Advanced Topics in Utility Accounting
This 1.5 day course covers in more detail some of the topics in the fundamentals course, including work order systems, financial statement accounting, financial planning, cost of service and rate design, activity-based accounting, capital credits, investment strategies, debt portfolio management, internal control procedures, and other similar topics. Participants will learn about:
  • Internal controls
  • Accounting for investments and derivative financial instuments
  • Accounting for long-lived assets
  • Financial statement analysis
  • Joint ownership of capacity
  • Functionalizing costs
  • Rate relationships
  • Budgeting and managerial accounting
Asset Management
Utility companies depend on assets to drive their business. The challenges facing utilities, whether from deregulation, globalization, regulatory requirements, increasingly competitive market, or restructuring has placed business operations on center stage. In order to achieve higher performance - whether measured in terms of revenue growth, profitability or customer satisfaction - companies are out of necessity looking at asset management as a means of maximizing the value of their assets. This one-day course is intended to provide participants with an understanding of what asset management is, why it matters, and what assets should be analyzed. Additional topics to be covered include:
  • How should you think about the future
  • Understanding general assets
  • The importance of vehicles/fleets, and downtime
  • Computer and software planning
  • Personnel - The Utilities most important asset
Budgeting and Financial Analysis
This course covers the procedures necessary to prepare annual capital and expense budgets for utilities. The concepts of zero based budgeting, activity based budgeting, and extrapolation budgeting will be discussed. For the capital budgeting, commonly used methods to evaluate alternative capital projects will be discussed including present-value (worth) analysis, discounted cash flow, annual cost, payback periods, and cost-benefit ratios. In the expense budget, the use of operating ratios, such as the quick ratio, plant-revenue ratio, equity, TIER and DSC will also be discussed. Actual capital and expense budgets will be utilized in the course and budget spreadsheets will be given to attendees.
Financial Audits: "What They Are and What They Aren't"
This one-day course is designed to provide managers, directors, and employees in non-financial roles, with an overview of the audit process. The course will seek to help answer: what role do auditors play, what is a financial audit, why do businesses need an audit, who can perform audits, what are the guidelines that must be followed, and who gets the audit report and what are they supposed to do with it. This course is a must for anyone in a management capacity or interested in learning more about the auditing process.
Financial Issues Affecting Utilities
This course covers basic financial issues of interest to utilities on
current and relevant topics. Included in this course will be a discussion on taxation issues for non-profits and the options associated with refinancing debt. In addition, participants will gain valuable insight into the best alternatives for corporate structuring of subsidiary organizations. Also covered will be a discussion on investment strategies for utilities and correlated issues. Key topics to be covered include:
  • Understand the key issues surrounding taxable transactions
  • Utilize the learned concepts of capital credits and debt portfolio
  • Understand issues surrounding the impact of subsidiaries to the entire entity
  • Utilize investment strategies for the entity and its retirement programs
Forming an Audit Committee (or improving the one you have): What You Really Need to Know
Audit committees are valuable resources for all organizations that require audits, including non-profit organizations. In light of increased public scrutiny, due to recent corporate scandals, organizations must seek ways to maintain customer trust. The existence of an effective audit process and audit committee can help an organization maintain or restore trust in their organization. This course is designed to lay out a framework for developing a functional audit committee or for reviewing the status of an existing process and structure. Participants in this one-day training session will gain insight and working knowledge of:

  • Advantages and disadvantages of audit committees
  • How an audit committee should be structured and function
  • Who should serve on an audit committee
  • Why your organization needs an audit committee charter, and how to form such a charter
Fraud Prevention and Detection
This one-day class is designed principally for Accountants of all levels as well as those in Management. The focus of the class will concern a review of common types of fraud, their increased occurrence, an understanding of the prevalence of fraud, and how organizations are responding to this problem. The class will include a discussion of fraud deterrence methods, including techniques to strengthen internal controls to prevent fraud as well as steps and processes used in detecting fraud. Participants will be exposed to the use of various internal control items such as COSO as well as how to investigate internal fraud, and the use of various interviewing techniques. Participants in this program will gain useful insight into:
  • The high cost of fraud
  • Various methodologies for detecting and preventing fraud
  • How to distinguish between perpetrators and the victims
  • Understanding the characteristics and demographics of those who commit fraud
  • Preventing fraud and understand how to develop a successful fraud prevention program
Fundamentals of Utility Accounting
This 1.5 day course covers the fundamentals of utility accounting for new utility accountants and those involved in related jobs that have need to understand how accounting affects other aspects of the business. This course will cover the basics of utility operations and terminology, and will cover the following accounting topics: Using a prescribed uniform system of accounts (e.g., FERC or RUS), cash versus accrual accounting, work order systems for capitalizing self-constructed plant, the general ledger and subsidiary ledgers, the four accounting cycles (revenue, collections, disbursements, and payroll). Participants will learn about such items as:
  • The unique nature of utility accounting
  • Accounting hierarchy
  • Four sets of books
  • Financial statement presentation and disclosures
  • Important FASB inerpretations
  • Uniform system of accounts
  • Financing Issues
  • Other operations accounting
Introduction to the Cost of Service and Financial Forecasting
This course is designed to provide employees with a broad understanding of the processes involved in performing a cost of service study. Students will learn how system revenue requirements are developed and than allocated to individual rate classes. In addition, participants will explore how actual rate structures are developed. This one-day session will be of principal benefit to staff likely to be involved in a support role during a cost of service study process or likely to have contact with customers. All terminology will be defined and all applicable processes explained. The later part of the class will explore the benefits of having the ability to perform financial forecasting. Simple forecasting tools that can be used in house will be explained and demonstrated. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to see how various scenarios can be built into a comprehensive model to reflect real situations where forecasting is needed. Any utility considering a rate increase or are considering the use of forecasting tools will find benefit in sending to this program. Topics to be addressed include:

  • Cost of Service Terminology

  • Development of Allocation factors (customer, usage, demand, revenues, etc)

  • Revenue Requirements

  • Cost of Service Tests

  • Using Excel functions in forecasting models

  • Setting up simple spreadsheets

  • Management of Margins, TIER, Equity and Working Capital

  • Forecasting increases and loss of load

  • Forecasting increase in power cost

  • Evaluating management alternatives (rates, expenses and loans)
Learning the Skills of Financial Forecasting and Modeling
Accurate financial information is needed by all utilities as a means of planning for construction, rate setting, and organizational changes. An effective financial planning process should include among other things: estimations of its future capital funding needs (including plant additions), diversified business ventures, service territory acquisitions, power supply, and/or community and economic development. Accurate financial planning will assist a utility in determining where its capital requirements will be met and whether this equity will be collected from customers, borrowing, leasing or combinations of all these methods. Utilities should prepare a clear and concise financial forecast at least once a year, and more often as conditions change. The analysis should include consideration of all potential capital needs and the most beneficial combination of debt and internally generated funds to be used to accomplish stated projections. Financial forecasting will help a utility to better understand how decisions made will impact cash flows, TEIR and debt service coverage in the future. Some of the important topics to be addressed in this one-day training session include:
  • Debt/Equity targeting
  • Forecasting cash flows
  • Capital & operational budgeting
  • Effective business planning
Plant Accounting for Electric Utilities
This course covers the plant accounting systems, or work order systems, used by electric utilities to maintain accurate plant records. Because electric utilities are so capital intensive, they must maintain detailed and accurate records of their outside plant. Utilities that borrow RUS funds are required to maintain continuing property records (CPRs) and subsidiary records in accordance with RUS procedures. Other topics that will be covered include integration of plant record-keeping with financial forecasts, construction work plans, long range system studies, power requirements studies, the loan application (including RUS Form 740 c), RUS construction contracts, close out documents, staking sheets, time sheets, and other similar records. In addition, participants will learn about:
  • RUS loan codes for new lines
  • New tie lines
  • Conversion and primary upgrades
  • Substation, switching, re-insulation, and system improvements.
RUS Form 7-A Look Into Electric Cooperative Management

