Welcome to Accountancy Portal

I had been busy in the development of Portal http://cmaindia.informe.com which is dedicated to Management Accountants of India. In development of the portal, inputs have been provided by lot of members especially Deverajan, RV, Prabhakar, Ashutosh and Ramesh Joshi without which it would not have been a success.

The portal has general topic of discussion with members of public and dedicated area for Members of ICWAI. This platform gives an opportunity to every member to brand himself in the professional network. You will notice on every post the Educational Qualification, Website, IM details and when he/she become member of ICWAI. If a member does not have his own website, I have suggested, everyone to have their profile of linkedin. Linkedin on its own will open lot of opportunities by social networking.

Web 1.0 –> Web 2.0
DoubleClick –> Google AdSense
Ofoto –> Flickr
Akamai –> BitTorrent
mp3.com –> Napster
Britannica Online –> Wikipedia
personal websites –> blogging
evite –> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation –> search engine optimization
page views –> cost per click
screen scraping –> web services
publishing –> participation
content management systems –> wikis
directories (taxonomy) –> tagging (”folksonomy”)
stickiness –> syndication

Brand CMA 2.0:

The principle for today’s Management Accountant is the same and that is the foundation portal http://cmaindia.informe.com/. The content of the portal will be driven by the participation of the members . The reader of the portal will be benefited by the content and quality of discussion. However the real beneficiary would be the one who will be initiaties the discussion, persuasively discusses on topics and arrives at a solution.

Karma - in discussion board terminology. Other members will rate him/her and comment why they are rated him. This will encourage the contributor to think about how his actions will benefit the group as a whole.

I would invite you to join the CMA Portal by registering and participate in professional networking. Click on following link to Register. Please promote the portal in your professional network.

Regards,

Santosh Puthran

I have been stumbling lot of accountancy websites today. Then I stumbled upon the online practising members of ICWAI directory and provided a review.

The stumbleupon link is http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.myicwai.com/practisingmembers.asp

I would request you to provide your review on the above link. The more the reviews on the link above, the search engines will bring up the results for practising accountants in India. (Stumbleupon is very powerful tool.) In few days, practising accountants will notice increase in telephone calls or emails for new assignments.

The online directory should include following details for the benefit of practising members:

1. Contact telephone number should always be +Country code + STD + Local number: If anyone calls from abroad, he/she should have ready access to your telephone number.
2. Website: A column should be added to include website of practising members. Our institute has guidelines for maintaining the website. Website is a window for prospective clients to know about your firm. It does not cost much. Why not maintain one ?
3. Email ids: Please dump your vsnl.in, yahoo.com or hotmail.com as your email ids. It looks unprofessional. You email should represent you. Decide which email looks professional - prem.chopra22@hotmail.com or prem@chopraassociates.com ?
4. Locate on the Map: This is quite useful when prospective clients want to meet you. Locate ICWAI, HQ

Practising Cost Accountants in India, please update your information on the online directory. Opportunities will be knocking at your doors.

I stumbled on the following websites too. Please write your reviews on the links below:

ICWAI : http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.myicwai.com/
ICWAI on Wikipedia: http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICWAI

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Regards,

Santosh Puthran
Be my friend on Stumbleupon
http://talk2santosh.stumbleupon.com

What is StumbleUpon ?

StumbleUpon uses / ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages which friends and like-minded stumblers () have recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn’t find using a search engine. Read More

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“Falling prey to fraudsters online is common these days. This message from HDFC Bank is to inform and educate you on precautions you must take to ensure that you are not a victim of these fraudsters. .

Please carefully read through and adopt these safe banking practices.

Be careful when responding to emails:

You may get messages that seem like they are coming from HDFC Bank seeking confidential information. This activity is commonly known as ‘phishing’. Through such messages, you may be directed to websites appearing to be genuine, and asked to key-in your confidential information. Beware of such messages.

Please always bear in mind that:

• HDFC Bank will never ask for any confidential information such as password, customer ID and so on over an email.
• A phishing email will normally have a tone of urgency – like “Your account will be temporarily suspended” and therefore please “Login to keep your account active.”

Please remember the bank will NEVER send such emails to its customers.

• If you are doubtful about the credibility of the email, please DO NOT click on any link provided in the email. This may trigger malicious codes being installed on your PC.
• Before you share any information on a website in response to an email, always assure that the URL shown in the email matches the URL of the bank website. If it does not, you have valid reason to suspect there’s something fishy.
• Check for the security pad lock icon at the bottom right side of the webpage, when you are connected to the NetBanking site.

