To paraphrase Brian Maskell, a prominent lean accounting pioneer, lean accounting is aligning financial management with the economics of lean. Traditional cost accounting or standard cost accounting has not changed its methodology in over 100 years, and often reports and other information generated are only superficially understood and hard to apply to real-world decision making even in non-lean companies. Then, as a company transitions to lean management and production, the accounting information becomes even less viable and much of it is useless. When accounting transitions to lean accounting, it partners with other functions including manufacturing. Through these partnerships, accounting gains a greater understanding of the company’s product and customer strategies. As a result, accounting informational output can be redesigned and enhanced to be more applicable, timelier, much easier to understand, and to better support the company’s lean transition needs. Decision makers at all levels will have more valuable information that can be utilized deeply in analysis and decision making. New output might include higher-value reports, box scores, visual displays in production, trend charts, key performance indicators, etc. In turn, accounting becomes a more collaborative and valuable partner and consultant in a company’s lean transition.