...to provide you with a TON of USEFUL and HELPFUL information, resources and valuable products...

First, some links for quick navigation...

Welcome to the Wizards Kingdom - the online home of David Jones and MacLennan & Lockman LLC. Formerly  based in Smyrna GA, USA, [otherwise known as Atlanta... or Hotlanta... or 'Lanna, depending on your dialect] now in Mexico Beach FL, USA - on Florida's Emerald Coast - home of the USA's number 1 ranked beach!.

Some different ways to get to know me...
 
 

Brief Introduction

My Greatest Strength...  | ... and Weakness

Management Philosophy 

Some Problems are fairly routine ...

... and Some need "Outside the Box" approaches 

Some Personal Observations

My Favorite Book  |  My Favorite Movie Scene

I am a professional accountant with my MBA.

I have been involved for my entire career with financial management. 

Audit and financial statement preparation, taxation, business valuations with Big 5 firms, local firms and my own practice. 

Controller and Chief Financial Officer of construction and heavy equipment businesses.

Project Manager for the implementation of project accounting software in the Professional Services Automation industry.

Director of a billion dollar plus credit union and central credit union, and of  heavy equipment and software development businesses.

Service Clubs and the United Way.

Teaching at the college and university level.

There always seemed to be  many reasons or excuses why I didn't actually write it down.  [Not enough time, too expensive, how to publish it, how to market it, no one wants something SIMPLE they want an academic tome, blah! blah! blah!].

No more! Time is still not as plentiful as I would like [and it never will be!]. I don't have to write an academic tome. Thanks to the internet, cost, publishing and marketing are no longer obstacles. So, Financial Management Wizards is the site where this project will come to life. Visit me there to see insights into what financial management is really all about. [TOP]

I enjoy problem solving and am comfortable in unstructured environments as well as those with more formal methodology in place. I am a lateral thinker, which means that I can see the big picture AND work with the nitty-gritty detail. Better still, I am comfortable and used to moving back and forth between the views. [TOP]

I prefer to call a spade a spade, even if it is not to my advantage. [TOP]

In problem solving, I strongly favor the good old KISS principle - Kiss It Simple, S-----. This is not because the problem itself might be simple, or that the environment is simple. Rather, once the lateral or big picture is seen, the best process is to reduce things to smaller and more manageable components. Too often, people tend to increase problems by trying complex and difficult solutions.

The other approach I have found useful is the Pareto or 80/20 approach. Opponents say this is just an excuse for doing 80% of a good job, but I think it means something different. It forces you to focus on a situation and prioritize the 80% you can start solving with 20% of the effort. Then, if you focus on 80% of the remaining 20% you set aside the first time, you will have dealt with 96% of the problem relatively quickly. [For example, 80% of the overdue accounts receivable will be in 20% of the accounts - resolve those and the largest amount of money will be recovered with the least amount of effort. 80% of the dollar investment of inventory will be in 20% of the line items. Manage those for fast turnover and availability and you will have a good handle on inventory management.] [TOP]

 
Fact: Client operated six companies with two bank accounts each. They went to a sweep system to manage cash so the bank set up a thirteenth account for the sweep activity, assigning it arbitrarily to one of the six companies. Client also added a new sweep account plus intercompany receivable and payable accounts and proceeded to record all transactions including sweep activity. I was called in after a new staff accountant took over cash responsibilities and indicated to the CEO [Controller had resigned] that she needed help and guidance because neither the bank nor intercompany accounts had been reconciled for over six months and she did not understand what all the accounts were for.

Action: 1. Immediately stop entering sweep activity and therefore most entries in intercompany accounts. 2. Relied on Pareto or 80/20 to illustrate how this was really six or seven or eight different jobs all rolled into one mess. 80% of the amount of transactions did not belong on the books and could be accounted for quite easily and quickly. Then we would get down to the more difficult items. 3. Within two weeks the unmatched transactions to be identified were all that remained and the task seemed much more manageable. Used Pareto concept again to decide on the next major set of transactions to identify. This went on for six iterations until we were down to the really difficult few remaining transactions that needed investigating. 4. A key to this solution comes from lateral thinking. The bank's sweep account and its offsetting entries in each individual account are NOT transactions to be recorded in the individual company. When they are eliminated, what is left relates to the transactions that represent cash receipts or disbursements for the individual account, and that is what has to be reconciled between the books of account and the part of the bank's statement that does not relate to sweep activity.

