Lance Blegen Email & Phone Number

Brooklyn Park, Mn

Roseville, Mn

I was in charge of all of accounting and finance. This included month-end close, financial analysis, fixed assets, prepaid expenses, monthly and yearly forecasts & budgets. Additionally, I had two direct reports who were responsible for accounts payable, accounts receivable, and accounting system analysis.Before I started at Artistic Finishes, there was no way to track the cost of a product. With over 20,000 unique product combinations, this was a problem. I created a cost & pricing model to allow the company to properly track the costs for any given product. This model was used to look at the pricing methodology that was in place in 2016 and assess the margins that were being made on each customer. This was the primary tool used to determine the 2017 pricing and customer agreements that needed to be adjusted.Additionally, I created a process to analyze freight charged to the company versus freight charged to the customer. By downloading activity reports from the shipping company and and Excel to "slice and dice" the data, I was able to see that the company was losing a significant amount of money each month on shipping due to issues with the way customers were charged freight. Through the shipping changes that I proposed, the company was able to cut out these losses, saving nearly $200,000 a year.Also, there were many manual process that I was able to streamline and/or automate by utilizing my Excel, Access, SQL, and VBA skills. These process improvements saved 12 hours during month-end, cutting the normal month-end close process down to only three days, and 30 hours mid-month. Lookup formulas, pivot tables, user-programmed macros, and custom Access database queries connected to the ERP system were all used.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

I was in charge of month-end close, financial analysis, fixed assets, prepaid expenses, accounts payable, payroll, process automation & improvement, and all of HR.I created several Microsoft Access databases to streamline accounting processes and financial analyses. These databases are focused on credit card purchases, expense reports, freight charges, and fixed assets. The fixed assets database was developed to bring the fixed assets process in-house. The database keeps track of all assets, both current and historical, calculates monthly depreciation based on the chosen method (straight-line, double declining balance, mid-month, or sum of the years digits) for the chosen month and year, calculates life-to-date depreciation for the chosen month and year, and allows for numerous analyses of the fixed assets for any given period.Additionally, I discovered the system, pitched the idea for, received approval for, and was one of the project champions of the company's move to an automated expense report process. We were having all expense reports filled out, approved, and entered for payment manually. The new process allows all expense reports to be put together utilizing an app on the user's phone, tablet, or computer and submit it electronically. The expense reports are approved, uploaded to accounts payable, and reimbursed electronically. This greatly reduced the time it takes to do each expense report for the employee and for the accounting department and given us a greater ability to analyze the purchases and effectiveness of the purchases.For my HR role I was in charge of OSHA reporting and compliance, personnel records, employee benefits provider negotiations, employee benefits enrollment and terminations, and worker's compensation. Along with these responsibilities, I was a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). One of the major projects that I accomplished was implementing an electronic personnel file process.

Minnetonka, Mn

At TCF Bank/Winthrop Resources my two primary responsibilities were the accounting debt process and the customer credit accounting and financial analysis. My other responsibilities included creating ad-hoc reports and analyses, working on the information system upgrade, and the accounting aspect of payroll.The accounting debt process consists of setting up, monitoring, and prepaying leases that have part or all of the payment stream sold. I to set up all of the debt in the information system, prepare correcting and/or adjusting journal entries when necessary, ensure that the AR team has the proper information to make correct payments, and take the leases off of the information system and financials when a customer pays off a lease early.I did all of the accounting and financial analysis based around the company's customers' credit quality. Each month I monitored our customer's payments and determined which clients would be considered delinquent and how delinquent they would be considered. I worked on the bad debt reserve, recoveries, charge-offs, and overall company exposure. I analyzed trends in credit ratios, delinquencies, and exposure is another major part of my credit quality work.Additionally, I utilized my Excel, VBA, and SQL skills to streamline and automate multiple processes and spreadsheets, which resulted in significant time savings during month-end close as well as mid-month. Additionally, I worked with the IT department to create several new information system queries to more easily gather financial data and complete reports.

Plymouth, Mn

At St. Jude Medical / AGA Medical I was responsible for the entire fixed asset process from setting up assets through depreciation to asset disposal, including all of the fixed asset accounting for the European and Canadian subsidiaries. Also, I was responsible for working with all of the company's various departments and department heads to ensure that all assets were capitalized on time and worked on analyzing the budgeted amounts versus actual fixed asset spending. One of the major projects was working on resetting up our fixed asset process in JD Edwards after St. Jude Medical acquired AGA medical. Due to a glitch in the JD Edwards fixed asset module the depreciation functionality did not work properly after the acquisition. I created a depreciation schedule in Excel for the thousands of assets that the company had in order to enter manual journal entries for the monthly depreciation amounts until the system could be set up properly. I also used these spreadsheets to analyze the fixed assets budgeted spending to actual spending to help the FP&A team to create the new 1, 3, and 5 year plans and quarterly pro forma forecasts.Additionally, I was designated the primary accountant for the $5M annual revenue Canadian subsidiary. I did all of the Canadian accounting, including accounts receivable, payroll, all account reconciliations, fixed assets and much of the financial analysis for the FP&A team. During the acquisition I worked closely with the FP&A team on the conversion to 1, 3, and 5 year plans and quarterly pro forma forecasts.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

I worked nearly full-time as an Accounting/Finance Intern at Xcel Energy during my final year of school on the Budget team in the Fixed/Capital Asset department. During my time here I was responsible for helping with month-end close, updating the financial information systems, analyzing financial performance, preparing financial data for energy rate cases, creating process documents and training new users on the processes, and working on the monthly and yearly budgets. While at Xcel Energy I utilized my SQL programming, Excel, and Access skills to create the department's primary tool for comparing actual spending to budgeted spending. This tool required the use of several new queries in Access that were enhanced with custom SQL code to pull the appropriate data, along with complex Excel formulas to properly analyze the MTD, QTD and YTD results.Additionally, I used my SQL and VBA programming skills to enhance several Access databases and create numerous custom queries to streamline multiple accounting and financial analysis processes. I also combined my Excel and VBA skills to automate multiple spreadsheets.

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Accounting And Management Information Systems

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Accounting; Management Information Systems

I majored in both Accounting and Management Information Systems. My Management Information Systems (MIS) degree and internship have helped.