier phase, this should not stop us from seeking solutions. Technology is merely a tool; the mind is the weapon. Timothy Chartier views data analytics, especially of large datasets, is as much exploration at some stages as analysis. In “Vertigo Over the Seven V's of Big Data,” Tim identifies the seven V's of Big Data as volume, velocity, variety, variability, veracity, visualization, and value. A sense of direction in exploring large datasets is sometimes a challenge. Answering simple questions can give hints as to informed, next steps to take. Bill Magrogan identifies seven “expert” accounting and financial perspectives in “Do You Monitor the Other Seven ‘Expert' Accounting and Financial Perspectives on Your Firm?” that should be viewed by an internal cross-functional team. Bill identifies perceived risks and benefits. He suggests that you should put your people in charge—not the outside experts. Tom Pryor reviews Six Capitals, or Can Accountants Save the Planet? by Jane Gleeson-White. IRS: “Final Guidance on Transfer Pricing Released by the OECD” by Caroline D. Strobel I hope all readers enjoy and benefit from the contributions of all writers in JCAF. Respectfully, Jim Edwards Editor JCAF James B. Edwards, PhD, CPA, CMA, CIA, CMA, CGMA, CCA, CCP, is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. He has served as a corporate controller, partner in a CPA firm, vice president of a computer services firm, vice president of a computer software firm, and journal editor, as well as in management advisory services and corporate training.