Result: :All bank and intercompany accounts were eventually reconciled and adjusted. The accounting software could not consolidate the individual company general ledgers, so cash balance was controlled with a simple spreadsheet that added the balance of the twelve accounts for comparison with the balance as shown on the bank sweep account.

Fact: Developer/home builder had two different types of costing problems. 1. Original property plus demolition plus assembly/development gives cost pool for a phase of development. Wanted to move as much of this cost to cost of sales as possible to show little profit on early homes and leave more for later ones ["next year's problem]. 2. Tried to control construction costs with too many detailed accounts in the general ledger - didn't have the time or staff to do all the detailed data coding and entry.

Action: 1. Carry costs for a development in one balance sheet account until subdivision. Allocate portion of total cost to each subdivided property and move to income statement cost of goods sold when that property is sold. Anything else is unmanageable and won't fly for tax purposes. 2. Use fewer general ledger accounts and strive for accuracy. From experience, decide which actual activities represent the most likely to vary - drywall, paint, foundation - whatever. Monitor those separately by dealing directly with the subs to see that they stay within agreed amounts. Generally rely on site foreman to monitor and control other costs.

Result: Lower audit bill the following year. And I later learned he did not have an IRS audit for the first time in several years, although I don't know if that was related! [TOP]

Fact: Our salesman told me he had a prospect he couldn't close. The contractor, had good accounting staff but no real financial management.

Action: I helped our prospect with some financial analysis and number crunching that let him see where and how he could afford our equipment and how he would pay it off and profit from it

Result: the sale closed.

Fact: Our contractor/prospect did most of his work on road and oil field construction in the summer months but would have the equipment idle during the winter. In the adjacent sales territory, the salesman there had a County which was a prospect but needed similar equipment primarily in the winter for road clearing, but not in the summer since they contracted out their road building.

Action: I put together a plan whereby the County would provide a contract to lease during the winter months [giving them what they needed at less cost than buying].

Result: The contractor was happy to buy knowing that part of his cost and payments would be covered by the guaranteed lease. A win-win - and we sold a piece of equipment instead of having two frustrating near-misses. Of course, recording the transaction so that both of our sales people got part of the credit was also a challenge!

Fact: Shortage of Staff Accountants made it difficult to hire and retain people to run the accounting, receivables, payables and payroll functions. Each was traditionally viewed as an area of specialty.

Action: Rethink the definition of each position. Redefined job functions so that three available staff accountants could do the four jobs. Hired and trained junior [entry level] staff who were relatively plentiful and less expensive. They were cross trained to be able to handle data entry and reconciliation in each and every functional area.

Result 1. More efficient operation. 2. Three remaining staff accountants shared by bonus part of what the fourth had earned. Workload did not increase for them, so they were now paid at or above market. End of turnover and hiring problem! 3. Additional junior staff meant fully trained replacement available for vacation and emergencies. 4. Over time, replacement of staff accountant was accomplished from junior ranks - much preferable to an inexperienced and expensive person from outside. Additional bonus #1: the staff accountant who did leave moved with her husband to another city and reported back that her broad range of skills and experience were very well received in that market! Additional bonus #2: Cross training made it possible to have effective independent review of all reconciliations. [TOP]

Here is a little gem that I recently saw on the Internet. I think it puts life in a good perspective. I must admit it was also a bit of an uncomfortable reminder of how difficult it can be at times to stay focused. And a reminder that everyone else I deal with is also trying to balance their life, too!

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and the pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. The professor, still without a word, picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. 

"Now," said the professor, "I want you to recognize that this is your life. "The rocks are the important things, your marriage, your health, your children, your friends, anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, your world would never be the same. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else, the small stuff. 

