What Is Lean Accounting?

Nick explains The Lean CFO from direct experience.  Experience as an accountant, as a practicing CFO, as a leading lean accounting thought leader and pioneer, and as a guide and coach to business executives leading their organizations to successful change.  Nick has been there and done that for the lean organization and The Lean CFO is the guidebook and plan.

Lean accounting is the essential backbone of a company’s lean management system because it provides useable and understandable information that aligns lean operations with financial performance.  Classical management accounting and cost management simply cannot meet the instant and immediate information requirements of a lean company. The Turkish Lean İnstitute has worked with Nick has worked several years and translated the first edition of The Lean CFO into Turkish.  We highly endorse the second edition of this book.

This book takes you on a journey which many would like to travel, and many may have started but not transitioned. Based on practical examples and case studies we get insights into how accounting can progress from transactional processing to a value added function for a lean company by bringing in the analytical skills of your accounting team to support the improvement journey.

As a long-time lean practitioner, I am consistently frustrated with my inability to effectively communicate the wonders and benefits of lean to my financial counterparts.  Low volume, high mix, flexible production seems to constantly conflict with standard cost accounting tools and processes. Enter the Lean CFO. Nick unlocks this disconnect and shows how the benefits of lean flow directly from the shop floor into clear and actionable financial statements.  His writing is concise and makes these concepts simple and easy for the most skeptical finance professional to understand.   The Lean CFO is required reading for our entire management team!

The Lean CFO informs us of the holistic approach we must take to achieve the greatest gains from Lean practices. Lean companies require a Lean management accounting system that focuses on flow and maximizing capacity. Nick offers executives a blueprint that is easy to understand and champion.