Form 7 is the Financial and Statistical Report submitted monthly to the USDA Rural Utilities Service. This report is based on the system's accounts and other departmental records and reflects the status of the system at the time of the report. The information in the report's 16 sections helps the board, the management team, and employees understand the performance of the cooperative. In addition, the report is connected to other studies and reports prepared by the management team and departmental leaders. Understanding the information and grasping the cooperative's financial philosophy helps board members to make consistent policy and financial decisions; helps the CEO, vice presidents, and department leaders to construct sound procedures and policy recommendations and to prepare appropriate financial strategies; and helps cooperative employees understand the impact of their daily activities to the cooperative's bottom line. The purpose of this training session is to:

  • Assist participants in understanding the financial picture of the cooperative
  • Provide useful decision making information
  • Assist the cooperative team in operating more efficiently and effectively
  • Demonstrate how the various financial and management reports are integrated
  • Demonstrate how decisions are interrelated and impact several areas of the cooperative's operations
Sarbanes-Oxley: The Cooperative Point of View
Few would argue that the environment for cooperatives is undergoing dramatic change. Among other things, this change involves the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley. The effect of public pressure, due to scandals in other sectors, has created a demand for a higher level of scrutiny and regulation among cooperatives. Even if one were to ignore the implications of SOX for its intended purpose, they would ultimately be surprised by the fact that if followed, SOX can lead to competitive advantages as well as numerous other benefits. For those that discount Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) entirely as having little or no effect on their cooperative may be significantly surprised.  The purpose of this course is to assist participants in better understanding the implementation of SOX, best practices derived from SOX, and how coops can reap related benefits from SOX.  Participants in the course will gain insight into:
  • An overview of SOX and changes in the legislative environment.
  • The role of audit committees and audits in SOX.
  • What you need to know about SOX whistleblower protection and document retention policies.
  • How SOX best practices affect non-profit boards.
  • Recommendations for scaling SOX best practices to suit the needs of your organization
The Non-Financial Manager's Guide to Utility Accounting
This one day course is designed for individuals with little or no financial training or background. The course presents a general overview of basic financial management practices for utilities. Participants will gain insight into the development and administration of operating budgets as well as basic understanding of planning and financing capital investments. In addition, the class will cover various aspects of financial reporting. Additional topics covered in the session include:
  • Reading financial statements
  • Financial forecasting basics
  • Equity Management
  • Corporate Governance issues
Understanding and Using Account Receivables and Payables
This course is designed to provide participants with a clear and concise understanding of accounts receivables for both residential and business customers. The session will follow the accounts receivable transaction from beginning to end, including tips on analyzing and reconciling this account. Participants will review example bills, learn the basics of how they are created and what drives the amounts billed to the member. Internal control issues will be discussed as well as potential fraud hot spots. Participants will gain an understanding of:
  • Service Order & Connection
  • Bill Components
  • Account categories
  • Basic rate design
  • G/L accounts
  • Billing entries
  • Internal Controls
  • Revenue analysis
Understanding How Your Utility Works: The Basics from Generation Through Distribution of Electricity
This course is designed to acquaint non-technical utility employees with the basics of their industry from the generation to the distribution of electricity. The course places emphasis on understanding various words, terms, and phrases unique to the electric power industry. Participants will gain a clear insight into how electricity works for the end-use customer. Some of the topics covered in this course are:
  • The basic science of electricity and why it exists.
  • The fundamental methods of electrical generation and how an electrical generator works.
  • How electricity is transmitted and distributed to homes and businesses.
  • Understanding various electrical terms and devices: i.e. transformers, capacitors, relays, etc.
  • The function of electrical metering devices.
  • Understanding the computation of power usage and electric bills
Understanding Work Order Accounting
This one or two-day class delves into the purpose behind work order accounting and its use and accounting authority. The course will cover the initiation of the work orders, accumulating work-in-process, contribution-in-aide of construction, as well as retirements and contracts. Participants will learn about such expenditures as: materials, labor, transportation, and overhead. In addition, the course will provide valuable information on work order close out, unitization, and continuing property records.