I work for a medium sized business. I've taken over from someone who was in the position for a few years and had his own way of doing things. As I've come into the position, I've realised that there is no nominal ledger. Let's say £10 is spent and half is allocated to one budget line and the other half to another, the transaction is posted as £5 on 'Budget Line X' worksheet and the other £5 on 'Budget Line Y' worksheet. At no point is the £10 posted anywhere and, more crucially, there are no dates for any transaction ever. So if I were to go back and try to cobble together a nominal ledger since the start of the year, I would have to do it all from the bank statements, which seems easy enough, but it gets more complicated again because my predecessor has made a lot of adjustments so it's near impossible to make heads nor tails of this system.
The second thing is, the petty cash system has been 'free floating'. That is, the expenditure in the petty cash system is not linked to the main accounts. It seems every now and again, some money would be drawn using the business credit card, allocated to 'general miscellaneous' and then put into this free-floating system. After that, it doesn't matter what the money is spent on as it will be allocated to general misc. There's no end of year/quarter balance for the petty cash system and some of the numbers don't seem to add up. As well as this, lots of cells are highlighted as if to tell the last bookkeeper that something needed to be done, but no comments are made anywhere. The last person has left the books in a state of flux - I think he was mental done with the job way before he actually left.
Does anyone have any advice on these two situations? I've written a report to the management team to explain the situation so that I can cover my own back and to suggest improvements.
What would you do with the petty cash system? There is money in the box right now so I'm not sure how to start from scratch.
I'd appreciate any advice at all! Thanks in advance.
Hi Molly
So hows about an intro before we start. We always ask newbies!
Usual stuff - what prof body do you belong to, are you a bookkeeper or accountant, what qualifications, first role/previous experience, where up to in your studies-what exams passed/with what body/in midst of doing, where based, what you did before this role? That so of thing. Helps get to know you but also how best to pitch answers.
Also - can you please add your first name so that it appears in the signature bar on posts (saves us keep having to look up your name!) - via edit profile---> Signatures.
So is this all spreadsheet based? Or have you got some software that is being used for the financial accounts and these are just managements/forecasting tools. If so what software? (Please define medium sized, at least in turnover terms). I take it that your predecessor has left without helping you. What is the structure of the accounts team? When was the year end and do you have the last year end adjustments from the Accountant? Also might help to know what type of business this is - sector if you cant be more specific for fear of the business being identified.
Where does the data from the budget lines feed into? What other spreadsheets do you have relating to the accounts?
I may not be able to answer further given we only have four working days to fit five days worth of work in, but the answers to all the questions are a good start for people to try to assist.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
