Accountants embrace levity to boost food bank project - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

For several years now the local office of BKD, an accounting firm with offices all over the country, has made raising money for Community Harvest Food Bank one of its primary charitable causes.

It encourages staff members to contribute and asks them to approach friends, family members and even some clients for donations.

The big fundraising push comes just before Thanksgiving. As a lure, certain staff members agreed to do what you might call silly things if they met their fundraising goal.

One year they agreed to grow beards, not too daring, except for one accountant who couldn�t grow one. In later years, they agreed to wear 3�-inch red high heels to the company party, take the polar bear plunge in the St. Joseph River on New Year�s Day and yet another year to take part in a four-mile run on Thanksgiving Day, even though none of them was a runner.

The efforts have paid off pretty well. In the last eight years, BKD has raised $24,200, which it has contributed to the food bank�s annual Turkey Rally.

Food bank officials say that in the last four years its Turkey Rally has raised $27,409, plus around 1,000 turkeys and around 3,000 pounds of other food.

So BKD�s efforts alone have raised a substantial portion of the Thanksgiving food drive. Last year, for example, the firm raised $8,200.

The problem with an annual project like this, though, is that the firm has to come up with a new silly stunt every year.

This year, the firm has set a goal of raising $6,000, and for each $1,500 raised one accountant will dress up as a living Christmas tree and put himself on display during BKD�s client night at the Festival of Trees at the Embassy Theatre. If the push raises $9,000, the local office�s overall boss will even dress as a tree.

If you want to look silly, I can�t think of a better way to do it than to show up at a Christmas tree exhibition dressed as a Christmas tree.

One wonders, though, isn�t there a certain amount of risk in this? These guys are accountants. Maybe some of them are closet joggers, but don�t they wear gray suits and pore humorlessly over columns of numbers most of the time? Isn�t showing up dressed as a Christmas tree a little out of character?

Well, yes, said Jeremy Carnahan, a CPA and manager with BKD, but they�ve got a pretty personal relationship with their clients, and most of them know about the firm�s involvement in the food bank program, so they�ll understand.

Plus, the stunt will take place at a party of sorts, not during a consultation on tax law.

Carnahan, who had no idea what an important part his firm�s fundraiser played in the food bank�s Thanksgiving food drive, would actually like to expand the overall effort.

�My ultimate goal is to institutionalize this,� Carnahan said. �My long-range vision is to get other businesses involved. I�d like it to be a food bank event, not just a BKD fundraiser. It could become one of the marquee fundraisers in Fort Wayne.�

Carnahan and other staffers will be accepting donations from the people they approach.

For the general public, the food bank�s Turkey Rally will take place Nov. 3, when people will be encouraged to bring holiday food items and frozen turkeys or hams or cash donations to the food bank at 999 E. Tillman Road. Donations will be accepted from 5 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. that day.

Frank Gray reflects on his and others� experiences in columns published Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached by phone at 461-8376, by fax at 461-8893, or by email at fgray@jg.net. You can also follow him at twitter.com (@FrankGrayJG).

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFx7RrfjKGp9aD8kXdLvFtHCsSqnw&url=http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111018/LOCAL0201/310189976/1002/LOCAL

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Ten tips for picking the perfect accountant

Hiring an accountant for your business is no longer just about finding someone good at number-crunching and getting the maximum returns come tax-filing time.

Registered professional accountant Fernando Renna, for one, has seen the role change dramatically since he began his business 28 years ago in Cambridge, Ont.

More related to this story

?We?re not just bean counters any more,? says Mr. Renna, a spokesman for the board of directors of the Society of Professional Accountants of Canada. ?Thirty or 40 years ago, business owners may have said, ?Here are my books, do my taxes, goodbye and I?ll see you next year.? Now, accountants are expected to do a lot more.?

There is more demanded of accountants as businesses emphasize risk management ? one of the repercussions of the global economic downturn, according to a recent report by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which is based in London, England.

?Business success depends on the ability to make sound decisions in a risky, uncertain world,? says the report titled Accountancy: The Future Outlook, based on interviews with 750 chief financial officers, partners and senior finance executives. ?Qualified accountants can help management teams to make those decisions, based on information drawn from accurate data and informed by broad business knowledge.?

