The Friday cocktail: Balance Sheets to the Wind

Quarter close is nigh. What better way to steel yourself than with one of RoseRyan’s 20th anniversary cocktails?

Balance Sheets to the Wind, a tequila-based, berry-colored inhibition loosener, is guaranteed to take the sting out of any financial close.

  • 2 oz reposado tequila
  • 1½ oz apple juice
  • ¾ oz lemon juice
  • ½ oz creme de cassis
  • lime peel

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and pour into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lime peel.

If you’d prefer to keep your balance, you can try the equally lovely nonalcoholic option, with a well-mannered shot of vanilla. It’s a bit complicated (you have to start two weeks in advance), but worth it.

  • ½ oz Meyer lemon juice
  • 1 oz blackberry shrub (recipe below)
  • Soda water

Mix juice and blackberry shrub in a tall glass. Add ice and top with soda water.

To make the blackberry shrub: First, make vanilla-infused balsamic vinegar. Add two vanilla beans to a bottle of good-quality balsamic vinegar and let it sit in a dark place for two weeks.

Mix 2 cups fresh blackberries or berries of your choice with 1½ cups granulated sugar. Stir and let macerate for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Place in cheesecloth, squeeze out juice, and pour into a jar. Add 2½ oz of the vanilla-infused balsamic vinegar and shake to combine. Store in an airtight container.

To sample all 20 of our anniversary drinks, view the RoseRyan 20th Anniversary Cocktail collection recipe book. Each libation was lovingly crafted for us by the fine mixologists at the Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, California.

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Big data’s big impacts are not going away

Big data is the big thing these days, and I don’t know much about it, so I attended the AAMA’s Big Data–Big Impact conference recently at the Tech Museum in Mountain View. It was very well done, with a good variety of speakers and panelists.

While I’m not a technologist, I am very interested in market trends and the history of technology. I wanted to find out if this was truly one of the ‘next big things’ in the technology industry, and what it could mean for us and our clients.

It turns out that big data really is big. I think there is no question that it’s significant in terms of its impact on consumers and businesses. As we look to the future, it’s important to understand how to leverage and control big data, and what and how to gather, analyze and use all of this information.

There are multiple opportunities in a variety of industries. For example in transportation, it is used for air traffic control, and the logistics of airport operations. Airport logistics, for example, are very complicated and involve multiple systems working together. The ability to harness this amount of data helps end customers as well as the airline industry.

Utility companies, traffic control for roads and bridges, all have numerous applications that couldn’t be done before. Whether big data applications are integrated into existing solutions or they are complete systems, there are huge opportunities to harness the data they gather, which opens up new markets such as data analytics in sports and gaming.

Big data breakthroughs are now possible due to the rapidly dropping cost of computing power and communications infrastructure. They weren’t affordable as recently as five years ago, even though ideas and applications were there.

After a day of listening and learning, I concluded that big data is not a temporary trend or bubble. The number and extent of potential applications is phenomenal, and will be embedded in existing technology, and evolve into a mature business, creating new technology, new infrastructure and possibilities for many kinds of companies.

If CFOs and management teams have access to the right big data, and know how to analyze and interpret it, will big data help their business decisions? Will it change the CFO world in some way? I think these questions have yet to be answered. One thing is certain:  we will be hearing much more about this technology in the near future.

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Why we don’t do lunch (not to build partnerships, anyway)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what partnerships mean in Silicon Valley. In building our ecosystem of partners—service providers that complement RoseRyan’s offerings—I’ve realized two things: One, partnerships between service providers are tricky. And two, many people throw the word partner around, and yet it has different meaning for each person.

Our clients often ask us for referrals to attorneys, HR specialists and other service providers that can help them build their business. When I refer a business partner to a client, the partner’s work is a reflection of our firm. I want it to be a good match. I need to be confident about their values, how they work with clients and how they treat people.

But the typical Silicon Valley methodology doesn’t reveal this information. It usually goes like this: I go to lunch with X service provider, they tell me what they provide, and I explain the services we provide. After 90 minutes, we feel we know each other. Time goes by. Now I have a client who needs what X does, and I try to remember exactly what X told me three months ago. Nothing stands out—and I assume X’s services are like everybody else’s in their industry.

Couldn’t be more wrong! All service providers are different—their services are just part of the mix.

That’s why our process for building partnerships goes beyond the typical 90-minute lunch-and-go scenario. We spend a lot of time getting to know our partners. We do a deep dive into their business, we know their strengths and weaknesses, and we talk about the squishy stuff. We come to understand their values, what it’s like to be their client, and how they treat their clients when issues arise.

I’ve learned that this type of partnership isn’t for everyone. It takes time and a lot of energy to develop and maintain the relationship—just like any relationship—and many firms don’t want to make that investment, for a host of reasons.

But it’s worth it, because in the end, we are truly partners. I know their work complements ours, and that our goals and values are aligned. We have each other’s back, and we create new energy. Our clients love it. They get what we promised them in our referral, and I know the partner will treat them as well as we do.

And now I have an extra skill: I can spot the energy in a meeting quickly, and I know when people are present and engaged, and willing to have tough discussions and to push the relationship forward. And I’ve learned you sure don’t want to have these meetings during lunch!

 

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Can accountants really do that? Creating the 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection

There’ve been plenty of times we’ve wanted a drink in our 20 years as finance and accounting gurus to some of Silicon Valley’s fastest-moving companies. So what better way to celebrate our 20th anniversary than with 20 custom cocktails?

