Organisation: Austrade
Job Title: Assistant Accountant, Financial Performance
Word Limit: 400 words pp
Location: ACT
Qualifications in Accounting (or near completion) including experience in a financial
environment are essential
As validated throughout an accomplished career history, including my current success as a
Property Accountant with DTZ, please accept my application for the currently advertised position
Assistant Accountant, Financial Performance within Austrade. Registered as a Chartered
Accountant by membership of Institute of Chartered Accountants in 2015, and in possession of
Golden Key membership from International Honour Society obtained in 2009, I also hold a Masters
of Business (Accounting Discipline), facilitated by Australian National University (ANU) in 2009.
While complying the Continuing Professional Development (CPE) requirements, I have attended
the external training provided by the CA bodies to strengthen and update my technical skills.
In addition to my formal professional development, I possess over five years of experience
working within accounts and finance environments, responsible for servicing clients in the areas of
financial reporting, variances analysis, budgeting and management reporting. As demonstrated in
my current position as Property Accountant for DTZ, I am accountable for providing accounting
services to both government and non-government clients, including the Australian Taxation Office,
the Office of Fair Work and Ombudsman, Department of Agriculture, Australian Crime
Commission, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mondelez Asia Pacific (Australia, New
Zealand, Singapore and Thailand) and Coles Limited. Specifically, my responsibility in servicing
these clients includes monthly bank reconciliation, bank balance checks, balance sheet accounts
reconciliation, reimbursement reports and property operating expenses accruals reporting.
Possessing a highlighted career to date, I have achieved the successful outcomes of reporting
clients’ monthly financial performance (Actuals Vs. Budgets). In the course of preparing the report,
I perform variance analysis procedures to report any discrepancies that are the deviated five
percent between monthly actuals and budgets. Moreover, I assist the management team and the
clients to prepare and finalise the annual budgets, in particular, I prepare differentiating
management reports to facilitate the decision making process. The results of my commitment to
financial performance reporting was the confidence from all stakeholders in my ability to generate
reports that compared specific class of expenses incurring across different periods and upon
budget approval the uploading of this data into the financial system accurately. In addition, after
exceeding expectations within a three-year tenure at DTZ within the Accounts Payable and
Receivable departments, I was awarded the progression into the Property Accountant role further
cementing my internal value and commitment to driving business objectives to success.
Demonstrated ability to structure and analyse financial data and information, including
budgeting, forecasting and variance reporting
Validated throughout my career with DTZ, I have proven my strong capabilities in structuring and
analysing financial data and information through the preparation of monthly finance reporting for
clients. Possessing the required technical skills, I generated a formatted reporting of comparing
each class of expenses and revenue between monthly actual and budget figures, year-to-date
actual and budget figures and year-to-date actual and total budget figures. In addition, if monthly
variances are beyond 5%, I was accountable for conducting a thorough analysis to identify and
report on variances. In order to accurately reflect the broader picture of business activities within
the finance report, I was responsible for setting up accruals for expenses that haven been incurred
but not processed in the month’s supplier ledger. To do so, I generate a number of different
reports, such monthly energy accruals report and an open purchase order (PO) report, to obtain
accrual figures. During the process, I would also identify that particular expenses were double
counted because they had been processed as non-PO expenses. As a result, the actual PO raised
for this expense was still open in the system and would be continuously included in the open PO
report.
Recently, when analysing the monthly Planned Maintenance (PO) report, I detected that monthly
accruals were reporting as close to two million dollars, which was significantly higher than the
traditional 1.5 million dollars. Drawing on my understanding of historical data and trend, I
acknowledged that the discrepancies would be due to expenses being processed incorrectly
throughout the month. To identify variance, I firstly generated year-to-date expense report with
specifying planned maintenance codes. Through the process of comparing the monthly actual
spend with the PO report, I utilised my advance excel skills identified variances, which are callused
by facility managers who approved cleaning, waste and pest control invoices without applying any
POs. To rectify issues, I liaised with the accounts payable team and asset management team to
close the POs and then removed duplicates out of the accrual report. As a result of my proven
analytical abilities, the client monthly actual spending was not fluctuated with reference to the
monthly budgeted figures.
Highly developed communication skills, ability to work as a team, and the ability to create
productive working relationships with stakeholders
Within in my position within DTZ, I have been successful in providing excellent written and verbal
communication. With a capacity to deal with cultural diversity and communicate effectively with
people of different ages and backgrounds in the workplace, I have developed the ability to
influence positively those around me. Possessing the ability to act in an inclusive manner, I have
been successful in building rapport with a diverse range of stakeholders in all network settings and
interactions throughout my career. Adept at reading my audience, I am able to alter my
communication style and messages accordingly, listening to the words and interpreting the body
language of others to gauge their level of understanding and acceptance of my points.
Additionally, I approach interactions with active listening skills and paraphrasing to ensure that
parties are confident in my engagement.
