It has been a very full and satisfying week, the first week on my own in my dual role as Admin Assistant and Financial Support Coordinator.
Ron very kindly agreed to come into work on Monday to watch over my first payroll processing, and it went ok – a few little bumps but nothing major. This was a relief, considering it was only the second one I’d had any part in. I’d spent a few hours over the weekend going over the dozen or so different pay rates and shift penalties and I think this paid off, getting it clear in my head before I started.
Ron’s comment as he was watching me on Monday “You’re a lot neater than I am” amused me. I wouldn’t say I was neater, I just take a systematic approach because I don’t like to rely on memory, and I need to be able to list things on paper and tick them off. Ron on the other hand, used to do a lot of calculations and processing in his head.
This aspect has made it more difficult to take over from him, because it is not always clear how he did things. As I watched Ron work before he left it was obvious he has a talent for numbers, but no love for administrative systems.
I’ve become aware also that Ron did not have a strong knowledge of MYOB, the accounting software we use for our bookkeeping. For instance, before he left Ron told me MYOB had been rolled over to the new financial year. He may have made the required end-of-year entries but he did not recalibrate the program, it was still reporting in the 2007/08 financial year. (I learned later from my volunteer helper Jan that Ron had called in a MYOB expert to do this for him last year.)
This caused a hiccup through the week when Alan, who manages the thrift store decided he wanted last year’s figures to compare to his current trading results. The figures I thought were 2007 were in fact 2006 and of course nowhere near what Alan expected them to be. It was distressing for Alan to believe that his figures were not being correctly reported, and frustrating for me since I had no idea what Ron had done. Even now that I have started the new financial year in MYOB, the figures don’t exactly match and I am very reluctant to rely on any reports I extract from the program without personally checking the data.
So it is a long road ahead to sort these things out to my own satisfaction but I am getting a lot of support at work. I’m building a network of experts I can call on for advice, a couple of volunteers have offered to help with the book work, and Ros is a very supportive boss with many words of encouragement.
I have also just switched my study course through CENGAGE from PR/Events to Bookkeeping which will help me through a lot of the advanced aspects of my new job.