Stan Swartz, of Sloan Partners LLP Chartered Accountants in Toronto, sees accountants as business sleuths.

?We look below the surface to see what helps business owners, or what?s causing [their business] not to do well, or give advice on how to turn it around or help them determine if it?s time to pack it in,? says Mr. Swartz, who is also a certified management consultant and financial planner.

When just starting out, business owners may be inclined to use a buddy from school who does some accounting, but that strategy just won?t do as the business grows and becomes more complex, stresses Frank Fazzari, a managing partner of Fazzari & Partners LLP Chartered Accountants in Vaughan, Ont.

So how do you go about finding a great accountant?

Here are 10 tips, including questions to ask in an interview:

1. Get referrals:

   Mr. Renna, Mr. Swartz and Mr. Fazzari say they get 90 per cent of their clients through word of mouth. ?When someone has been referred to me by a friend, I feel a double obligation to do my job well,? stresses Mr. Fazzari. You can also get referrals from professional associations.

2. Determine your business needs:

   Do you want an accountant to just handle the books and file your taxes, or someone who can give advice, and who will be there as your business grows? Most business owners want someone to advise them on a range of things. ?A lot of people go to their accountants before they go to a lawyer, because [we] can help them deal with leases, franchise agreements ? we have that well-rounded knowledge,? says Mr. Fazzari, adding it?s also important to ask if the accountant has the credentials to sign financial statements and do statutory compliance work.

3. Get licensed candidates:

   There are three professional accountancy designations, each with different educational requirements and duties. Chartered accountants (CA) have global recognition and their services range from startup counselling to acting as a trustee for receivership, insolvency or bankruptcy. Certified management accountants (CMA) integrate accounting expertise with advanced management skills, and certified general accountants (CGA) have a range of duties, from providing insights into financial statements and reports to overseeing internal accounting processes. ?You have to get a certain degree of education and a certain amount of experience before you get these designations, and there are ethical rules that have to be met,? says Mr. Swartz.

4. More related to this story

   More from The Globe and Mail

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-money/valuation/ten-tips-for-picking-the-perfect-accountant/article2186815/?utm_medium=Feeds:%20RSS/Atom&utm_source=Report%20On%20Business&utm_content=2186815

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Town accountant resigns

Team Cohasset is losing its financial quarterback.

Town accountant and finance director John Stanbrook resigned from his post in Cohasset on October 5 after nine months on the job. He will return to his previous position as town accountant in Mansfield on Oct. 31; his last day in Cohasset is Oct. 28.

Town manager Mike Coughlin announced Stanbrook?s departure during the Wednesday, Oct. 5 capital budget meeting; he had received Stanbrook?s resignation letter earlier that day. Since Coughlin started as Cohasset?s new town manager on August 1, he has continually referred to Stanbrook as ?Team Cohasset?s quarterback,? since so much responsibility was heaped onto the one position to reconcile Cohasset?s financial issues.

?He?s a great professional, and he has contributed a lot to the town,? Coughlin said on Friday. ?An indicator for a man is not only how he performs his job, but how he provides for his family.?

Stanbrook, who lives in Halifax, said the reason he is returning to his former post is for family reasons: Mansfield is closer to home, and working in Cohasset was a ?difficult time commitment,? Stanbrook said.

?The person who holds this job needs to put the time in to do it properly,? said Stanbrook. ?I?m passing the baton off to someone who can put in the time needed to right the ship.

?It was a good opportunity for me,? he added, ?but my personal situation has changed.?

For full story, see the Oct. 14 issue of the Cohasset Mariner.

Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cohasset/news/x1611318505/Town-accountant-resigns

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NYer Of The Week: Retired Accountant Now A Full-Time Volunteer

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A retired accountant is giving back to the New York community through countless volunteer efforts. NY1?s Jessica Abo filed the following report.

When Sami Steigmann retired from being an accountant, he decided it was time to start giving back.

?I like to do two things. Okay, number one, I like to give tours. The other thing that I like to do is, I have a need, it's not a want, it's a need to share and to teach,? says Steigmann.

At 71 years old. this Manhattan resident volunteers at 18 locations. He's a Big Apple Greeter, gives tours of the Intrepid and at Governor's Island, and he helps at New York Cares and with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

NY1 joined Steigmann on his tour through The Museum of Jewish Heritage ? A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. He was born in Romania and is a Holocaust survivor himself.

