Accounting Manager (Los Angeles 90063) (Los Angeles)

Design and manufacturing firm, located in Los Angeles, is seeking a full time accounting manager to join our team. The Accounting Manager is responsible for our company's accounting practices, the conduct of its relationships with banking institutions and the maintenance of its fiscal records and the preparation of financial reports. The position involves management of all accounting, financial and payroll functions.
You should be highly organized, detail oriented and able to multi-task and in a fast paced, dynamic work environment. Please be self-motivated and skilled at scheduling, task management and long term goal planning. Must also have a positive attitude, love problem solving and being a strong team leader.

Required Skills and Experience:
5+ years of bookkeeping / accounting experience
Strong Accounting / GAAP knowledge
Highly skilled in QuickBooks, MS Word/Excel/Outlook
Experience in preparing variance and financial reports
Excellent interpersonal skills and be comfortable interfacing with customers and vendors

Responsibilities include:
Maintain P&L and balance sheet reports
Maintain cash flow projection model
Oversee month-end financial closing statements
Review journal entries and provide corresponding source documentation
Manage AP -- proper coding of vendor bills, payment processing, vendor account analysis
Manage AR -- customer invoicing, processing payments, monthly statements, collections
Manage Payroll and administer employee benefits
Manage bank relationships including bank accounts, loans, credit lines, and other credit facilities
Monitor account balances - confirmation of monthly balances and re-balancing accounts as necessary
Process wire transfers, ACH transactions and other banking transactions as needed
Maintain working relationship with outside CPA to support tax preparation
Maintain working relationship with fractional CFO to support overall company goals and monthly accounting needs.
Process city and state taxes

Please include salary history and requirements.
Human Resources experience is a plus. Bilingual English/Spanish is helpful, but not required.
We look forward to working with you!
Posting ID: 3678637203

Posted: 2013-03-13, 9:40AM PDT

Edited: 2013-03-13, 9:40AM PDT

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Shares firm as Fed tapering fears fade

Investors focus on possible moves by leading central banks, following a flurry of dovish comments, as first-quarter US economic growth is revised down

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Sales Professionals Needed (City of Industry)

- Medical Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Supplemental Insurance
- 401(k)
- Vacation Time
- Sick Time

You will perform B2B payment processing selling (credit, debit, EBT, gift card, and check) targeting all types of businesses. No regional restrictions. Generate your own leads and/or use our lead database. Posting ID: 3679391752

Posted: 2013-03-13, 2:58PM PDT

Edited: 2013-03-13, 2:58PM PDT

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Canada optimistic on Keystone approval after Obama climate plan

Crewmen work a site where a pipe for TransCanada's Keystone XL project is lowered into the ground in Wood County, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012, in Winnsboro. (Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle)

Canadian business leaders say there’s growing optimism that President Barack Obama will approve TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline because thwarting it would cost U.S. consumers and won’t halt development of Alberta’s oil sands.

“From my perspective it’s 100 percent that he’s going to approve it,” Scott Saxberg, chief executive officer of Calgary-based oil producer Crescent Point Energy Corp. (CPG), said in a phone interview yesterday. “If it doesn’t go through, all it’s going to do is increase the cost to the U.S. and to the consumer.”

Unveiling his climate change plan June 25, Obama said his administration would approve the $5.3 billion cross-border project if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” The administration has said a decision on Keystone will come in months.

The pipeline, which has been under review for almost five years, would carry 830,000 barrels of diluted bitumen a day from northern Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries. Environmentalists have protested in front of the White House seeking to block the project because of concerns about potential spills and the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by mining oil sands.

Obama didn’t say in the climate speech at Georgetown University whether he favored approval. A draft U.S. State Department analysis, released March 1, said the pipeline would have minimal impact on climate change because the oil sands would be mined and developed with or without Keystone XL.

Obama ‘Vagaries’

“I think Keystone gets approved late in the year as there is enough vagaries in the Obama language, plus the supportive State Department report that makes it not a contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Jennifer Stevenson, a Calgary-based vice president at Dynamic Funds who helps manage about C$100 billion ($96 billion). “It will still be noisy, but I think it gets done.”

TransCanada gained 0.4 percent to C$44.90 at the close in Toronto yesterday. The price gap between Western Canada Select, the country’s benchmark crude, and West Texas Intermediate narrowed 1.5 percent to $16.75 yesterday.

“President Obama is taking shelter” under conclusions reached in the U.S. State Department’s draft environmental impact assessment, Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist for ITG Investment Research Inc. in Calgary, said in an e-mail.

Canadian companies and politicians are preparing for alternatives even as they remain optimistic about approval.

Alternative Options

Projects to move oil by rail or through a natural gas pipeline that TransCanada has proposed converting to oil “should help make the case” for Keystone by showing that the conduit won’t have an impact on oil-sands development, Steven Paget, director of institutional research at FirstEnergy Capital Corp. in Calgary, wrote in a note to clients yesterday.

While opponents said the president’s statements show he won’t approve the project, Canadians continued to point to economic reasons to support Keystone XL.

“The economic arguments are very strong in terms of national security, jobs, economic growth and revenue on both sides of the border,” Joe Oliver, Canada’s natural resources minister, told reporters in Vancouver yesterday. “If the facts and the science are taken into consideration, I’m comfortable that it will be approved.”

Keystone XL can meet the standard President Obama set because the oil it delivers will displace other heavy oil imports into the Gulf Coast and the U.S.

‘Additional Test’

“We remain optimistic on Keystone XL’s approval, even when considering this latest additional test, as the pipeline is in the best interests of the United States,” David Bouckhout, a senior commodity strategist in Calgary for Toronto-Dominion Bank, said in an e-mail.