Ensure your Personal Computer is protected:

Fraudsters send genuine-looking emails that contain viruses and Trojans (A Trojan refers to a program that appears to be safe, but hidden inside, is usually something harmful, probably a virus). These viruses / Trojans, install a malicious code on your PC without your knowledge. They extract your confidential information that fraudsters use to access your bank account.<
Here are a few important action points that you should bear in mind:

• Keep your PC updated with the latest anti-virus / anti-spyware software
• Install a personal firewall on your PC to protect your account
• Keep your PC updated with the latest security patches and, most importantly,
• Do not click on links or open attachments in unknown or unsolicited (spam) emails

DO NOT transfer funds to OR share your account details with, unknown / non-validated sources:

Many phishing fraudsters are located overseas. They need a Money Mule to route the money into their country of origin. A Money Mule is someone who receives the illegal funds into his account, withdraws it and sends it to the fraudster after keeping his commission. This may be easy money, but is illegal. Such requests could come to you through emails, advertisements on genuine recruitment web sites, instant messaging / SMS, and advertisements in newspapers and even on social networking websites.

Follow these Dos and Dont’s:

• Do not be conned by emails offering you a chance to make ‘easy money’’, especially if it is coming from overseas
• Check out the company making you a job offer if any fund transfer to them is involved. Check their contact details to find out if they are genuine
• NEVER share your bank details
• Beware of ads / notices seeking ‘UK Representatives’ or ‘Agents’ to act on their behalf for a period of time
• Should you get any suspicious email, IMMEDIATELY forward it to fake.email@hdfcbank.com

CAUTION: Remember, if you agree to participate in any such money transfer schemes for a commission, you are performing an ACT that is ILLEGAL.

Be aware, practice safe computing rules and protect your money.

Yours sincerely,

Vishal Salvi
Chief Information Security Officer
HDFC Bank”

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Regards,

Santosh Puthran

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In last century when the telephone was introduced in the workplace, people were sceptical of the real use of the invention. Old timers considered it a nuisance when they felt they can walk around and talk to people face to face. And now, imagine your office without a telephone !!!… I guess it must be beyond your imagination to consider not having one.

Now in this century, it is Instant Messaging and Net Meeting on your desktops. Some employers feel that Instant Messenger (IM) will make their employees to avoid work and for employees, it may be a intrusion of privacy. I feel that is one the best thing to happen at workplace to communicate on real time and save the cost to the business when communicating with people who are spread across the globe.

Most of the IM are freely downloadable and installed on your desktop. The IMs that will more popular will be those which you can use it on Internet browser.

Yahoo Messenger

Or you can have it on your website. Google Talk

Another good thing happened is talking on internet. You can talk on Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk or MSN Messenger or Skype pc-to-pc free of cost across the globe. You can talk for hours together without even billed for telephone charges. The video chat helps you to see other person. The internet cost is fraction of cost compared to telephone costs.

Most of the IT companies have official IM for communication. And the communication/approvals made on IM is considered official. Net Meeting is one of the best software in the marketplace and MSN messenger also has the feature to share desktops. You can have net conference with people sitting across the different geographical areas. This helps to get communication across with fraction of costs.

If you are accountancy firm or a business are you ready for Instant Messaging. Don’t worry about employees misusing IM…. same happens for telephone lines…. The best you do is to get more business… provide more work to employees and make them use the IM for your business.

Cheers,

Santosh Puthran

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Related Posts

1. iGoogle
2. RSS feeds - How it helps you to remain updated

Internet Tips

The best scratch pad available when your browse internet is Google Notebook. You can access it anywhere and share them

The world seems to be moving towards IT and everyone in the company has to be IT savvy. Sometimes the questions asked by the financial controllers is whether the standard ERP applications are driving the accounting strategy of the company.

When a company is a multinational company then the IT strategy is driven by the parent company and local company has little say about the implementation as financial accounts have to be consolidated. Localisation needs are catered, but to limited extent. Or else the local company has to go for third party application or MS Office application like Excel or Access to fulfil the local reporting needs.

When I was explaining how the automatic account determination is performed in SAP for the inventory movements, the question posed by the accountant was -

The answer is every goods movements will have an accounting entry. So the accountant has to determin which inventory accounts (Balance Sheet) is debited/credited for inventory movement with offsetting GL account (P&L). So you have to understand the system and see how it works. Once you understand, configure it and forget it. Then right accounting entries will be posted.

The role of the accountant has changed from doing routine posting to analysing the information. He has the capability to analyse information. A shift from being an accounting clerk to management accountant. I believe, with the implementation of ERP systems, the role of accountant has changed from being a financial accountant to management accountant. The answer is the accountant has to be IT savvy .

Click here - to know about Inventory Accounting in SAP

Almost all the areas in SAP has been automated to post to Financials. The role of the accountant is determine that right GL accounts are configured in the system. As the accountant graps the way system work, his role to perform as a true management accountant enhances.

Regards,

Santosh Puthran
AICWA

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PS: As I was writing this blog, I was exploring the possibility of sharing the SAP Inventory Posting document till I found the useful feature in google for document sharing. It is about thinking about possibilities and you find that someone else has already thought about it.

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Digg it

I sometimes receive an email from members regarding whether to do SAP or not.

The first answer you have to explore yourself where you want to take your career ? Do you want to be a ERP Consultant for few years and then move on Accounting or continue to be in IT industry. Then other questions can be answered

SAP or Oracle

Both ERP solutions are dominant today in the marketplace. However SAP is number one in ERP application. I am SAP Certified Consultant and also trained on Oracle Financials. If you ask me, I will always recommend you to go for SAP since the customer base for SAP is more than Oracle and the opportunities are more. You need to check on salary of SAP & Oracle consultant since once you get into one of the ERP, you don’t look for the other.

SAP Training

There are two way route for certification. The first you get your training from some small institute and work in SAP Consulting or End user company for an year and then go for certification. This will be cheaper. The other is join a SAP academy and take up the training course and enrol for certification. This is very expensive. In the first case, you will have to put more efforts to get a job into SAP but with training academy connections, your job path will be easier. Please contact SAP Education in the country where you reside for training and certifications. In either case, it pays off.

Job Prospects

The job prospects are very good for people who know SAP. There is a overall shortage of SAP FICO Consultants. However entry level, you may find difficultly in getting into but with experience you will be able to get anywhere. If you want to work in consulting companies, then they would prefer project implementation experience over support. Secondly you should be open to travel. Generally a full life cycle project will stretch from 9 months to 2 years, so be prepared to spend most of your time away from your family or take your family with you. High salaries come with a price.

The other option is to work with a end user company. The salary level will be less with little or no travel.

Salaries and Rates

Salary is pretty good, if you are in right consultancy. Permanent employment offers stability. You may also consider contracting. Rates are very good. The downside is the assignment will range from 2 weeks to 3 months. If you don’t get new assignments, then you should know what to do with idle time.

How will know which companies to approach

Watch out for newspapers which SAP consultancy has got the project. Then approach them directly. Register with the job sites and receive the alerts for SAP. You will find loads of email notification coming into your mail box.

Any more questions, please comment.

Cheers,

Santosh Puthran

The first question I ask myself - how do I remain updated without the need to go to several websites. And at the same time, I take notes when I browse for future reference.

The answer was to configure iGoogle. Go to http://www.blogger.com/www.google.com and click on iGoogle on the right left hand corner of the screen.

Click on Add Stuff and start adding various google gadgets. The gadgets that I have is google reader that helps me remain updated about RSS feeds from the news sites like financial times, economic times, ft, blogs, finance websites, jobs and others. It is very easy to configure and it saves lot of time from visiting other websites. I hoped ICWAI website should have RSS feeds. MA blog has RSS feeds and you can subscribe to it and always remain updated about latest happenings.

You must have noticed that I have put my google reader on MA blog for the benefit of all. Also on my fun blog. You may subscribe to those as well.

I have added google weather and can add more than cities. This helps me know whether my friends are in good conditions or not. My mail box appears on igoogle page. There are some default websites that igoogle offers.

There are lot of gadgets you can on igoogle and configure them in Tabs. I have installed Google Notebook on my Firefox browser. This helps you note down important notes when you are browsing and you want to refer back. Earlier I used to scribble on my Postit notes or on a piece of paper and eventually lost it. But now I copy it on my Google Note. I can access anywhere my notebook when I am on the internet.

The important aspect, I forgot to share with you is…. Use Firefox browser. Dump Internet Explorer… it is slow and pathetic. Last week I had been to my friend’s place and he was using AOL browser. He felt that his browser was very slow and may be due to his PC. He had downloaded Firefox on his PC but did not use it. I demonstrated it Firefox and it was quick as ever. He was happy that he did not have any problem in PC.

iGoogle is a very good tool to remain updated… each day…everyday. The google gadgets help you plan your day and also helps you to remain in touch with friends and collegues. Try google products and see whether they change the way do things. I have adapted to google products and find it very good.

Try iGoogle and you will feel the difference. If you have questions, please comment. I will reply to you.

Cheers,