Regulated Capital Conversations

Blake Andrews
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Regulated Capital Conversations

Interviews with utility industry finance professionals who influence technology decisions and direction.

Episodes

  1. MAR 12

    Tax Planning In An Uncertain Environment

    Key takeaways The 2017 tax reform posed significant challenges for utility companies.Accurate modeling is crucial for understanding the impact of tax changes.Starting with a correct baseline is essential for accurate calculations.Proactive preparation can mitigate surprises during tax law changes. Timestamps 00:00 Introducing Scott! 02:56 The Impact of 2017 Tax Reform on Utilities 05:48 Understanding the Complexity of Rate Changes 09:07 Modeling Approaches for Rate Changes 11:55 Inputs and Methodologies in Tax Modeling 15:12 Advantages and Disadvantages of Modeling Approaches 18:06 Key Considerations and Gotchas in Tax Modeling 20:57 Consolidated Rates and Their Challenges 24:04 Ensuring Accuracy in Forecasting Results

    29 min

  2. SEASON 2, EPISODE 1 TRAILER

    Talking Tax Reform - What is Coming?

    Let's talk Tax Reform! The possibility of another round of federal tax reform is on the horizon. How will rate changes effect utility finance? For this new series of episodes, we're giving the mic to utility tax experts to walk us through it all. How utility tax teams are responding to discussions of federal tax rate changes.Lessons learned from the last major tax overhaul (TCJA 2017).Best practices for modeling tax rate changes and ensuring system readiness.Strategies to prepare teams and tax systems for upcoming reforms. Key Takeaway: While tax reform is unpredictable, preparation doesn’t have to be. The utilities that start planning now will be best positioned to respond when new legislation takes effect.

    7 min

  3. 05/13/2024

    Pete Jorgenson - How to excel on your next financial systems project via catalytic communication

    00:00 - 01:15 | Introducing Pete! 01:16 - 04:10 | Pete's non-traditional background: From athletic training in the US Football League to technology consulting, Pete's wandering path to where he is today 04:11 - 06:30 | The importance of bridging the gap between the business and IT 06:31 - 14:01 | Pete's key success factors on large projects, including how you increase the "organizational capacity for change" 14:02 - 15:36 | Agile, waterfall, or hybrid - what's the right approach? 15:37 - 24:20 | Data conversion issues - why do they cause project overages and delays, and how do you mitigate them? 24:21 - 31:50 | Reasons that projects are over budget and delayed:  Projects turn into "magnets" for other work  Not having the skillsets necessary to execute large projects  Sacrificing quality to save budget or schedule 31:51 - 36:55 | How to choose between using third parties or internal sourcing 36:56 - 40:22 | Thoughts on moving from on-prem to the cloud 40:22 - End | Recommended books, trainings, websites, and closing remarks

    44 min

  4. 04/09/2024

    Kevin Hampton - How do you ensure customer adoption? By listening to your customers!

    Kevin is a little different than our prior guests in that he is not solely focused on utility Finance automation. Rather, Kevin and his team are focused on improving the lives of everyone from the men and women doing the physical work to keep our electric infrastructure up and running, to the folks in the utility back office. He brings a wonderful perspective on how starting with the problem to be solved, and empathizing with the people that will be impacted, is much more likely to result in a successful end product that people enjoy using than starting with a tool and looking for problems to solve. I think you're going to love this episode with utility automation expert Kevin Hampton. 2:10 - Brief description with Kevin's role - his title and what he actually does 4:52 - Connecting people with automation - The journey from looking for a problem for your tool to solve, to finding problems that people need solved 15:10 - What is "design thinking" and how does it contribute to customer adoption 26:35 - The first big win for Kevin's group - Capturing time for distribution line workers 40:40 - What technologies are Kevin most excited about

    49 min

  5. 02/05/2024

    Joe Vaccaro - Driving Innovation and Efficiency using Microsoft Forms and RPA through ConEd Accounting's Finance Intelligent Automation Team

    1:56 - Joe's journey from tech-savvy accountant to leading the Finance Intelligent Automation Team 7:00 - The accounting department's decision to move from "Citizen Development" to "Joe Development" 10:30 - How Accounts Receivable used Microsoft Forms to transform from wrangling emails to organized processing of a structured AR data set (without burdening IT). 21:16 - How RPA allows the team to take the structured data and complete the end-to-end process. 23:35 - Using "Hours back to the business" as criteria for prioritizing automations. 25:00 - The approval process for ensuring that adequate controls exist around the automations. 28:22 - The team's proudest accomplishment - Revamping the "Rewards and Recognition" process for Corporate Accounting. 32:54 - Automating the review and approval of spreadsheets that create journal entries. 35:36 - "OpenAI is going to change everything in Finance." How the Finance Intelligent Automation team uses Bing generative AI to accelerate and simplify development. 43:15 - Will PowerApps be the next Microsoft Excel? 46:35 - Tools available to come up to speed on the latest technologies?

    51 min

  6. 10/19/2023

    The Finangineers - Mike Givens on Making Finance Tasks More Efficient and Most Importantly, More Fun

    EDITOR'S NOTE: We made a mistake by mentioning the wrong email in our outro. Please send your questions, notes, comments, and interview suggestions to podcast@rcconversations.com  11:30 - Introduction 12:54 - What's a Senior FinTech Automation Analyst (Analyst? Nope - Engineer!) and what do they do? 19:22 - Mike is an insta-hero - 2 weeks to create an automation the team had waited 1 year for! Auto-administration of email distribution lists. 21:29 - How do you differentiate between the tools Microsoft Power Platform - Power Automate, Power Apps, and Power BI? 27:31 - Do these new tools replace the "automations" from the good ol' days (macros and VBA)? 29:12 - Who owns the management and curation of automations after they are created?  Mike's philosophy - teach people how to automate the catching of fish Power Automate "Flows" get put in "Solutions" that are monitored by dev ops.32:40 - How do they go about building and nurturing an automation community of "citizen developers"?  Mike's Weekly (... or minutely) tips and tricks channel37:18 - What processes are ripe for automation, and which are not? 40:30 - What's Mike most excited about that's coming down the automation pike?  OpenAI is exciting, but use it wisely. A useful approach to handling large data sets.44:00 - When should you use Python? 48:35 - How to Be Like Mike - where to turn to become an automation expert.

    38 min

  7. 08/28/2023

    Yelena Veisman - Protecting Large ERP Investments, Data Integrity, Technology Funding, and the 2-Hour Tax Close

    EDITOR'S NOTE: We made a mistake by mentioning the wrong email in our outro. Please send your questions, notes, comments, and interview suggestions to podcast@rcconversations.com 3:15 - What is a Sr. Manager of Tax Technology and what do they do?     - To implement something, don't necessarily try to convert whatever was in the old system and put it in the new     - Don't just automate an existing process and expect improvement to happen. 11:15 - What are the primary responsibilities of a Sr. Manager of Tax Technology?     - She's "The Protector of the Realm"     - Her job is to make sure everything stays on the rails 15:30 - Example of how she protects her tax technology investments 19:40 - How Yelena sleeps at night amid a complex functional and technological environment 28:48 - Where to allocate resources? Find the black boxes and eliminate them. WEC Energy Tax took a process that took 3 months and reduced it to less than one day. 34:10 - How Yelena's "laziness" leads to efficiency 37:05 - How to navigate through a "no" to get to a "yes" when asking for resources 43:40 - Yelena's proudest accomplishment: Their 2-hour monthly close. 50:14 -  A quick thank you note for the listeners!

    51 min

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    Interviews with utility industry finance professionals who influence technology decisions and direction.

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