Organisation: Public School
Job Title: Finance Officer
Word Limit: Three Page Limit
Demonstrated financial management skills, with the ability to interpret and apply financial and accounting practices and procedures
I have worked as an assistant accountant working as a team and independently, developing my organisational skills prioritising my workload, even on very short notice. For example, during my tenure at LandCorp I assisted in the preparation of BAS returns and FBT. Also in the preparation of month end production and assisted the Senior Financial Accountant to run actuals over budget for forecasting purposes monthly at very short notice. I also prepared the WIP reconciliations and provided valuable assistance with balance sheet reconciliations.
I was heavily involved with the preparation of bank guarantees, maintaining and conducting supplier audits assisting with the submission of TIMS and the timely preparation and delivery of statutory financial statements and annual reporting requirements. By using a check list system I was able to ensure there was a sufficient credit limit and was commended for the speed and accuracy created reducing the time to a two day turn around instead of a three or more.
Demonstrated well developed organisational skills, including the ability to work with minimum supervision, identify priorities and meet deadlines
Demonstrated well developed organisational skills including the ability to work with minimum supervision, identify priorities and meet deadlines, am well organised and use checklists to organise my day ensuring that all duties and activities for the day are completed before I leave for the day.
For example I successfully completed processing my division’s month end one day ahead of schedule (having only had 4 day turnaround) This was a result of my planning and requesting information from various stakeholders ahead of schedule and preparing a list of actions to be taken by a certain deadline. I was commended for this by the Accounting Manager and Divisional Finance Manager.
I have also had the opportunity to develop my organisational skills and to prioritize my workload, even on very short notice. For example, I supported a colleague by completing his division’s fixed assets which was required within the next 24 hours. I started by listing out the tasks and compiling information required to complete the work in order of urgency. I then started requesting and collating information I needed to complete the work. As a result of my strong organisational skills and ability to prioritize, I was able to successfully complete the task for my colleague on time. My efforts and dedication were recognised and I was commended by the Divisional Lead.
Demonstrated well developed verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills with the ability to build and maintain effective working relationships and liaise with individuals at all levels
My background as an accountant from both public and commercial sectors required me to liaise with all levels of staff, management, and other stakeholders such as the ATO, tax clients and auditors.
I had on numerous occasions provided support and liaising on variety of accounting matters including GST. At one time, whilst working in tax, I had a client who was uncooperative when requesting tax information from him. I politely asked him what was the reason he was upset and I found out that he was unhappy with the level of service he was getting from the administrative division of the organisation. I quickly apologised to him on behalf of the company and negotiated to complete his tax done ahead of intended schedule, despite being in a separate team from the administrative team. Throughout the whole situation, I was calm and professional even when he was being difficult. In the end, the client stayed on with the company and I was commended for the level of professionalism shown to him. I was also selected to project manage the transition of a new software in a previous organization which required me to liaise and develop relationships with external stakeholders of the organization.
Having worked as an assistant accountant has offered me daily opportunities to work autonomously as well as in a team.
Demonstrated well developed computer skills including the ability to create, operate, extract reports and manipulate databases, spreadsheets and systems
I am also experienced using a very diverse range of financial and office software applications. For example I am well versed in MS Excel skills (Pivot table, V-lookups), BGL SimpleFund, Sage HandiSoft, IBA Financial, SUN System, ,Banklink, Webpas, Oracle, Clarity and am very quick to pick up and understand financial and office based systems.
One role required me to generate various reports for the preparation of monthly journals and uploading them into the system. For example, in order to accrue for pharmacy accruals, I would then extract a report from another system and calculate the number of days to accrue, journalized the entries and upload them into the Oracle system. General ledger reports from Oracle are also used as means of investigating items and to review what was uploaded had also been entered accurately. I’ve also had a good grounding and exposure using Oracle Fixed Assets and the system used to run invoice inquiries, creditors information and account lines to analyse data.
Microsoft Excel and spreadsheets are used frequently in a daily manner. An example would be creating pivot tables which were used to extract data to enable me to analyse large amount of data efficiently such as payroll reconciliations. Spreadsheets which contained formulas or hyperlinks to the source documents were also created to maintain schedules such as prepayment and grant schedules.
It has always been my principle to document and present my work in a clear and concise manner. Pivot tables and clear spreadsheets are both effective because they successfully summarise information for another accountant, with no prior knowledge to what I was doing, to understand my work quickly and easily, in this case, payroll reconciliations.
Whilst at LandCorp I discovered there was a very complex and time consuming method of calculating the land tax accruals and prepaid. I designed and implemented a spreadsheet to calculate the land tax and determine which journal this information should be recorded and also if it was an accrual or prepaid. I was highly commended for this simple and easy to use time saving spreadsheet and it is still in use today by LandCorp.
Demonstrated well developed conceptual, analytical and problem solving skills with the ability to apply innovative thinking in problem solving
As an assistant accountant, I was able to utilise my analytical skills to resolve issues such as payroll reconciliations. As I oversaw 2 hospitals in NSW, I was responsible for the super reconciliations for those hospitals. I noted whilst doing the super reconciliations for a division, the balance in the reconciliations schedule did not match with the information I have on the general ledger. In order to analyse further, I firstly downloaded the payroll information from another system, extracted all the super transactions for the particular division, created pivot tables, analysed the general ledger and compared the actual super statements provided by the payroll department for the 2 divisions. I found that the payroll department had miscoded certain staff super payments to another division’ super account. I immediately alerted the payroll department to have this issue rectified. The issue was resolved and was not repeated in the following month.
Also, whilst doing the Fixed Assets reconciliations, I investigated and found that the Accounts Payable team had mistakenly coded an asset of another colleague’s division into of my division’s account. I first ran a general ledger report from the Oracle system and ran an invoice inquiry on the asset. After determining and examining that the asset was supposed to be coded to another division, I then did another final check to see if any adjustment journals were done to correct the mistake. Since the mistake was not picked up, I then alerted this issue to the lead of that particular division and to my Finance Manager and proposed and prepared a journal to transfer the asset back to the rightful division.
While I was assisting the Senior Financial Accountant with the running of actuals over budget for forecasting purposes monthly I took the initiative to write some procedure notes for this and was commended for my notes on the procedure’s reducing the time required while ensuring accurate reporting was effected.
