K. Neal Kirkland
Kirkland Consulting, LLC
981 Emerald Coast Parkway, Suite 3
Destin, Florida 32541-2525
Phone: (205) 966-3883
Email: Neal.Kirkland@KirklandConsulting.com
Website: www.KirklandConsulting.com
Profile
Highly motivated consultant with two graduate degrees and 30 years of experience in IT consulting, financial
consulting, financial management, and public accounting. Achievement oriented self starter who excels in
situations demanding rapid analysis, integration of new concepts, vision, and strong leadership. Creative and
resourceful problem solver able to meet difficult objectives within stringent time frames.
My experience with Lawson spans more than 15 years of designing and implementing the Lawson financial
suite for companies and non profit organizations in many different industries. Module experience and tasks
performed include:
Accounts Receivable (A/R) and Billing (BL)
 Setting up billing to facilitate invoicing
 Designing billing procedures to effectively create invoices and properly interface those invoices to A/R
 Creating collection and invoicing processes for efficient receivables processing.
 Converting and configuring A/R customers and system parameters to properly reflect collection and
payment posting requirements
 Designing functional interface specifications for interface of A/R data from non-Lawson systems into
Lawson A/R and G/L.
 Converting A/R invoice and history data from non Lawson systems into Lawson A/R.
General Ledger (G/L), Flexible Budgeting (FB), Currency (CU), Multi Ledger (ML)
 Effectively designing company structures and attributes matrixes for both single and multiple company
entities in a myriad of situations. These criteria included designing for critical elements to meet internal
and external financial, legal, taxing, processing, currency, and reporting requirements
 Resourcefully creating charts of accounts for the most efficient financial and operational reporting.
 Properly configuring inter-company, inter-zone, and currency relationships to ensure cost effective
processing with minimal user intervention.
 Setting up currency relations, tables, and currency codes to enable processing between US entities and
non US (including Canadian) entities.
 Performing data conversions and interfaces to load historical G/L information, company structures,
charts of accounts, budgets, allocations, and mapping tables. This included:
o Formulating strategies to determine how much data would be extracted and for what periods.
o Extracting information from non-Lawson accounting systems and formatting the data into
Lawson compatible formats.
o Loading conversion files and running conversion programs.
 Designing spreadsheet templates for large journal entries, cutting invoice entry time by 50%
Project and Activity Accounting (AC), Billing and Revenue Recognition (BR), Grant Management (GM)
 Analyzing and recommending the best use of Project and Activity Accounting to meet reporting needs
that cannot be met using only General Ledger.
 Configuring Activity Groups and Activity Structures to efficiently meet these reporting needs and to
efficiently bill Activities.
 Designing Activity control parameters to ensure Activity data integrity and facilitate efficient
reconciliation of Activity information to G/L.
 Organizing and setting up allocations to ensure cost effective postings of allocation entries into both
Activities and General Ledger.
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Formatting and loading conversion files for Activity structures, budgets, and mapping tables.
Designing and setting up Activity Billing and Revenue Recognition to collect and properly bill grant
and other costs accumulated for billable Activities. Billing methods used were cost plus and milestone
billing/revenue.
Organizing and effectively coordinating the configuration of Grant Management to effectively meet
grant reporting and auditing requirements for both state and federal grants.
Neal Kirkland
(205) 966-3883
Accounts Payable (A/P), Cash Ledger (CB)
 Creating vendor groupings and vendor class designs to ensure efficient processing of invoices and
checks.
 Interfacing various third party laser printing packages with A/P to create proper check designs and
ensure appropriate controls over checks.
 Creating interface specifications to import bank data for automated check reconciliation.
 Performing data conversions for vendors, invoices, and checks. This includes:
o Formulating conversion strategies to determine which vendors would be converted, i.e., creating
strategies for “scrubbing” the vendor file.
o Loading the vendor file.
o Defining methods for converting historical vendor and invoice data.
o Formatting, extracting, and loading bank check data for automatic reconciliation.
o Designing spreadsheet up-load templates for large invoices that cut entry of large entries by
50%.
Invoice Matching (MA)
 Designing set up parameters to ensure efficient Invoice Matching processing, including Match Pools,
Match Rule Groups, Tolerances, and other parameters
 Creating month end processes to ensure that all invoices are processed properly and proper accruals are
made for Purchase Orders that have been received but not been matched to an invoice.
 Designing messaging and other procedures so that any matching discrepancies are resolved quickly.
Asset Management (AM), Lease Management (LM)
 Designing and setting up asset calendars, books, types, account groups, accounting unit groups,
locations, and divisions to ensure proper tax treatment and interface to General Ledger.
 Extracting asset information from non-Lawson systems, configuring the information for Lawson asset
load files, and loading the conversion data into the Asset Management tables.
 Designing and configuring Lease Management Executory Cost Codes, Lease Types, and Authority
Codes
 Setting up and processing leases, including FAS 13 designations and interfacing invoices to A/P.
 Uploading Lease, Payment Schedule, and Leased Asset information.
In addition to implementation and design, I have extensive experience as a Lawson Project Manager,
including:
 Creating and utilizing project management tools to effectively and efficiently manage Lawson
implementation and upgrade projects for health care, not for profit, and other entities. This included:
o Constructing plans in MS Project to manage resources and budgets.
o Updating plans for changes in project timing and task progress and generating weekly reports to
highlight progress and problem areas.
o Building budget monitoring tools to ensure that project resources were used according to
budgeted hours and dollars.
Neal Kirkland
(205) 966-3883
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Producing effective status reporting tools and meeting formats that enabled problems to be
quickly identified and addressed to keep projects on track.
o Periodically performing system reviews to ensure “best practices” were designed into business
processes.
Effectively managed projects that included the Lawson Financial, HR/Payroll, and Procurement suites,
completing them on time and within budget.
Successfully directed accounting and reporting departments as a controller and CFO, including
streamlining operations, decreasing period closing days, decreasing A/R days outstanding, obtaining
new financing, and creating effective employee development and retention policies.
Education and Certification
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BS, University of Alabama, magna cum laude.
MBA, Finance, Vanderbilt University.
MS, Information Engineering and Management, University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Certified Public Accountant.
Certified Management Accountant.
Certified in Lawson Software Financial Suite.
Professional Experience Summary
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Lawson Financials consultant, 1998 – present.
Corporate Controller, InterCall, audio and video teleconferencing services, 1997 - 1998.
Independent Accountant, accounting management and systems, 1996.
Chief Financial Officer, Pinson Valley Millworks, residential home product manufacturer and
distributor, 1991 - 1995.
Controller, Prime Time Video, retail video rental chain, 1991.
Controller and Divisional VP, Econocom, international provider of computer services, 1988 – 1990.
Auditor and consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”), international accounting firm, 1986 - 1988.
Internal auditor, Regions Bank, regional bank, 1982 - 1984.