Business Management zone
Feature
FD's Diary: What lurks behind the restroom door?
30 September - I'm beginning to think I've walked into the darks ages. Or at least 1993. I quickly got the impression that sales invoicing seemed to be taking up a lot of people's time. That has proved to be an understatement. Sales seem to take orders on anything from a post it note onwards and file them anywhere from the bin to a random selection of directories on and off the server.
Ops process them (when rumour reaches them) through their Access database, which seems quite good even if homegrown with all the inherent problems that can give. When the order is complete Ops produce a draft invoice request, including desired text and everything down to nominal ledger coding, on that database which they pass to the MD for checking. He changes it (inevitably) and then gives it to accounts.
Accounts then re-key everything into Sage and give a draft invoice back to him for checking. He then changes it (again), and it then goes to the customer. However, because the MD does not trust accounts to actually send the invoice he keeps his own manual sales record based on draft invoices just to make sure they do. For some reason everything also gets written up on a whiteboard on the way as well - heaven knows way. I’ve completely failed to fathom that bit.
A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests over £100,000 a year is being wasted on duplicated tasks because no one has thought of integrating this lot. Apart from writing the information on sticks of rhubarb and turning it into pies I don't think there's a single complication that could have been built into this process which hasn't been.
I note that Softworld was about replacing 1990s dinosaurs selling debits and credits. If they’re dinosaurs, heaven knows where we are. Back in the primordial soup, I think.
But what really gets me is that there is no reference to this in any of the management letters the auditors have written. Why not, I wonder?
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29 September - Watched “The Deal” last night. Made me think about my contract. A good letter of offer and nice warm feelings expressed at interview are all very good, but I want things confirmed in writing now, even if the law does allow a few more weeks before this has to be dealt with. Gordon Brown might have failed to get things in black and white, but I’m not going the same way as him.
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September 26 - Friday week one, and I thought I’d make it without major drama. Then the post arrived.
If you were trained in practice (and I was) letters from the Revenue always have an especially bad feel to them. This morning's post brought a familiar brown envelope suggesting an enquiry is being opened into last year's accounts. The initial sinking feeling was only heightened by the reams of notes on codes of practice, rights of appeal and heaven knows what else. But then my whole sentiment turned to annoyance as I realised the only issue under question is £540 of admin fees associated with parking fines claimed in last year's accounts.
An immediate phone call to the auditors (what an introduction) was made to tell them to just stop such a stupid claim and kill the enquiry dead in its tracks.
I wonder how much it cost to separate out these charges, put it in the tax computation and now deal with this hassle, all for the sake of about £100 of tax on what, I bet, was always a long shot?
I'm beginning to learn more about my predecessor. Nit picking seems to have been one of his skills.
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September 22 - Day 1, new job. Why is it that a job always turns out to be slightly different from the one you expect when you came for interview?
You might have asked all the right questions. You might have done all the financial background checks. You might have thought you’d checked out the competitive advantage of the company. But there’s still something you forget.
I forgot to check the loos.
They’re dire. How can people let them get into such a state? Worse, how can they ask visitors to use them? I seriously wonder whether I’ll physically survive the trial period without dysentery or worse unless I take charge of facilities management, and a budget for rebuilding the loos, within the next two weeks. I know facilities management wasn’t on the job spec I agreed. But it appears it isn’t on anyone else’s either. So it’s mine now.
Why isn’t plumbing covered in professional stage 1 exams? I think it should be obligatory.
Number of comments: 12
AccountingWEB.co.uk 30-Sep-2003
Categories:
Times read: 58959
What started off as a great read is beginning to feel uncomfortably lika a threat to my organisation's pole position in the Over-administration Grand Prix.
With a Sales Director whose office is officially referred to as the Bemuda Triangle and an Operations Division whose collective hobby appears to be on-site war-gaming I can, as a mere HR Manager empathise with your correspondent. Keep it up - I am hungry for inspiration, (or some Harpic).
Statistics suggest that approximately 70% of CV's contain at least one inaccuracy (e.g. an exaggeration ,ommission or outright falsehood). I wonder, on the other side of the coin , how many employers are similarly guilty of inaccurately positioning or selling the role on offer.
This is the best accountancy-related story I have ever read...more please! The bit about Sales and Ops actually communicating with each other is obviously made up though.
Rekeying the same information only once? That's for wimps!
How about extracting two lots of information from the same system and employing somebody to keep it reconciled?
Nice column, though. It does sound very familiar.
Go to got now. Have a rubarb/pie crust integration strategy to write...
I cannot help noticing the time that a great many of the comments on this diary have been posted. It seems to me that an awful lot of people are not earning their keep if they have time to read this sort of article during their working day!
I liked the FD Diary - it sounds like most of the jobs I have started - nothing close to the impression given prior to the start of employment!
mm write it on rhubarb and make a pie - that warmed a dreary afternoon
Great read - keep it up
Mike
I always recall attending some conference or seminar or other, not too long after I moved into my first business role. By far the most valuable part of the day was lunch; sitting and chatting with others, I learned that my own organisation, which I had thought was living somewhere in the dark ages, was actually light years ahead of some of the others.
Good to see that some things never change! And looking forward to future instalments .....
I also took a new Group FD role just four weeks back and yep the job is never as described!
I could give you a list of things, I am expected to fix with my left hand, while my right continues the on going reporting and feet are busy putting out fires.
The dynamic is a 200 person, international, owner, managed engineering consultancy, which see all accountants as the enemy, but they have finally realised they need to get a few things sorted, like proper management accounts, I kid you not. O happy days.
Iain
I thought I was reading about my boss. Everything here is done about 10 times before final approval especially accounts payable.
To hell with Eastenders. Our mystery practitioner & FD are far more thrilling!
This looks to be the start of an interesting read. Now, will the toilets get sorted ?
Nice to see a diary relevant to those of us in business, rather than practice. Although Pracititioners diary is good as well.
