Alteryx for Accounting, Tax and Finance Professionals


Book Description

Dealing with massive amounts of messy data as part of Microsoft Excel(TM) calculations has traditionally been an enormously labor-intensive and time-consuming challenge for accounting, tax and finance professionals. This book explains how Alteryx(TM) can be used to address these challenges in a progressive, fully illustrated manner.- Learn how to import data from Excel and other sources into Alteryx using the Input Data tool.- Develop Alteryx "workflows" to quickly and systemically organize, format, cleanse and analyze large amounts of data using tools such as Select Records, Dynamic Rename, Select, Filter, Unique, Text to Columns, DateTime and several others.- Cleanly and accurately combine separate datasets using the Join and Union Tools.- Learn advanced techniques for manipulating data presented in rows and columns using the CrossTab and Transpose tools.- Use the Summarize tool to perform calculations and to aggregate data in rows.- Export data that you've cleaned and organized to Excel using the Output Data tool for further computations and analysis.- Review methods and techniques for taking advantage of the speed and power of Alteryx while simultaneously strengthening internal controls.All of the material presented in this book is explained in the context of financial and other examples that matter to accounting, tax and finance professionals. If you've been searching for a better, faster and more accurate way to organize large amounts of data that feed into and support complex Excel calculations, this is the guide you've been looking for!




Earnings Quality


Book Description

This review lays out a research perspective on earnings quality. We provide an overview of alternative definitions and measures of earnings quality and a discussion of research design choices encountered in earnings quality research. Throughout, we focus on a capital markets setting, as opposed, for example, to a contracting or stewardship setting. Our reason for this choice stems from the view that the capital market uses of accounting information are fundamental, in the sense of providing a basis for other uses, such as stewardship. Because resource allocations are ex ante decisions while contracting/stewardship assessments are ex post evaluations of outcomes, evidence on whether, how and to what degree earnings quality influences capital market resource allocation decisions is fundamental to understanding why and how accounting matters to investors and others, including those charged with stewardship responsibilities. Demonstrating a link between earnings quality and, for example, the costs of equity and debt capital implies a basic economic role in capital allocation decisions for accounting information; this role has only recently been documented in the accounting literature. We focus on how the precision of financial information in capturing one or more underlying valuation-relevant constructs affects the assessment and use of that information by capital market participants. We emphasize that the choice of constructs to be measured is typically contextual. Our main focus is on the precision of earnings, which we view as a summary indicator of the overall quality of financial reporting. Our intent in discussing research that evaluates the capital market effects of earnings quality is both to stimulate further research in this area and to encourage research on related topics, including, for example, the role of earnings quality in contracting and stewardship.




Finance for Academics


Book Description

​The purpose of this book is to provide a hands-on guide to finance and investment for academics with an objective of providing strategies to maximize income, minimize fees, and legally minimize taxes. There are many risks in finance and investment such as stock market crashes, inflation, corruption, fees and interest rates. This book stresses that stocks and bonds are the mainstay of most investors. Dividend-growth stocks mitigate the risk of inflation. In addition, they cost nothing once they are purchased, unlike mutual funds that have constant fees. The author explains how to find dividend-growth stocks whose payout increase exceeds inflation and how to compound quarterly in order to make projections for future growth in the number of shares or in the value of the capital itself. The author, in addition, discusses the value of bond funds and master-limited partnerships for an investment portfolio. Retirement income is a major concern for senior academics and the median level of retirement savings for those 55 to 64 is only $145,000, which is insufficient. The author stresses the need to mix dividend-growth stocks and closed-end bond funds to fund retirement as well as explains Roth IRAs, 401(k)s and other such tax-free forms of retirement financing. Finally, the book examines financial risks and shows how to mitigate them to the extent possible. This book is a must-have for any professor or academic approaching retirement age or looking to secure their future income.​




