Surgent's Improving Your Profits: Identifying Cost Cutting Opportunities

Part of one's duty as a CPA working in industry is to safeguard the assets of the organization. Cost cutting is one way to preserve assets and maintain a company's competitive position in the industry. However, what keeps us from ridding our organizations of unnecessary costs? In this course, we will look at the factors that prevent our companies from being as streamlined as they could be. By using statistics and survey data, we will attempt to show how to better negotiate and navigate budgeting and contracting decisions. We will also discuss financial statement analysis techniques, benchmarking, and cash flow management in an effort to better cut costs and maintain the long-run viability of an organization.

CPAs, CFOs, and Controllers looking to improve profitability by streamlining expenses for their own organization or for their clients

• List behavioral biases that prevent companies from being streamlined
• Identify techniques that may be used to make cost cutting a part of the company’s culture and business strategy
• Describe techniques that may be used to discern whether additional headcount is necessary
• Demonstrate vertical and horizontal financial statement analysis
• List key considerations when benchmarking against competitors
• Describe contracting and negotiation techniques
• Discuss the business cycle and how cash flow management changes during each stage

• What keeps companies from becoming streamlined? 
• Behavioral biases
• Information processing biases
• Emotional biases
• How to deal with behavioral biases 
• Connecting behavioral biases to cost cutting
• Creating a culture of cost cutting
• Rules of thumb for cost cutting 
• Managing headcount
• Post-COVID common areas of excess cost
• Budgeting techniques
• Budget variances
• Benchmarking
• Common size financial statements
• Horizontal analysis
• Negotiation and contracting techniques
• Cash flow and the business cycle

Basic knowledge of budgeting