Making finance work for you

Every organization has a process for reviewing requests against their own guidelines, which are not always well defined. Normally, all requests must be able to demonstrate an adequate financial return on any investment of dollars and/or resources. Quality and service improvement benefits sometimes are accepted, but often must be translated into documentable dollars and cents. In this article, the author shows how understanding the basic concepts of revenue and expense is a good first step toward improving your chances of gaining approval. Forming an effective two-way partnership with the staff in your finance department will improve your chances even more.