Ideas in Motion: Joel Lanz – Practitioner, Professor and IT Advocate
By Scott H. Cytron, ABC
Joel Lanz, CPA.CITP, is one of those rare financial professionals whose background, work and leisure-time activities are very diversified. Based on Long Island in Jericho, N.Y., Joel is head of Joel Lanz, CPA, P.C., a niche-oriented practice providing technology risk management assurance and advisory services.
“I differentiate myself in the marketplace by providing ‘high-touch’ technology-related services that dramatically impact business performance rather than focusing on mass market services offered by the larger firms,” he says. “It’s sort of like providing private banking-level services to a customer base rather than mass market retail banking.”
In his practice, Joel offers many of today’s most in-demand technology services, including information security assessments and evaluations, internal IT audit, technology governance and compliance, and IT vendor management program development and monitoring. In technology assurance, he provides ATM/PIN compliance reviews, as well as the various Trust Services, including privacy.
In his “spare” time, Joel is an adjunct professor at Long Island University’s School of Professional Accountancy at the C.W. Post campus, where he concentrates on courses at the graduate level, including Fraud Examination, and Advanced Assurance and Computer Auditing. He also teaches an undergraduate course in Accounting Information Systems.
In all, he’s taught as an adjunct for about 10 years. Prior to joining Long Island University, he taught Systems Planning and Policy, Systems Design, and Systems Implementation at Pace University’s Graduate School of Computer Science and Information Systems. And, prior to Pace, he was on the staff at NYU’s Graduate Program in Performance and Internal Auditing, offering courses in Business Continuity Planning and IT Auditing.
Obviously, influencing young minds and tomorrow’s managing partners is one of Joel’s top priorities.
“I believe that part of the responsibility of being a professional is to give back to the community,” he says. “Reading professional journals, attending professional association meetings and learning from the lessons shared played a gigantic role in my early career development and later in attaining a Big 5 partnership. Quite frankly, I thought that I could enhance my professional skills and at the same time, do something good for others by sharing my experiences through teaching.”
Earlier in his career, just out of school, Joel says he tutored underprivileged youth and realized that although he could not change the entire world, he could change “one small part of it through teaching and sharing ideas.” He eventually developed a knack for transferring knowledge through both teaching and writing.
“I started teaching to give back to the community by sharing my knowledge of something I did very well,” says Joel.
Finding creative ways to teach technology and its impact on business for the classroom is one of his passions, and naturally goes hand-in-hand with the fact that many of his students were literally born with a mouse in their hand. With accounting concepts first and foremost, Joel says he attempts to heed the “lessons of the business use of technology. I know that other professors may do more hands-on instruction of how to use computer programs, but I would rather use the time in class to lecture, discuss and analyze case studies relating to the evolving threats that need to be managed by business and consumers as they enhance reliance on technology. With so much material to cover and so little time available, I’m not a big fan of using technology for the sake of technology, but rather to use it to enhance the learning experience.”
For example, all of his exams are given online, which helps free up his sessions for additional lectures.
“I also require that students extensively use the Internet for both research and keeping up to date. What this means is that if a lecture covers information security, the student is expected to visit the AICPA’s IT Section Web site, as well as one or two technical sites, such as the National Security Agency’s INFOSEC Assessment and Evaluation Program, where they can learn a recognized approach for performing security testing. I try to make students aware of professionally recognized sites they can go to when – not ‘if’ – their clients ask them questions.”
Joel also uses technology as part of the term project. For example, in Accounting Information Systems, students are expected to walk through an implementation of Great Plains and produce various reports to evidence their knowledge, while in Advanced Assurance Services, students use computer-assisted audit tools, such as IDEA, to help define and strategize the audit approach for a financial audit partner, which is given as part of an oral presentation during class to Joel. He also uses online tutorials, especially Microsoft tutorials, to quickly bring students up to speed on office applications. As in the real world, students are encouraged to appropriately use technology to help enhance presentations as needed to maximize the assigned grade.
