Project Clients & Past Employers

• Clear Channel Entertainment, Multimedia (trade magazine publisher)
• Warner Bros. Studio Stores-Animation Art (animation art-retail/wholesaler)
• Warner Bros. Studio Stores-Financial Reporting (specialty retail)
• A-Mark Financial Corporation- Goldline International (retail sale of precious metals)
• O'Rourke and Clark Accountancy Corp. (public accounting firm specializing in financial institution sector)
• Zenith Insurance ($600M worker's compensation insurance provider)
• Kinko's Inc., ($2B International multi-location retailer)
• Technicolor
• Capstone Turbine
• The Walt Disney Company ($60B Entertainment Company)

Functional Finance & Accounting Experience

Financial Reporting & General Accounting
• Supervised all accounting operations at division level, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, collections, commission calculations and bank account management.
• At the division level, created P&L reporting model that incorporated reporting for over fifty individual cost centers. Reporting included roll-up of cost centers for divisional reporting, as well as incorporated comparisons to budget and forecast.
• Preparation of financial statements for operating divisions. Month-end and year-end general ledger closes, reconciliations, account analysis, scheduling of accounts and accruals.
• Reviewed invoices, agreements, and contracts to identify financial elements and verify payments compliance with established rates.
• Experienced in problem resolution dealing with vendors and customers. History of working out payment plans to collect receivables and resolve past-due issues with accounts payable vendors.
• Experience in lease related expenses for retail outlets, including processing monthly rent payments, monthly sales reporting to landlords, payment of monthly common area fees, and year-end landlord reconciliations and impound adjustments.
• Resolution of various financial and non-financial issues including collection of insurance proceeds, establishment of bank accounts, resolution of payroll issues, reconciliation of inter-company accounts between divisions, reconciliation of previously un-reconciled accounts, and review of financial internal controls.
• Engaged in major reconciliation project for Zenith. Completed reconciliation's of accrual accounts for payments to third party administrators, which had not been completed for 2 years, identifying nearly $20K in duplicate payments. Reconciled bank accounts that had never been reconciled to the bank statement.
• Identified $12M in classification errors between cash and payroll accounts for Kinko's Inc.
• Helped identify a system error in depreciation calculations and created an Excel model that recalculated life-to-date depreciation on approximately 1,800 assets to correct a system error. The Excel model served as the basis of a monthly correcting entry to adjust financial statements, as well as verified the system solution was properly calculating depreciation at the individual asset level.
• Created Power Point presentation of the Strategic Plan linking to the Excel spreadsheets containing the data so that the presentation was refreshed as the spreadsheets were updated for changes.

Accounting Processes & Internal Controls
• Background developing reconciliation processes in the areas of bank & credit card reconciliation and expense accounting.
• Authored written accounting manuals, documenting key monthly accounting processes with procedures to ensure adequate internal controls.
• Audited credit union loans including real estate, auto, credit card, and unsecured loans to individuals for evaluation of loan documentation, adherence to lending policies, and risk assessment.

Financial Planning & Analysis
• Extensive variance analysis experience comparing actual financial results against budget and reforecast. Regularly prepared variance analysis reports for submission to divisional management as well as corporate financial departments.
• Created analytical tools for calculating quarterly reforecasts and full-year budget. Models were based on original budget, less actuals in order to calculate forecast amounts for future periods. Analysis was done at the trial balance account level, and hierarchy applied in order to properly assign accounts to correct line-items within operating statements.
• Created database in Access in order to streamline current reporting and analytical processes as well as provide various needed reporting to operational units at division level. Created Access database to allow G/L queries, by line item and reporting unit, in order to facilitate analysis of actuals versus budget and prior year balances.
• Created original P & L and Capital budgets for operating division. Researched prior year's financial activity and worked with division executive management to create and properly document annual financial budgets. Improved the quality of the Capital Expenditure reporting submitted to the Controller and CFO.
• Prepared presentations to executive management explaining core business activities, income streams, changes in budget and forecast and variances of actual financial results against budget.
• Prepared monthly re-forecasts to adjust budget based upon changing business trends, timing differences, addition of new operating departments and reduction of personnel.
• Created cash flow forecast model for real estate projects while accounting for actual expenditures.
• Reconciled residuals liabilities, ultimates, and payments by title for 1,500 titles to correct prior period errors, and provide detailed support (by title) for Residuals liability on balance sheet. Also updated excel reconciliation analysis model for easier and more accurate reporting going forward
• Improved and streamlined analysis reports using Access. Utilizing transaction data from G/L, created numerous Access reports to provide detailed reporting (generally, by film title) to various accounting and operations departments. Analysis reports served as basis for journal entry allocation of title and overhead costs; as well as analysis tool to report direct costs by film title to operating departments and comparison to forecasts.
• Reengineered spreadsheet models for analyzing Studio SG&A expenses. Models reported operating results for SG&A which included over 100 G/L accounts and 50 cost centers. Purpose of model was to organize accounts and cost centers into proper reporting structure to effectively present SG&A income statement. Model was also used to identify Cost Center and account drivers when performing variance analysis.
• Performed detailed vendor transaction reconciliation to compare invoices processed through A/P to the payments received per vendor. Reconciliation was basis to support a $1.4M credit with vendor.
• Performed analysis to explain under/over allocation of overhead expenses to other Disney business units

Systems Expertise: Selected Detail

Excel
• Microsoft Certified Excel Expert. Expert Level User including, pivot tables, macro creation, formula building (IF, And/Or, V-Lookup, H-Lookup, SumIf, etc.), and customization of toolbars.

Access
• Microsoft Certified Access Specialist. Analysis, reporting, summarizing of large volumes of data (eg: 1 million records) using queries. Upload of G/L and other financial data and combined with other records to increase utility of reports (eg: combined G/L transaction data with feature film information such as title, release date, format, etc.).
• Using Excel and Access, automated numerous analytical process previously done manually.
• Created Access database of all G/L expense account activity (approximately 750,000 transactions per month) that allowed for easily downloadable G/L information into Excel, creation of queries and spreadsheet models to produce exception reports, created great flexibility in producing ad hoc analysis, and allowed reporting previously not possible due to the volume of account transactions.
• Created reconciliation model for G/L system conversion to verify balance sheet data from legacy system agreed to balance sheets issued from new G/L system.
• Created and maintained project deadline calendar for distribution to department contacts to facilitate converting G/L system from a calendar year to a fiscal year.
• Automated analysis process using Access for allocation of film costs, by title. Created database model that combined title information (Title name, release date, genre) with financial information (transactions downloaded from G/L, forecast amount for title or genre type, allocation percentages to other business units) to provide comprehensive, detailed reports issued to both accounting and finance departments (to support balance sheet & P&L amounts) as well as operating departments (to monitor actuals vs budget spending)

SAP
• Run transaction reports by G/L account and Business Unit
• Uploaded journal entries via Excel templates
• Downloaded transaction reports into Excel for eventual upload into Access database
• Ran A/P reports for reconciliation of vendor activity to vendor provided records

Lawson Insight
• Experience using G/L and A/P Modules

STS (Retail Management System)
• Experience using G/L and A/P Modules

Education & Credentials

• California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA MBA, Finance
• California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA BS, Accounting