About Us

Mission & Value Statement

We are dedicated to offering the most valuable turnkey solutions & software. Our mission is to guarantee LIFO calculation accuracy, maximize reporting quality, eliminate audit risk & minimize the time & administrative burden of LIFO. Our core value of specializing exclusively in LIFO makes us the most suitable to fulfill our mission. We continuously seek to further enhance the value & quality of our offerings via ongoing research & development. We seek to obtain only the most talented staff. We offer competitive compensation to our employees in order to maximize retention, minimize turnover & to ensure the continuity of our relationships with clients.

About us: Company Overview

LIFOPro provides turnkey outsourcing solutions to companies & CPA firms. This is a service model where LIFOPro assumes responsibility for all aspects of the LIFO calculation & reporting. We also license our LIFOPro software which provides companies & CPA firms the ability to largely automate LIFO calculation & reporting tasks in-house. We offer complementary analysis for companies not on LIFO, complementary reviews for companies already on LIFO & a full range of LIFO-related consulting services that can be provided as a one-time engagement or bundled with our standard annual LIFO calculation service engagements.  We are the developer and sole vendor of the LIFOPro software. It is the only standalone LIFO calculation and reporting application that is available for commercial use (i.e., not an Excel macro or template). The software can be used for all LIFO situations, including financial reporting, tax LIFO methods & Sec. 263A UNICAP cost calculations as well. It features a robust platform that completely automates LIFO calculation, documentation and reporting tasks.

Our clientele has combined annual sales in excess of $1 trillion. The total inventory balances calculated by our LIFOPro software exceed $100 billion & our clients’ combined LIFO reserves exceed $15 billion. Over 60% of all department and grocery store retailers on LIFO are using our software.

Benefits for companies & CPA firms using our products & services:

• Significant reduction of time spent on LIFO (software)
• Maintaining the benefits of LIFO while avoiding all the hassle (turnkey outsourcing solutions)
• Increased financial reporting transparency
• Eliminate complicated LIFO layer history Excel schedules
• Free up time to focus on forecasting & planning
• Access to the expertise of the leading LIFO firm

LIFOPro Company History

Lee Richardson started working with LIFO in 1977 while at Touche Ross. This was prior to the advent of PCs and the existence of spreadsheet software so most LIFO calculations were done manually or via mainframe computer program. As computing and accounting information systems evolved, Lee saw there was a real need for LIFO software due to the complexity of LIFO & the high error probability that exists with manually maintained LIFO calculation spreadsheets.

LIFOPro completed the development of our software in 1991. Department and discount store chains were the primary software users in the early years. Because they used Retail LIFO & had numerous pools, the LIFO calculations for these companies were especially complicated.  Companies in many industries used the IPIC LIFO method by the mid-1990s. The complexity of IPIC pool index calculations resulted in frequent errors when done manually or with spreadsheet software. We added an IPIC pool index calculation capability in 1995.

Initially, Lee dedicated the company’s resources exclusively to software development, sales & support. It soon became apparent, however, that many companies preferred to outsource their LIFO calculation altogether. Because of this, LIFOPro’s offerings expanded to include both software and turnkey outsourcing solutions.

We added additional reports to the software to help companies easily document their internal LIFO controls in 2005. The greatest interest in our software recently has been from companies desiring to improve their LIFO internal controls because of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. There have been several cases of material or significant weaknesses in internal controls for companies using LIFO spreadsheets. An increasing number of companies realize that it is not “best practice” to use spreadsheets for LIFO calculations when software exists at a nominal price.

In the past other companies, including Ernst & Young and Lifo Systems, developed and marketed IPIC LIFO method software but they no longer do so. There are several auto dealer LIFO software providers in the U.S., but LIFOPro is the only service provider offering turnkey outsourcing solutions and software for both auto dealer LIFO and non-auto dealer LIFO. We occasionally hear references to IPIC calculation software that has been used by CPA firms but these are merely spreadsheet templates which are used as a tool for making manual calculations.

Having concentrated solely on LIFO for many years, we are now the “go to” firm to help companies solve their LIFO problems. This is not only because of our extensive experience but also because of the efficiency we provide in addressing LIFO needs.

We have always provided LIFO services to CPA firms but the demand for these services has increased significantly recently. With higher levels of inflation, many CPA firms recognize that the services and software we provide are the most efficient ways to serve the LIFO needs of their clients.

Prior to 2005 the name of our company was Legend Software, Inc. Since then our name has been LIFOPro, Inc.

In 2019 LIFOPro developed a new inflation calculation module designed specifically for companies using an internal inflation measurement source, or internal indexes. The addition of this module has resulted in numerous companies using a “non-IPIC” inflation measurement source to either outsource their LIFO calculation or license the LIFOPro software. LIFOPro software was previously limited to calculating the LIFO reserve and maintaining the LIFO layer history for internal index applications. Our LIFOPro software now automates the calculation of the current-year inflation indexes using a company’s internal quantities and costs, and it also automates documenting all aspects of internal index inflation calculations as well as generating a standard report package.

LIFOPro Performance Record

We are the only company specializing exclusively in LIFO. Our full range of offerings allows for our clients to develop a customized set of solutions that fits their exact LIFO needs. Unlike CPA firms & the small number of other LIFO service providers whom only offer a single “cookie-cutter” type of solution, we pride ourselves in seeking the exact range of services to fit the specific wants & needs of our clients. For over thirty years we have provided high quality, timely services to our clients at a very high value-to-cost ratio. The reasons we have been able to do this include:

• Use of software rather than spreadsheets – Our substantial investment in our fully automated LIFOPro software enables us to make LIFO calculations and produce numerous reports very quickly.
• Extensive real-world LIFO experience – Our clients have access to our unmatched LIFO experience. We do not charge for training or marketing time. Research time is minimal because LIFO is and always will be our only business.
• LIFO resource for CPA Firms – We are an especially good LIFO resource for CPA firms because we specialize solely in LIFO. We do not provide non-LIFO inventory consulting services such as Sec. 263A methods reviews, cash and/or trade discounts and allowances method changes. We do not provide fixed asset consulting services such as cost segregation studies. LIFO is the sole focus of our practice. This means CPA firms don’t worry about us competing with them to provide non-LIFO services to their clients.
• Company structure – Being a small, privately owned company allows us to concentrate on long term goals rather than ever-increasing quarterly revenue goals. Our primary attention is on providing quality service and software rather than on marketing. This philosophy has served us, and our clients, very well. It has resulted in us being the leading provider of LIFO services & software.

LIFOPro Company BrochureCompany Brochure With Sample LIFOPro Reports