The convergence of technology and the real-world business environment comes back again and again with Joel’s practice and with his students. Like a CIO who has to convince C-level colleagues on making technology investments, as a technology risk partner in a Big 5 firm, he played a similar role with financial audit partners on integrating IT into a financial audit and recognizing the client service opportunities that arose from related technology risk management disciplines.
“Bottom line – whether the majority of the profession likes it – outside of sales, most businesses rely on IT to survive,” says Joel. “No IT = no business, and students are well aware of this. In fact, they get confused when they visit the Web sites of CPA firms and notice that IT is not a major offering or that IT partners are in short supply.”
With so much for today’s students to learn, Joel says they must master traditional accounting and auditing disciplines, but need to know IT as well.
“Even I am confused as to why the more prominent university accounting departments do not have IT expertise within the department or why some of the more influential academic journals don’t encourage more IT-related research for the accounting profession – especially in IT-related governance, compliance and security.”
However, an exception to this observation are the case studies sponsored by the AICPA. These case studies, which Joel’s students are required to analyze during their course assignments, do an excellent job of simulating real-world environments, including the role of technology in business.
Joel also believes students should be more aware of how accounting software facilitates service delivery. In courses such as Accounting Information Systems and Auditing, the student is exposed to a popular software product and to some type of data analysis tool, but “there should be more,” he says. “For example, all CPAs should have a basic knowledge of information security tools and how they can be incorporated into the audit or with Sarbanes-Oxley and consulting services.”
In addition to IT awareness, Joel is an advocate for ensuring students are better prepared for accounting careers, and sees several ways of making this happen. In his words:
1. Realize that we are talking a profession – not just a job. Invest in developing continuing study skills because this is something you will use over a 40-year career and not just to get a first job.
2. Read the 100-year anniversary edition of the Journal of Accountancy (October 2005) – reconnect as to why you are entering the profession – not a bad idea for some practitioners as well!
3. Visit the AICPA’s Web site on Assurance Services, especially the work performed by various special committees to identify non-traditional CPA services, and how and why the top assurance services, such as Trust Services, were chosen. This will enable students to identify and take advantage of the many opportunities to provide client service beyond the traditional practice areas..
4. Network, even with your classmates; that not-so-smart or popular kid in the back could become successful one day – I know I did.
5. Participate in state CPA society and accounting organization meetings. For example, I chair the Technology Assurance Committee of the New York State Society of CPAs and am a member of the AICPA’s Information Technology Executive Committee. At all levels, we encourage student membership. The contacts and knowledge gained are priceless.
6. Develop a formal reading and self-study program You will not have it easy being a professional, but you will have the privilege of using your brain and always learning new things.
About Author:
Scott H. Cytron, ABC, is an accredited communications and public relations consultant working in the accounting, health care, high-tech and finance industries. He also teaches efficient and effective writing to professional services’ groups and can be reached at scott@cytronandcompany.com or through his Web site, http://www.cytronandcompany.com.
About Column:
Ideas in Motion is a monthly column designed to focus on best practices within CPA firms and organizations involved in providing technology related services.
Comments/Feedback about this column... AS411 is constantly looking for new companies and people to profile in this column so If you feel your organization stands out from the crowd we'd like to hear from you (Feedback Form)
|
|
Sponsor Messags & Links
Red Wing Software
With more than 25 years of experience developing accounting software, Red Wing Software knows businesses. We specialize in providing software at a reasonable price to companies who are outgrowing their current software and need more functionality, especially where inventory is concerned. Red Wing Software offers a complete suite of software products that can integrate and work together, including General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, Order Entry, Purchase Orders, and Payroll. For more information about Red Wing Software products, please call 800-732-9464, or...
Visit Red Wing for more details
AS411 - Software Search Service
Tired of searching for software?
AS411's complimentary software search service will help you locate professionals in your area who can help you with all your software needs. It's simple, easy and only takes a few minutes.
Click Here to learn more
|
|
|