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The Value Add Accountant
Accounting delivers a lot of indecipherable reports. Finance rarely addresses the business leader’s need for a greater understanding of the complete financial impact of decisions made as well as decisions to be made. Both functions also have a lot of internal process waste. The Value Add Accountant can provide solutions to all of these issues.
Jean Cunningham and Orest Fiume wrote about their experience as CFO’s creating this role in the 2003 seminal Lean Accounting text, Real Accounting for the Lean Organization. In the years since, Jean has traveled the globe, consulting on Lean process improvement and waste reduction in accounting and other office processes for numerous companies great and small.
This book expands the Real Numbers message by providing detailed examples of how to reveal accounting waste, start a personal value add transition, and get buy in on these pivotal accounting changes. This book also describes how accounting can effectively evaluate corporate waste reduction and improvement activities.
You will learn how adopting this new role can enable accounting and finance to proactively support business decision making and impact improved outcomes. This expanded role has both accounting operations and company-wide elements. It is initiated by applying Lean principles and tools to everyday processes to minimize mind-numbing transaction work and other waste from accounting processes. Those improvements increase available accounting capacity. This capacity is then applied to impacting the future with more time spent on internal customer-based, value adding activities for the organization.
Your Value Add Accountant journey starts here.
Jean Cunningham and Orest Fiume wrote about their experience as CFO’s creating this role in the 2003 seminal Lean Accounting text, Real Accounting for the Lean Organization. In the years since, Jean has traveled the globe, consulting on Lean process improvement and waste reduction in accounting and other office processes for numerous companies great and small.
This book expands the Real Numbers message by providing detailed examples of how to reveal accounting waste, start a personal value add transition, and get buy in on these pivotal accounting changes. This book also describes how accounting can effectively evaluate corporate waste reduction and improvement activities.
You will learn how adopting this new role can enable accounting and finance to proactively support business decision making and impact improved outcomes. This expanded role has both accounting operations and company-wide elements. It is initiated by applying Lean principles and tools to everyday processes to minimize mind-numbing transaction work and other waste from accounting processes. Those improvements increase available accounting capacity. This capacity is then applied to impacting the future with more time spent on internal customer-based, value adding activities for the organization.
Your Value Add Accountant journey starts here.
Kindle Edition
Published July 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 23, 2025
2.5/5.0 - I read this book in hopes of adding arrows to my quiver, but I found this one more frustrating than value accretive.
The book's title "The Value Add Accountant" is misleadingly vague as this book solely addresses companies with manufacturing operations. Moreover, there’s a heavy focus about the accounting/finance considerations when implementing ‘Lean’ principles into an organization. That’s fine, but I’d suggest a more descriptive subtitle.
One overarching principle Cunningham makes clear is that the successful adoption of Lean will ultimately create additional capacity, which only shows up in the financial statements when demand is met with greater production.
Another useful chapter was “Close the Books” which offered actionable suggestions to improving period-end close timing.
Broadly she did a good job articulating ways to identify areas of waste and redundancy within an accounting function, which was useful food for thought.
However, I have a number of editing corrections/changes I’d suggest be considered if Cunningham were to write a subsequent edition:
1) The author repeatedly mentioned approaches to “reduce capital structure.” Saying “reduce capital intensity” or “optimize capital structure” is the more customary phrasing.
2) The Financial Accounting Standards Board was incorrectly abbreviated as “FSB” but the organization goes by “FASB.”
3) Acronyms left undefined included: PDCA, OEE, 5S, among others.
4) Example ‘Plain English P&L’ on page 89 had a calculation error (subtotal did not foot).
5) Multiple paragraphs end without any punctuation (especially in chapter 6).
The book's title "The Value Add Accountant" is misleadingly vague as this book solely addresses companies with manufacturing operations. Moreover, there’s a heavy focus about the accounting/finance considerations when implementing ‘Lean’ principles into an organization. That’s fine, but I’d suggest a more descriptive subtitle.
One overarching principle Cunningham makes clear is that the successful adoption of Lean will ultimately create additional capacity, which only shows up in the financial statements when demand is met with greater production.
Another useful chapter was “Close the Books” which offered actionable suggestions to improving period-end close timing.
Broadly she did a good job articulating ways to identify areas of waste and redundancy within an accounting function, which was useful food for thought.
However, I have a number of editing corrections/changes I’d suggest be considered if Cunningham were to write a subsequent edition:
1) The author repeatedly mentioned approaches to “reduce capital structure.” Saying “reduce capital intensity” or “optimize capital structure” is the more customary phrasing.
2) The Financial Accounting Standards Board was incorrectly abbreviated as “FSB” but the organization goes by “FASB.”
3) Acronyms left undefined included: PDCA, OEE, 5S, among others.
4) Example ‘Plain English P&L’ on page 89 had a calculation error (subtotal did not foot).
5) Multiple paragraphs end without any punctuation (especially in chapter 6).
July 25, 2021
The best book on accounting process improvement I have ever read!
I like the simple to understand language used. I liked how the author showed by example how common GAAP related information can be easily transformed into business information. I recommend that every CFO, Controller and Accountant read this booj
I like the simple to understand language used. I liked how the author showed by example how common GAAP related information can be easily transformed into business information. I recommend that every CFO, Controller and Accountant read this booj
February 19, 2022
I'm an enormous fan of the Toyota Production System, but much less of Lean. I think Lean pays lip service to value and I have yet to see any Lean book with an overarching theory of value that is coherent. I focus on professional firms, not manufacturing, and I found most of this pretty self-evident. I come back to Peter Drucker: the two basic functions of any business is Innovation and Marketing, as they are the only two that produce results. Everything else is costs, which is what this book mostly deals with.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews