We received a great introduction to all things lean from Jerry Solomon in an earlier MACPA podcast.

Now, as the lean movement continues to pick up steam, we’re going to move beyond the manufacturing floor and focus on how CPAs can benefit from the lean movement. Some of the questions that come to mind are:

• What is lean accounting?
• Is traditional finance, as Solomon claims, an obstacle to lean?
• Why are the benefits of lean often invisible to traditional methods of accounting?
• What are the competitive advantages of going lean?

Here to help us answer those questions is Jean Cunningham, founder and president of Jean Cunningham Consulting. Jean is one of the pioneers of lean accounting; she’s been doing this since the early 1990s, and she knows her stuff.

Jean is the CFO and a director-at-large for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence. She also is a founder, thought leader and presenter for the annual Lean Accounting Summit, which will be held this year on Sept. 17 and 18 in Las Vegas. Our own Business Learning Institute is a sponsor of that event.

I spoke with Jean over the phone recently about what CPAs can gain from going lean. Listen to what she had to say in this MACPA podcast.

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Have you made the leap to lean? Tell us your thoughts, then check out these other lean resources:

• MACPA lean resource center
• Lean Accounting Summit: MACPA members save $100 on registration
• Easier, Simpler, Faster, a Shingo Prize-winning book by Cunningham
• Real Numbers, a Shingo Prize-winning book by Cunningham
• Accounting for World-Class Operations, a Shingo Prize-winning book by Solomon
• The 'skinny' on lean: What every CPA needs to know
• Top 5 reasons you need lean accounting