Thus the RoseRyan 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection was born. Since releasing the recipes last week, we’ve been getting questions: “How did you do that?” “Which ones are appropriate before noon?” and “Why wasn’t I invited to the tasting?” 

Well, it was an arduous task, which we approached with an accountant’s attention to detail.

The mixing
Fortunately we had connections, and asked the mixologists at the Bull Valley Roadhouse (an up-and-coming Bay Area restaurant and bar) to create 10 original cocktails and 10 nonalcoholic counterparts (these are clearly appropriate before noon; otherwise, you’re on your own recognizance). Their mission was simple: be fun, different, sophisticated; give us some festive party drinks and some we could mix up any time.

The tasting
Jaime Rossini and Kathryn Mussell sent us 24 superlative recipes, so the RoseRyan marketing team had no choice but to spend an afternoon at the Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa sampling each one to arrive at the final cut. (In re: question three—sometimes marketing has all the fun; that’s just how it is.) Jaime and Kathryn told us about the more esoteric ingredients (blackberry shrub, gomme syrup, rhubarb bitters) as they mixed and we sipped, scribbling our impressions on worksheets. We compared tasting notes and winnowed the list down to the final 20 with cool accountant-like efficiency.

The naming
Now we had to name them—a task almost as much fun as the tasting. We wanted clever finance names that didn’t veer into the land of cheesy accountant jokes, so we called in the entire brain trust. The marketing team created a starter list and then called for contributions. Almost 100 names poured in. We narrowed the list and put it to a vote.

Many great names didn’t make the final cut: Double Ledger, FASB Fling, Rev Rec Detonator, Mind the GAAP, Slush Fund, Auditor Exterminator and Fiscal Freeze, among others. Winning names from RoseRyan gurus are the 10K-O, from Miranda Chook; Knock Your SOX Off, from Moira Berman; and Lori Young’s Per Diem.

To find out the rest of the winning names—and most importantly, start mixing—download the RoseRyan 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection recipe book.

The drinking
To whet your appetite, here’s the recipe for our signature anniversary drink, the RoseRyan Roaring Twenty. Multifaceted, well rounded, easy to love, and of course, orange, this concoction is RoseRyan in a glass:

1 oz vodka
½ oz Cointreau
½ oz sweet Italian vermouth
½ oz orange juice
¼ oz lemon juice

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled small coupe glass. Garnish with orange wheel.

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Booms, busts and finance upheavals: RoseRyan’s CEO looks back on 20 years

When I cofounded RoseRyan (then known as Macias & Ryan) in September 1993, the Internet was just taking off. The word “global” had a different connotation. Cell phones (if you even had one) were the size of bricks. The “cloud” was in the sky. In many ways, it was a simpler time for accounting and finance.

In the 20 years since, we have weathered two economic downturns and countless changes in accounting rules, governance and oversight. Corporate abuses gave us Sarbanes-Oxley, AS2 and AS5, the PCAOB and the Dodd-Frank Act. Business changed, and continues to change, at exponential rates of speed. We have a truly global economy, blazing technology advancements and exciting new ways of doing business.

This all means that the staid and boring world of accounting has become anything but. We have addressed changes with far-reaching implications in the areas of stock-based compensation, accounting for derivatives, business combinations, fair value measurements, codification and accounting for leases, and we’re now facing brand-new ways to look at recognizing revenue. (FASB promises it will be final any day now.…)

CFOs and their teams have had to step up their game. In addition to understanding and implementing new and complex accounting principles, they are rightfully taking on a more strategic role as leaders in the business. No longer are CFOs expected to be just the keepers of historical financial statements and budgets; they also need to understand their business and market trends, and strategically and systematically increase the value of their company. Not easy tasks, but certainly challenging and exciting in today’s dynamic market.

While the finance needs of Bay Area companies have changed, the fundamentals of RoseRyan’s business have not. As in 1993, in 2013 we are dedicated to attracting and retaining top-notch professionals, and to providing an environment where our consultants are challenged but also able to enjoy a personal life. This allows us to provide exceptional finance and accounting solutions to our clients, giving them the right people with the right skills at the right time.

No matter what the level of their assignment, every RoseRyan consultant rolls up their sleeves to get the job done—and they look beyond the cubicle to provide best practices, advice and objective opinions derived from their years of experience. We call ourselves “gurus” because we strive to be leaders and mentors for our clients and one another.

We’ve worked with more than 700 clients at RoseRyan, and they have made for an exciting 20 years. It has been a great time to work with companies in the technology and life sciences industries, participating in the myriad of changes that have taken place and watching companies go up and down—and sideways. What’s most exciting is that we are often with clients through their corporate life cycle. For example, I started with one client as CFO when they were in an incubator. We shepherded them through two-plus years of fast growth as their outsourced accounting department. We later helped them with revenue recognition issues, stock-based compensation and audit support. Finally, as they neared their exit, we helped with financial forecasting, due diligence and integration with the eventual acquirer. We were with the company for over eight years, and it was rewarding to understand their business, walk with them through the ups and downs, and celebrate their successes.

RoseRyan would not be where it is today without our amazing clients or our consultant gurus. I am very proud of all of them, and I am pleased that RoseRyan helps both clients and our employees thrive. They are a huge part of why I think the Bay Area is a great place to work, to learn, to live. I give heartfelt thanks to all who have made the past 20 years possible. We’re looking forward to the next two decades!

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