Jim Ulvog

I wrote an article for Bank of the West called Essentials of Internal Control.  It discusses one superb internal control you should be using for cash, explains that trust is not an internal control, and offers a creative idea to improve control over cash.

A one sentence summary of internal control is at the end of this paragraph:

CPAs can talk for hours about internal control. Can the concepts in all those long presentations be made a little simpler to grasp? Let’s try to boil down all those internal control ideas to one sentence. Ready? Internal controls are the procedures you put in place so that one person cannot do something wrong and hide having done so.

The three key ideas discussed:

• The bookkeeper should not sign checks
• Trust is NOT an internal control
• Review unopened bank statement by someone outside of accounting

Please read the full article.

My article was included in this newsletter.

Future cartoons will be announced on this blog and can be seen at my other blog, Once Upon Internal Control.

Here is the cartoon discussing how to maintain dual control over the offering count, which is a place where churches typically have a struggle maintaining good procedures:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuboFGqXAi4]

Other cartoons available at Once Upon Internal Control.

Just launched a new blog, Once Upon Internal Control, at www.onceuponinternalcontrol.com.

That  will be the home of cartoons I create to illustrate the ideas from the book of the same name. Will also have extracts from the book and eventually the full text.

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New blog for cartoons from Once Upon Internal ControlRead More »

Accountants can easily see patterns in numbers. When I look at a financial statement, say when I’m preparing a proposal for a potential client, I can study the report and in a short time get a good understanding of what is happening in the organization. That’s the goal of financials, isn’t it? To explain what happened.

Accountants and other financial types can look at a column of numbers and easily see the story. 

Here is the challenge: How do we, as accountants, help other people see the story that is so obvious to us?  How does anyone that works with a large volume of data help ourselves and others see the story?

That is what visualization of data is about.

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Visualization of data – a challenge for accountantsRead More »

(duplicate of post at my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Knowledge is power.  When we learn what is involved in location tracking on smart phones, we can then determine what impact it has on us and our organizations.  Then we can adjust to avoid bad results.

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What if your-situation plus smart-phone-location-tracking equals uh-ohRead More »

(duplicate of post on my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

So bad things could possibly happen if someone gains access to the tracking data on your phone. How could someone get access to the file where that data is stored?

I attended the Christian Leadership Alliance conference in Dallas last week. Learned lots of new stuff and had fun visiting with lots of colleagues. Picked up info on location tracking that I wanted to mention.  Steve Hewitt of Christian Computing Magazine provided some information, which I will so identify.

Here are a few ways to get access to the location tracking data:

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Upping the ante on smart phones tracking your locationRead More »

(duplicate of post at my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

What could be the problem with your phone keeping track of your location and sending that to Apple or Google?

What if someone hacks the Apple or Google site?  Or hacks your phone?  Or merely gains physical access to your phone for a few minutes to grab the file that has the tracking data?

“I’m not breaking the law” I hear your say.  Fine.  Let’s consider a few other scenarios.

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A few downsides to smart phones tracking your location – Worried yet?Read More »