?That he was able, through internal resources, to choose a path to do good in the world and make peoples' lives better is a remarkable story. He's a remarkable man,? says Dr. David Marwell, director of the museum.

?He does more work than I do, and I do a lot, so I'm really impressed that he's able to do all of these things especially for the museum,? says Monica Brandwein, volunteer coordinator.

Steigmann spends about 60 hours a week volunteering, and he says that number is about to increase thanks to a new organization he helped start.

?I am the co-founder of a new organization called ISME ? Initiative for a Sustainable Midtown East ? and they are looking to help the community become more environmentally aware,? says Steigmann.

His friend and fellow volunteer May Shalit says Steigmann is a gift to every institution he supports.

?My husband and I went with our little grandson Shane and followed his tour on the Intrepid and the facts and figures that he just remembers, it was like a brilliant 18-year-old, his mind,? says Shalit.

For giving so much of his time to New York organizations that need him, Sami Steigmann is the latest New Yorker of the Week.

If you'd like to nominate someone to be NY1's New Yorker of the Week, send an email describing their qualifications to: nyer@ny1.com or mail a letter to:

NY1 News
New Yorker of the Week
75 Ninth Avenue, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10011

Source: http://www.ny1.com/content/features/148571/nyer-of-the-week--retired-accountant-now-a-full-time-volunteer

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Accountant shows tech is not just an engineer?s domain - Daily News and Analysis

It was an unexpected diversification for Vishwanath Alluri when in the nineties he took a plunge into the sector that was changing by the hour in terms of technology obsolescence.

But for this chartered accountant-turned-hospital CEO, who started IMIMobile, a value-added services (VAS) provider to then-nascent mobile phone segment in 1999, it was also a leap of faith.

?I had never worked in any technology MNC in Silicon Valley to learn what makes a technology company. It was all about ideation and I always had this dream of turning ideas into executable programmes. That?s exactly what I did in the company since inception,? Alluri, the CEO of the Hyderabad-based technology firm, said.

During his brief stint at the hospital, Alluri was also working on another project about designing telecom towers.

?The hospital assignment was all about management. But the real excitement was building up somewhere else,? Alluri, also known as Vish in the tech world, said.

The telecom towers business was equally challenging as the entire design changes as per the location of the tower and various external factors such as wind speed, he said.

?In the late 90s we saw the telecom revolution happening slowly but surely, and I had my own idea of approaching the sector. I always believed that you don?t have to be an engineer to think about technology. I was thinking from a user?s perspective. I was putting together a team to translate that into technology,? Alluri said while describing how he came to start IMIMobile, which has now become one of the top VAS players.

It now has a clientele of 71 mobile telecom operators, including Airtel, BSNL, MTN, Orange, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, NCell and Idea, in 59 countries.

IMIMobile?s success is in creating a modular platform for porting any value added service a mobile or media company wants to offer to its customers, he said.

Called DaVinci, the platform helps a company deploy an application and monetise it without having to spend much time on the offering.

The platform powers a wide range of services created, delivered and managed by IMImobile including social aggregation, contact management, mobile advertising, mobile marketing, messaging, storefronts, ringback tones and digital music services.

Alluri said the operator is relieved of technology or billing related issues since the platform does everything that is related to an application.

?The platform and our teams at the centralised data centre in Hyderabad track everything including the mobile user?s choices, the way the user is making use of the technology and the billing related issues,? Alluri said.

In about a decade of setting up and scaling up the operations, IMIMobile has also made a flurry of acquisitions to strengthen its platform.

In 2009 it acquired Mobytec, a technology platform powering Mobyko.com social aggregation service. IMIMobile now offers Mobytec as a fully managed service for mobile network operators.

The company also took over Music2You service from Nokia Siemens Networks to provide full-track music download and subscription services and UK-based digital content delivery services provider dx3, a digital content delivery firm. In October 2010 IMIMobile acquired Win, a UK mobile and wireless data services company. Last week it acquired UK-based digital agency Skinkers, a mobile apps developer.

?We are growing well. We are emerging into a clear leader in the space primarily due to the ease in deployment of application without having to shutdown the service by the operator,? he said.