"If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. 

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness; Share with your spouse. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. There will always be time to go to work, wax the car, give a dinner party and fix the disposal. "Take care of the rocks first, the rest is just sand." 

Author: Unknown

Of course, the physicists [and others!] amongst you will also recognize that the process could have continued... the professor could have added a can of beer after even the sand appeared to have filled the jar. And observed that "No matter how full your life appears to be, there's always room for a beer!"

[Thanks to my friend and neighbor Dave Fabich for the enlightenment.]

[TOP]

I grew up far inland [known as the Prairies in Canada and the Western Plains in the United States] but the ocean has always seemed to me to "be in my blood".

I have grown up and lived in a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation and which has armed conflict underway almost constantly, yet I am the first generation in my family for some time that has not seen active military service. But war affects all of us - directly or indirectly - and its stories tell us a lot about ourselves.

I have read and written millions of words and have published none. But I can appreciate the ability in someone else to write well.

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat is such a story and this is an excerpt from the very beginning...

Before the Curtain THIS IS the story — the long and true story — of one ocean,  two ships, and about a hundred and fifty men. It is a long  story because it deals with a long and brutal battle, the  worst of any war. It has two ships because one was sunk,  and had to be replaced. It has a hundred and fifty men  because that is a manageable number of people to tell a  story about. Above all, it is a true story because that is  the only kind worth telling.
     First, the ocean, the steep Atlantic stream. The map  will tell you what that looks like: three-cornered, three  thousand miles across and a thousand fathoms deep, bounded  by the European coastline and half of Africa, and the vast  American continent on the other side: open at the top, like  a champagne glass, and at the bottom, like a municipal  rubbish-dumper. What the map will not tell you is the  strength and fury of that ocean, its moods, its violence,  its gentle balm, its treachery: what men can do with it,  and what it can do with men. But this story will tell you  all that.
     Then the ship, the first of the two, the doomed one.  At the moment she seems far from doomed: she is new,  untried, lying in a river that lacks the tang of salt  water, waiting for the men to man her. She is a corvette, a  new type of escort ship, an experiment designed to meet a  desperate situation still over the horizon. She is brand- new; the time is November 1939; her name is H.M.S. Compass Rose.
     Lastly, the men, the hundred and fifty men. They come on the stage in twos and threes: some are early, some are  late, some, like this pretty ship, are doomed. When they  are all assembled, they are a company of sailors. They have  women, at least a hundred and fifty women, loving them, or  tied to them, or glad to see the last of them as they go to war.
     But the men are the stars of this story. The only heroines are the ships: and the only villain the cruel sea  itself. 

Quoted with permission of the Estate of
Nicholas Monsarrat .
Copyright © Nicholas Monsarrat 1951
Current paperback editions published in the United States by Burford Books Inc. and in the United Kingdom by Penguin Books Ltd.  [TOP]

Apollo XIII; explosion in oxygen generating system has left the spacecraft operating on  only emergency supplies of oxygen and power; no lights or heat. Even if astronauts survive long enough for re-entry, no power to activate steering controls to maneuver into position. Situation desperate.

On the ground, hordes of technical experts and advisers at Mission Control and Ground Control Centers. All are generating solutions to help the stricken spacecraft. But what do we have? One solution will require millions of dollars to study. Another, months to test. Others very elaborate but require material not available. And time is flying by as their oxygen is rapidly depleting.

Flight Director Chris Kraft has someone appear in a few minutes with an armful of what looks like absolute junk - bits and pieces - scraps. It is rather dramatically dumped on the table.

"This, gentlemen, is what they have to work with. They're in the dark. It's freezing cold so they can't manipulate these things in a fancy way... And they have only a couple of hours before they die from lack of oxygen. Now, give them a [blankety blank] solution that will work so we can get them back home!"

Focus. Prioritizing. Breaking a problem down to its bare essentials. The essence of problem solving. 

They did come up with something that worked. They did get the men back. As Nicholas Monsarrat wrote years before "...a true story because that is the only kind worth telling."
[TOP]