by Nicholas S. Katko (Author) This book is not about debits, credits, or accounting theory. It's about how a chief financial officer (CFO) becomes a Lean CFO to lead the transformation of a company's management accounting system into a lean management accounting system. It's been well established in lean companies that traditional management accounting systems do not provide relevant and reliable information to decision makers. The CFO, as steward of a company's management accounting system, must provide the leadership to improve the quality of the information produced by a company's management accounting system so it is aligned with a company's lean strategy, lean operations, and continuous improvement. The integration of a lean management accounting system with a company's lean strategy will lead to improved decision making by all users and drive long-term financial success. Lean management accounting helps all users, from executives to line managers, better understand the relationships between lean operating performance and financial performance. Written in the style of a practice guide, The Lean CFO is written not just for CFOs, but for all stakeholders of a company's management accounting system, such as executives and owners, lean leaders, functional managers, and accounting professionals. Author Biography After a tour of duty in public accounting, Nick Katko began his Lean management system career as chief financial officer of Bullard, a privately held manufacturing company in Kentucky. In the mid-1990s Bullard made a commitment to a Lean business strategy and began hiring operations people with Lean experience. Nick worked with Lean leaders to establish a comprehensive Lean performance measurement system that was used to measure and manage the entire business. As inventory was dramatically reduced, Nick realized the irrelevance of the standard costing system to the business. Nick created and introduced value stream income statements to Bullard, and all business decision making was based upon a value stream financial analysis of decisions. Eventually, labor and overhead rates were set to zero and inventory valuation was made with a simple monthly journal entry capitalizing manufacturing costs. In 2000, Nick left Bullard and started Strategic Financial Solutions, Inc., with his wife Deanna. Strategic Financial Solutions provides contract CFO and controller services as well as bookkeeping and tax services to companies in the Lexington, Kentucky area.