Learning Alteryx


Book Description

Implement your Business Intelligence solutions without any coding - by leveraging the power of the Alteryx platform About This Book Experience the power of codeless analytics using Alteryx, a leading Business Intelligence tool Uncover hidden trends and valuable insights from your data across different sources and make accurate predictions Includes real-world examples to put your understanding of the features in Alteryx to practical use Who This Book Is For This book is for aspiring data professionals who want to learn and implement self-service analytics from scratch, without any coding. Those who have some experience with Alteryx and want to gain more proficiency will also find this book to be useful. A basic understanding of the data science concepts is all you need to get started with this book. What You Will Learn Create efficient workflows with Alteryx to answer complex business questions Learn how to speed up the cleansing, data preparing, and shaping process Blend and join data into a single dataset for self-service analysis Write advanced expressions in Alteryx leading to an optimal workflow for efficient processing of huge data Develop high-quality, data-driven reports to improve consistency in reporting and analysis Explore the flexibility of macros by automating analytic processes Apply predictive analytics from spatial, demographic, and behavioral analysis and quickly publish, schedule Share your workflows and insights with relevant stakeholders In Detail Alteryx, as a leading data blending and advanced data analytics platform, has taken self-service data analytics to the next level. Companies worldwide often find themselves struggling to prepare and blend massive datasets that are time-consuming for analysts. Alteryx solves these problems with a repeatable workflow designed to quickly clean, prepare, blend, and join your data in a seamless manner. This book will set you on a self-service data analytics journey that will help you create efficient workflows using Alteryx, without any coding involved. It will empower you and your organization to take well-informed decisions with the help of deeper business insights from the data.Starting with the fundamentals of using Alteryx such as data preparation and blending, you will delve into the more advanced concepts such as performing predictive analytics. You will also learn how to use Alteryx's features to share the insights gained with the relevant decision makers. To ensure consistency, we will be using data from the Healthcare domain throughout this book. The knowledge you gain from this book will guide you to solve real-life problems related to Business Intelligence confidently. Whether you are a novice with Alteryx or an experienced data analyst keen to explore Alteryx's self-service analytics features, this book will be the perfect companion for you. Style and approach Comprehensive, step by step guide filled with real-world examples to step through the complex business questions using one of the leading data analytics platform.




Financial Failures and Scandals


Book Description

This concise volume evaluates the cause and significance of recent corporate failures and financial scandals, and how they reflect on the fitness for purpose of the external auditors, financial reports, financial watchdogs, boards, directors and senior management. Failures like the disastrous collapse of Carillion, examined at length, have ultimately led to a crisis of confidence not only in the audit process but in the entire process of financial reporting. Revealing the shortcomings in audit quality, independence, choice and the growing expectation gap, Financial Failures and Scandalsquestions if the profession, its regulators or government watchdogs, are adequately prepared for the challenges of increasing regulation, public outcry and political scrutiny in the face of inevitable future financial failures. The fundamental structures of financial reporting, annual reports, boards of directors and senior management are often found to have failed. Tighter regulation and new requirements for reporting will inevitably result. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with insiders, users and experts, this unique book provides a compelling account of the profoundly disruptive impact of financial failures on corporate and financial accountability. Topical and readable, this book will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals in accounting and auditing, as well as to policy makers and regulators. e failed. Tighter regulation and new requirements for reporting will inevitably result. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with insiders, users and experts, this unique book provides a compelling account of the profoundly disruptive impact of financial failures on corporate and financial accountability. Topical and readable, this book will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals in accounting and auditing, as well as to policy makers and regulators.




Accounting Information Systems


Book Description




Path to Residency


Book Description

Path To Residency: Match Process Made Simple For MD DO & IMGsPath To Residency is a simple guide designed for medical students and graduates to gain a residency spot in a US hospital. The book Path To Residency aims to decrease residency stress by providing easy tips and strategies for candidates to improve their residency application. The book content emphasis on improving interview skills and documentations for the match cycle. Most of all, List of IMG friendly programs and states that can help narrow down programs. The guide contains extensive information on Residency Match, SOAP, Couples Match, Red Flags on Applications, Candidates Selection Process, Experience, Interview Process & Questions, Documentations Templates CV, LORs, & Personal Statment. Generated Program Lists of IMG Friendly Programs/Hospitals by Specialities.




