Top 3 Pros/Cons for Tax Pros Using Workflow or Project Management Tools

Posted by Kelley Lear on Mar 27, 2012 in Empowerment Series, Innovation, Leadership, Process Improvement, Software, Tax Planning | 0 comments

Top 3 Pros/Cons for Tax Pros Using Workflow or Project Management Tools

Are you a tax professional that has each and every tax planning, compliance and audit cycle managed with full automation, documentation and controls?  Do you have step by step processes, dependencies and email reminder notifications?  Do you have complete transparency to every process so that you can see who is doing what, when, and what status your various cycles are? Or are you like most tax departments out there struggling with emails, Excel checklists and spreadsheets tracking dates, payments, data requests, information document requests (IDRs), notice of proposed adjustments (NPAs) and revenue agent reports (RARs)?

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Here’s a Quick Way to Reduce E-mail in the Tax Department

Posted by Traci Wheeler on Mar 22, 2012 in Empowerment Series, Leadership, March, Process Improvement, Tax | 0 comments

Here’s a Quick Way to Reduce E-mail in the Tax Department

With more and more work and less resources to get it done, what tax professional doesn’t want to reduce the amount of work they have to do in the tax department? Wouldn’t it be nice if, as a long day at the office was coming to an end, you didn’t have to still weed through your e-mail inbox trying to figure out which e-mails were the really important ones and which ones could just be filed away or deleted?

A while back, I read a Fast Company article in which they displayed the below infographic created by Online IT Degree. Distribute this decision tree in your tax department, have everyone refer to this prior to sending e-mails and see what happens.

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Working Like a Kindergartner Will Improve Your Corporate Tax Department

Posted by Traci Wheeler on Mar 21, 2012 in Empowerment Series, March, Motivation, Tax | 0 comments

Working Like a Kindergartner Will Improve Your Corporate Tax Department

My two young boys have no fear. It is not uncommon for my husband or me to look out the window and see both of our boys perched on the highest branches of the oak tree in our front yard. They are still risk takers. They often tie rope lines around different limbs and use them to slide back down to safety on the ground. They are still creative thinkers. Risk taker….creative thinker… these qualities are often exuded by young and untainted children. They fail often, but they learn quickly. They have not yet been exposed to the harsh realities of life and have not succumbed to conforming to social norms or what other people expect. They march to their own drums. Oh….to be young again…

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Are You Listening to Me?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Mar 20, 2012 in Empowerment Series, Leadership, Process Improvement | 0 comments

Are You Listening to Me?

How many times do you find yourself in a conversation with someone and you just know they are not listening to you?  You know they are looking at you with anticipation, faux interest, and simply waiting for a brief pause so they can start in on their next sentence?  Or even better yet, you can’t even finish your sentence or train of thought because they have already jumped in to tell you a similar story about themselves?  By the time the story gets back around to you, you probably don’t even have the energy to complete your thought.  How do you feel when that happens to you?  Do you want to continue to engage that person or do you feel like just walking away?

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Can we Excite our Kids in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Mar 8, 2012 in Empowerment Series, March, Motivation, Tax | 2 comments

Can we Excite our Kids in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math?
President Obama has spent some time expressing his focus on supporting and improving STEM (Science, Education, Engineering and Math) Education in our Nation.  Regardless of your political affiliation, I think most of us would agree that the studies out there which place the U.S. in a global ranking of 25th in math and 17th in science, is unacceptable.  We may just not all agree on how to put the changes in place that will bring us forward in STEM education and therefore in preparing our workforce for jobs in this space. However, I think that all of us agree that it is essential that we work to make improvement in STEM education a focus for all of us.  
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“Chief Innovation Officers” in 2012?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Feb 28, 2012 in Finance, Innovation, IT, Leadership, Process Improvement, Tax | 0 comments

“Chief Innovation Officers” in 2012?

The New Year brings with it new surveys and predictions of key economic indicators and C-Level employees who are making decisions that affect us all every day.  Last year, I wrote two posts related to CFO and CIO priorities for 2011.  I hope you read them and they helped you in creating your business cases, negotiating positions, projects and strategic initiatives for tax with your IT and Finance teams within your organization.  Don’t forget that CIO’s may control approximately $321 billion of the spending within our organizations.  I continue to feel strongly that knowing what key individuals within your organization care about, are thinking about, and what keeps them up at night, will help you to better maneuver within your corporate framework. 

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