Enthused by the response to his company?s services, Alluri is now looking to build an Open Mobile platform.

?Mobile phone has clearly become the most preferred advertising and campaign platform. So, a trader should be allowed to offer a scheme to the mobile users on the go. For instance, if a pizza store wants to offer a special discount to the commuters on a particular stretch of road during a particular hour of the day, the store owner should be able to send out an offer to all the mobile users on the road during that time without having to plan for it in advance,? he said.

The store owner should be able to log in to our network, type the offer details and transmit it. He can either select the telecom operator or make it common for any operator. That is the open mobile network we are working on,? he said.

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_accountant-shows-tech-is-not-just-an-engineers-domain_1596206

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Accountant shows tech is not just an engineer?s domain - Daily News and Analysis

It was an unexpected diversification for Vishwanath Alluri when in the nineties he took a plunge into the sector that was changing by the hour in terms of technology obsolescence.

But for this chartered accountant-turned-hospital CEO, who started IMIMobile, a value-added services (VAS) provider to then-nascent mobile phone segment in 1999, it was also a leap of faith.

?I had never worked in any technology MNC in Silicon Valley to learn what makes a technology company. It was all about ideation and I always had this dream of turning ideas into executable programmes. That?s exactly what I did in the company since inception,? Alluri, the CEO of the Hyderabad-based technology firm, said.

During his brief stint at the hospital, Alluri was also working on another project about designing telecom towers.

?The hospital assignment was all about management. But the real excitement was building up somewhere else,? Alluri, also known as Vish in the tech world, said.

The telecom towers business was equally challenging as the entire design changes as per the location of the tower and various external factors such as wind speed, he said.

?In the late 90s we saw the telecom revolution happening slowly but surely, and I had my own idea of approaching the sector. I always believed that you don?t have to be an engineer to think about technology. I was thinking from a user?s perspective. I was putting together a team to translate that into technology,? Alluri said while describing how he came to start IMIMobile, which has now become one of the top VAS players.

It now has a clientele of 71 mobile telecom operators, including Airtel, BSNL, MTN, Orange, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, NCell and Idea, in 59 countries.

IMIMobile?s success is in creating a modular platform for porting any value added service a mobile or media company wants to offer to its customers, he said.

Called DaVinci, the platform helps a company deploy an application and monetise it without having to spend much time on the offering.

The platform powers a wide range of services created, delivered and managed by IMImobile including social aggregation, contact management, mobile advertising, mobile marketing, messaging, storefronts, ringback tones and digital music services.

Alluri said the operator is relieved of technology or billing related issues since the platform does everything that is related to an application.

?The platform and our teams at the centralised data centre in Hyderabad track everything including the mobile user?s choices, the way the user is making use of the technology and the billing related issues,? Alluri said.

In about a decade of setting up and scaling up the operations, IMIMobile has also made a flurry of acquisitions to strengthen its platform.

In 2009 it acquired Mobytec, a technology platform powering Mobyko.com social aggregation service. IMIMobile now offers Mobytec as a fully managed service for mobile network operators.

The company also took over Music2You service from Nokia Siemens Networks to provide full-track music download and subscription services and UK-based digital content delivery services provider dx3, a digital content delivery firm. In October 2010 IMIMobile acquired Win, a UK mobile and wireless data services company. Last week it acquired UK-based digital agency Skinkers, a mobile apps developer.

?We are growing well. We are emerging into a clear leader in the space primarily due to the ease in deployment of application without having to shutdown the service by the operator,? he said.

Enthused by the response to his company?s services, Alluri is now looking to build an Open Mobile platform.

?Mobile phone has clearly become the most preferred advertising and campaign platform. So, a trader should be allowed to offer a scheme to the mobile users on the go. For instance, if a pizza store wants to offer a special discount to the commuters on a particular stretch of road during a particular hour of the day, the store owner should be able to send out an offer to all the mobile users on the road during that time without having to plan for it in advance,? he said.

The store owner should be able to log in to our network, type the offer details and transmit it. He can either select the telecom operator or make it common for any operator. That is the open mobile network we are working on,? he said.

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_accountant-shows-tech-is-not-just-an-engineers-domain_1596206

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