For Canada, oil exports have grown in importance over the past two decades. Energy products, whose largest component is crude, have grown to become Canada’s largest export, and now account for almost one-quarter of all outbound trade.

Canada’s oil trade rose 7 percent to about C$73 billion last year and is set to grow faster than the total economy in the coming years, according to Statistics Canada data.

Keystone XL will also help move crude stranded in the U.S. as production booms from fields in North Dakota and Montana, said James Bowzer, CEO of Calgary-based heavy oil producer Baytex Energy Corp. (BTE)

“It’s not just a Canadian problem,” he said. A shortage of pipelines has forced producers in the Bakken shale to ship a lot of crude by rail, he said.

The pipeline will allow for added output “whether that be further expansions of the Bakken or further expansions and increases in production and output from Canada.”

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Temporary Filing Clerk Needed (Compton, CA)

To apply, please visit our website at www.gelsons.com and download an application. Please email the completed application to recruiting@gelsons.com. Please include a copy of your current resume. You may also fax the completed application and resume to 310-885-5790.

For information on other employment opportunities please visit our website at www.gelsons.com.
Posting ID: 3678625203

Posted: 2013-03-13, 9:35AM PDT

Edited: 2013-03-13, 9:35AM PDT

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Fukushima nuclear disaster casts shadow over EDF’s safety drill

The tsunami-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

For Electricite de France SA (EDF), a lot rode on its nuclear drill yesterday.

Members of its new rapid-action nuclear force created after the meltdown in Fukushima in Japan in 2011 gripped the nozzle of a hose, looking triumphant as it began spouting water from a canal near the utility’s Chinon atomic plant on the banks of the Loire River.

“Everything is destroyed around here; it’s night and no one can come and help,” Caroline Bernard, head of safety at EDF, said during the exercise witnessed by a group of reporters. “We have put ourselves in the extreme case of Fukushima.”

In the wake of the Japanese accident, EDF was given six years by nuclear regulator Autorite de Surete Nucleaire to complete about 10 billion euros ($13 billion) of measures to boost safety while France debates scaling back its reliance on atomic energy. EDF operates the 58 nuclear reactors in France, which depends on atomic energy for about three quarters of its power production, the highest proportion in the world.

The drill yesterday worked under the scenario that all of the plant’s power and cooling systems had failed, putting its four 900-megawatt reactors at risk of a meltdown similar to what happened in Fukushima.

There, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out defenses at Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501)’s reactors, sending radioactivity spewing into the air and sea, and leaving rescue workers scrambling to bring water by fire trucks and helicopters to cool overheating installations.

‘No Guarantees’

“No one can ever guarantee that a nuclear accident will never happen in France,” Andre-Claude Lacoste, then head of the watchdog, said at the time. He decided that safety must be made “more robust” at EDF’s nuclear operators, stopping short of immediately shutting any sites.

Bolstering safety has included investment in new equipment such as diesel generators, bunkered control rooms, and barriers against flooding.

As Chancellor Angela Merkel decided on Germany’s pullout from nuclear energy and Italy scrapped a planned revival, EDF Chief Executive Officer Henri Proglio said the “stakes are high for the group” to reassure the French population.

The rapid reaction force, which is costing the utility 150 million euros, is being designed so it can intervene within 24 hours simultaneously at as many as six reactors at any one EDF site, the utility said. The 50-strong team is expected to grow to about 300 by 2015 spread over four atomic plants.

The Drill

During yesterday’s drill, the task for the nuclear force — wearing safety gear and hardhats — was to transport pumps, filters and generators necessary to bring water from a nearby canal to one of Chinon’s reactors as an alternative coolant.

Working under the assumption that all existing equipment at the plant was crippled, the team lowered a pump by rope into the canal, set up power supplies and hoses and got the water to the nuclear generator building in less than two hours.

Hose connections have been added to the outsides of French reactor buildings since Fukushima that allow water to be pumped straight inside, Bernard said.

At Fukushima, power outages knocked out all cooling systems and workers had to organize water transport by truck and helicopter, a long and tedious process that increased the risks of meltdowns, French safety authorities said at the time.

EDF’s action force is made up of volunteers among staff who’ll train about 20 weeks a year on the task, according to the utility. They sign a waiver stating they may have to work under “emergency radiological conditions” and get no extra pay.

‘Struck Chord’

“Our goal is to arrive on the scene before an accident to prevent a meltdown and radioactivity from escaping,” said Bernard Camporesi, 51, head of operations for the team at EDF’s Civaux plant.

Calling himself a “standard person with special training,” he rejects all comparisons with the workers at Chernobyl and Fukushima who risked their lives going into hostile atomic environments to prevent even worse disasters from happening.

“Fukushima struck a chord in all of us,” Camporesi said. “We asked ourselves how this could have happened, we tried to understand and do something about it.”

Before the accident, EDF didn’t have the equivalent of the rapid-action force in terms of people or equipment, he said.

A tour of their base camp revealed brand-new trucks for hauling heavy materials, lifts, all-terrain vehicles, air-conditioned tents with real beds and hot-water showers.

The team is trained to work autonomously for three days with the goal of relieving or replacing personnel on the site.
It hauled 48 tons of equipment to Chinon for the three-day drill.

“Fukushima shook up teams at our plants,” said Bernard, who was head of the utility’s Goldfech plant in southwestern France. “We just didn’t expect it from the Japanese.”

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Hostess needed (Santa Monica)

Posting ID: 3679378130

Posted: 2013-03-13, 2:51PM PDT

Edited: 2013-03-13, 2:51PM PDT

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