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Consulting Assignments

Since 1991 Josephine Sarnelli, CPA has been self-employed as a consultant to several area businesses. Her clients have included manufacturing, retail, service, non-profit, law enforcement agencies and municipal entities. Her consulting assignments utilize her unique and specialized skills. The following list some of the varied consulting assignments that she has had:

Part-time/Interim/Permanent positions as CFO/Controller It is often more effective and cost-efficient to retain Jo on a part-time contract basis than to replace a full time employee position. In long-term arrangements, she supervises and trains client staff and is available for questions whenever necessary.
Implementation of various accounting software packages and related modules for manufacturing, job costing, and fund accounting. Jo has both implemented and been a user of MAS90, Real World, Kintera FundWare, and Blackbaud for many clients. Additionally, she has implemented and used several industry specific accounting packages.
SAS 112 compliance issues, such as the inability to prepare internal financial statements, can be resolved by hiring third parties. CPA firms refer Jo into their clients that lack the expertise to perform certain tasks. She works on a contractual basis directly with their clients.
Internal control reviews and resolution of findings from third party reviews. Both independent auditors and government auditors have referred Jo into organizations that lack an internal audit function. She has helped to resolve weaknesses and written responses on behalf of Management to audit findings.
Preparation of clients for annual audit, including work paper analysis. This is particularly useful when external auditors have independence issues, problems with fulfilling deadlines, or difficulty in being cost effective for clients.
Fund accounting for non-profit entities and municipal agencies. Some large endowments of restricted and non-restricted donations have required substantial research as to the donor's original intent and correct allocation of income.
Forensic accounting done in conjunction with law enforcement agencies. Jo extrapolates underreported income, reviews tax returns to detect tax evasion, and compiles income from illegal enterprises for use in criminal proceedings and in assistance with IRS investigations.
White-collar crime investigations and undercover work. This work has included engagements to determine if fraud was being committed and also assignments to calculate the extent of losses and to implement controls for prevention.
Course development and training for CPA firms in staff development courses at various levels and specialized programs on internal controls, ethics, SAS updates, fund accounting, etc.
Writing policy and procedures manuals. This includes interviewing client staff and recommending improvements in process flow and operational controls.
Bankruptcy work, both for financial institutions and corporations in various stages of filing.
Development of job costing methods for service industries. Utilizing cost accounting and job costing methods from manufacturing and construction environments, Jo has helped service providers to analyze and contain their costs.
Strategic plan development with Management and Boards of Directors. Jo has created an educational program that she facilitates with discussion questions to help organizations identify their core competencies. From this, she assists in preparing strategic and business plans.
Grant writing and accounting. Jo has successfully assisted clients applying for grants by creating budgets and writing accompanying support.
Federal application filing for direct cost rates. Although initially time consuming to apply for, acceptance of the direct cost rate for overhead relieved the entity from having to substantiate overhead in grant applications. The determined rate was actually substantially higher than the previous one being requested in grants for the organization.
Foreign currency accounting. Essentially all of the client's activity was conducted in one of five different currencies (substantially more before the establishment of the Euro). Acting as controller, Jo oversaw all of the daily wire transfers abroad and maintained the general ledger.