As demonstrated in my current position as Property Accountant, I was working in collaboration
with another property management company, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), to analyse and reconcile
monthly revenue rent roll invoices. In the service offered by DTZ, I assisted in the issuing of
monthly revenue rent roll invoices and the disbursement of the payments of invoices back to the
relevant clients. Through the documentation of payment advices, I was confident in the company
accuracy of allocated funds, thus facilitating ease of generating financial reports and
reconciliations. However, some revenue tenants pay their rents and outgoings through JLL who do
not pay rents and outgoings based on the DTZ’s invoices, but on the signed lease agreements. As a
result, I identified that JLL remittance advices did not pertain any valid reference to reconcile
accurately. Given the limited information provided in the remittance advice, the misallocation of
the funds occurs, I advised the flow on effect of revenue receipts being disbursed to the wrong
clients. Committed to upholding the reputation of the business, I instigated a meeting with JLL’s
Finance Manager to discuss concerns and reach an amicable solution. Demonstrating my
negotiation skills, I was successful in the outcome of JLL changing their internal procedure to
reflect the DTZ lease number in addition to the property address within their remittance advices.
By my results driven methodology, I was successful in eliminating the coding issues and in turn
delivered results that exceeded client expectations and ensured DTZ ability to maintain accurate
financial records, with all revenue dispersed accordingly and punctually.
Strong organisational skills and proven ability to prioritise and meet deadlines, exercise sound
judgment and initiative, as well as the ability to work effectively under pressure either
independently or as part of a team
Throughout my career, I have developed the ability to think logically and understand situations
from a strategic perspective. Within my tenure at DTZ, I practice informed decision-making and
demonstrate my sound judgement with recognition of implications. Contributing to solutions and
progress, I harness information and opportunities when performing my day-to-day duties,
consistently working diligently to adhere with existing practices and striving to improve efficiency.
Having the opportunity to demonstrate my capabilities at supporting the strategic direction of my
employer, I present as a person with proactive leadership qualities. Within my current role as
Property Accountant at DTZ, I work within a team with the culture that everyone works together
to support one another.
Demonstrating my commitment to best practice and continuous improvements, I acknowledge the
implications of inefficient communication within the company. Most recently, I identified the
exposure to risk presented in the traditional processes of bank statements and statutory reporting
being emailed to individual team members. Recognising the impact this process would have if an
accountant was not contactable via company email and a client’s bank reconciliation was due, I
highlighted the issues of other team members having to contact the Treasury Office to obtain the
bank statement to complete the reconciliation. Acknowledging the critical timeframes and volume
of work during the end of month process, I escalated the potential impact this current process
could have on failing to meeting key performance indicators. To resolve the issue, I proposed the
solution of centralising the financial data and information previously only received by individual
team members. Through the introduction of a platform that provided all relevant staff to access all
bank statements and the notification emails, I was successful in the outcome of streamlining
workflow and work efficiency. Receiving positive feedback from both peer and team leaders in my
collaboration with the IT department in creating a Property Accountant team inbox.
With this optimization, I was able to provide the workflow solution to each accountant that has
assisted in achieving and often exceeding service level agreements to clients. By fostering and
maintaining relationships within the team, I was instrumental in promoting a cultivating team
environment that was based on the foundations of supporting individuals to drive team
performance. As a result, I not only promoted the team culture, but also optimised the work
procedures to achieve targeted results within the required timeframe.
Highly proficient computer skills including excel and experience in the use of a Financial
Management Information System, preferably SAP
Throughout my career, I have highlighted my sound knowledge of financial systems and how they
are linked to driving business objectives. Demonstrating a high level of attention to detail, I offer
strong technical and computer skills with the ability to acquire new skills and knowledge quickly
and easily. Validated in my current positon of Property Accountant, I have exhibited my
proficiency using various software and systems to deliver on business objectives.
Possessing strong skills within Microsoft Excel, developed through my work history and university
studies, I am confident in developing spreadsheets, extracting data, subtotal function and the
development and use of pivot tables. In addition, I am capable of using Excel functions such as
SUMIF, IF, LOOKUP, AND, OR, TEXT, CONCATENATE. As demonstrated within my career at DTZ, I
am proficient in performing reconciliation between General Ledger transactions and supplier
ledger transactions. To achieve results in this process, I utilise my strong excel skills to categorise
data into different groups and develop a pivot tables to obtain the variances. Proven in my
competence of commanding ERP systems such as Oracle E1 and JDE XE, I am particularly skilled
in modules such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, procumbent and
budget. Furthermore, I am able to build various report templates to fulfil management’s
requirements and have demonstrated my sufficient knowledge of SAP system. Within my
position as Property Accountant, I am accountable for issuing monthly fund requests to clients
and the necessary preparation of SAP upload sheets to accompany these requests.
On occasions where the client requires special reports, I have demonstrated my technical ability
in tailoring the reports to meet the client’s expectations. For example, when a government client
needs to respond to a request of detail reporting of all furniture costs incurred in projects for
Financial Year 2014 / 2015, the data cannot be extracted from SAP directly. This is because SAP
has only high-level cost codes, which consolidate all sub-class expenses. To assist the client, I
firstly obtained the SAP’s total costs figure and then extract relevant data from Oracle to work
out the breakdown of SAP’s data. Lastly, I finalise the report by converting Oracle’s cost centre
and GL codes to SAP equivalents. In validating my commitment to client solution outcomes
through the utilisation of my exceptional technical capabilities, I have been awarded consistent
positive feedback from stakeholders in providing accurate and timely data.
