Articles by Tulasi S Sastri

How do we manage travel costs?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 14 May 2015 14400 Views

Travel is an important item of cost for many organizations, whether in “manufacturing” or in “services” sectors. I have chosen to use the word “manage” instead of “monitor” (reference my previous articl

How do we monitor power costs?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 25 April 2015 11165 Views

In medium or large organizations, “Power” is an important item of cost, be it in Manufacturing or Services Industry. Over the years, I had the opportunity to achieve savings in this area, and wish to share 5 of such instances, for the ben

How can we strengthen Procurement Function to achieve savings for your Organization?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 11 April 2015 12113 Views

Internal Audit report on the Procurement Function of Sure Shot Engineering Co. highlighted certain inconsistencies like inducting vendors with no apparent reason to d

Why do I consider Purchase Order, an important Internal Financial Control?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 30 March 2015 17678 Views

We all know that Purchase Order is a document, released by an organization, to a vendor, to make supplies of a specified item or material, at a given price, of specified quantity, quality and description. If the mandate to a vendor is for specified

Three distinct aspects of financial applications

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 24 February 2015 13715 Views

Three distinct aspects of Financial Applications that help in Systems Requirement Study (SRS). What is SRS? By SRS I am referring to the exercise undertaken to understand and to specify the requirements of a Business Application for development. Ther

How can financial applications help in achieving business objectives?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 11 February 2015 15861 Views

General perception is that Financial Applications are mainly meant for book keeping, and that they do not have much relevance from business perspective. Probably this was true decades ago, when accounting was manual, historical, and produced financia

Bar code systems for transaction capture in manufacturing

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 03 February 2015 6058 Views

Bar Code Systems for transaction capture in Manufacturing – Opportunity to save on data entry efforts and making it error free. Familiar scene to all of us at medical shops is employing bar code readers by chemists to invoice sale of medicines.

How to improve Productivity in F&A Function?

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 06 January 2015 12343 Views

1. In F&A, normally understood processes are Invoicing, Purchase Accounting, Inventory, Accounts Payable, Fixed Assets, Accounts Receivable, Cash & Bank Operations, Payroll, Taxation, Period end Procedures, and Financial Reporting. 2. Uneven

Questions to ask while designing Employee Incentive Schemes

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 30 December 2014 16451 Views

Performance Incentive Schemes have all along been considered an important tool in the hands of the management, to differentiate between high performers and others, and to suitably reward the former. Where the overall output is dependent on employee g

Contribution - the concept I love most

Posted by Tulasi S Sastri 24 December 2014 10683 Views

By Contribution, I am referring to Sales minus Variable Cost. In my four decades of working in Industry, I had applied this concept in many organizations, with great gains. For me today, it is perhaps the most important concept in Management Accounti