The Missing Tax Accounting Guide


Book Description

This book explains the "how" and "why" of tax accounting concepts and mechanics according to ASC 740 (U.S. GAAP) using clear, practical, and understandable language and methods. It also contains a series of tax provision examples that start with a trial balance, work through tax provision calculations, develop the accounting entries necessary to close the books. It also explains how this process ultimately supports the tax-related figures and explanations and in the financial statements and footnotes. - Start off by diving into an example of how a tax provision works - Understand the relationship between the corporate tax return ("compliance") and the tax provision (tax accounting) - Learn what makes up the total tax expense (or provision) of a company, how to compute it, as well as the relationship between the tax provision and a company's financial statements - Learn about book/tax differences, permanent differences, and temporary differences, what the concepts mean, and how to handle them - Learn gives rise to deferred tax expenses, deferred tax benefits, deferred tax assets, and deferred tax liabilities, as well as how to account for them in tax provision calculations - Gain insight into the financial statement auditor's perspective of the tax provision, as well as how to effectively interact with them - The book's explanations and examples take into account the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ("Tax Reform") Reinforce and deepen your understanding of these and other concepts by referring to detailed examples, workpaper illustrations, and sample journal entries throughout the material. This book is the "missing guide" you have been looking for and contains the foundational knowledge necessary to learn, understand, and apply the complex rules of ASC 740 in the real world.




Data Mining For Dummies


Book Description

Delve into your data for the key to success Data mining is quickly becoming integral to creating value and business momentum. The ability to detect unseen patterns hidden in the numbers exhaustively generated by day-to-day operations allows savvy decision-makers to exploit every tool at their disposal in the pursuit of better business. By creating models and testing whether patterns hold up, it is possible to discover new intelligence that could change your business's entire paradigm for a more successful outcome. Data Mining for Dummies shows you why it doesn't take a data scientist to gain this advantage, and empowers average business people to start shaping a process relevant to their business's needs. In this book, you'll learn the hows and whys of mining to the depths of your data, and how to make the case for heavier investment into data mining capabilities. The book explains the details of the knowledge discovery process including: Model creation, validity testing, and interpretation Effective communication of findings Available tools, both paid and open-source Data selection, transformation, and evaluation Data Mining for Dummies takes you step-by-step through a real-world data-mining project using open-source tools that allow you to get immediate hands-on experience working with large amounts of data. You'll gain the confidence you need to start making data mining practices a routine part of your successful business. If you're serious about doing everything you can to push your company to the top, Data Mining for Dummies is your ticket to effective data mining.




Learning Tableau 2020


Book Description

Publisher's note: This edition from 2020 is outdated and does not make use of the most recent Tableau features. A new fifth edition, updated for Tableau 2022, is now available. Key FeaturesExplore the latest Tableau 2020 features and redefine business analytics for your firmUnderstand visualizing data and creating interactive dashboards to gain meaningful insightsLearn implementing effective data storytelling to redefine how your business leverages data and makes decisionsBook Description Learning Tableau strengthens your command on Tableau fundamentals and builds on advanced topics. The book starts by taking you through foundational principles of Tableau. We then demonstrate various types of connections and how to work with metadata. We teach you to use a wide variety of visualizations to analyze and communicate the data, and introduce you to calculations and parameters. We then take an in-depth look at level of detail (LOD) expressions and use them to solve complex data challenges. Up next, we show table calculations, how to extend and alter default visualizations, build an interactive dashboard, and master the art of telling stories with data. This Tableau book will introduce you to visual statistical analytics capabilities, create different types of visualizations and dynamic dashboards for rich user experiences. We then move on to maps and geospatial visualization, and the new Data Model capabilities introduced in Tableau 2020.2. You will further use Tableau Prep's ability to clean and structure data and share the stories contained in your data. By the end of this book, you will be proficient in implementing the powerful features of Tableau 2020 for decision-making. What you will learnDevelop stunning visualizations to explain complex data with clarityExplore exciting new Data Model capabilitiesConnect to various data sources to bring all your data togetherLeverage Tableau Prep Builder's amazing capabilities for data cleaning and structuringCreate and use calculations to solve problems and enrich the analyticsMaster advanced topics such as sets, LOD calculations, and much moreEnable smart decisions with data clustering, distribution, and forecastingShare your data stories to build a culture of trust and actionWho this book is for This Tableau book is for anyone who wants to understand data. If you're new to Tableau, don't worry. This book will simplify Tableau for beginners to build on the foundations to help you understand how Tableau really works and then builds on that knowledge with practical examples before moving on to advanced techniques. Having a bit of background with data will help, but you don't need to know scripting, SQL or database structures.