Premier_Products_Management_of_People_Section

The Management of People 5.1 The accounts department consists of six members of staff as well as the company accountant and finance director. 5.1.1 The company accountant reports to the finance director. They are also responsible for delegating work to all the accounting technicians and clerks. Each clerk is given responsibility for an individual section of the accounting/book-keeping function based on their skills and previous experience. They are then trained on their particular section. Once the tasks have been delegated it is very rarely changed although the purchase ledger clerk has previously worked in another area of the accounts department. 5.1.2 The Company Accountant also delegates individual project work and tasks directly to the Accounting Systems Technician as and when required. See Appendix A. 5.1.3 The company accountant is responsible for the day to day running of the accounts department as well as producing the monthly management accounts and approving supplier payments. They have been with the company since it started and are AAT and ACCA qualified. There no formal job description for this role. 5.1.4 The Accounting Systems Technician is responsible for reviewing systems and procedures and recommending changes where needed as well as ad-hoc project work. Although they report to the company accountant they also have access to the finance director. They are in the final stages of the AAT qualification and has experience of both sales and general ledger work. Again there is no formal job description for this position or any of the other positions within the company. 5.1.5 The General Ledger Clerk is responsible for all direct general ledger postings and producing the trial balance as well as maintaining the cash book and petty cash functions. They have been with the company for four years and has no formal accounting qualifications but has some previous experience within personnel. 5.1.6 The Purchase Ledger Clerk is responsible for all postings to the purchase ledger as well as making supplier payments. They have been with the company for seven years with five years in the current position and two years as Sales Ledger Clerk prior to this. They also have completed the foundation level of the AAT. 5.1.7 The Sales Ledger Clerk and Credit Controller is responsible for all the postings to the sales ledger as well credit controller and has been with the company for two years. They have no accounting qualifications but do have some previous experience in purchase ledger. 5.1.8 The Stock Control and Costing Technician has been responsible for the company stock control and costing system since the company was formed. They have no accounting qualifications but has substantial experience in sales ledger and credit control. 5.1.9 The Payroll and Personnel Database Clerk is responsible for running both the weekly and monthly payrolls as well as maintaining all the personnel records and dealing with all the PAYE forms. They have no accounting qualification and only some brief temporary experience within payroll before joining the company. 5.2 Inductions 5.2.1 There are no formal induction process for new employees joining the company. 5.3 Appraisals 5.3.1 There are no formal procedures for appraisals for staff and no details on how staff are motivated. 5.4 Job Descriptions 5.4.1 Although all the staff know what their duties are there are no written job descriptions for each position. 5.5 Time Management 5.5.1 Time management within POS is quite poor. Although there is timetable in place for the year end procedures these are not being met. There are no To-Do lists to enable the staff to prioritise their work and make them aware of the tasks required of each of them. 5.5.2 The clerks all have the use of diaries and outlook calendars in which to keep a record of these schedules and plan their work accordingly. This is not being done and therefore they are not able to for-see any upcoming problems they may have with completing their tasks on time or identify any slack periods which they could make better use of to counteract their busy periods. 5.5.3 The sales ledger clerk struggles to keep to the timetables at year end as they are also required to do extra credit control work to reduce the debtors at year end. This means that they are working a high amount of paid overtime and are still not managing to get the general postings done or close the ledger on schedule. 5.5.4 The purchase ledger clerk – who has previously worked on the sales ledger – was unable to assist the sales ledger clerk due to their own workload being high and also as they have not worked on this side for a number of years. 5.5.5 The general ledger clerk’s time is particularly badly managed as they are generally extremely busy for one week of the month and then relatively quiet for the rest of the month. At year end, they cannot complete their schedule until both the sales and purchase ledger closes. 5.5.6 When arranging annual leave a request has to be authorised by the company accountant who keeps a record of it. A holiday planner calendar is kept in the office and when leave has been approved the dates are marked on the calendar. There is no set rules for when annual leave can be taken and it has been taken busy periods such as year end. 5.6 Quality of Work 5.6.1 The overall quality of work within the department is satisfactory and all ledgers, cashbooks and trial balances are reconciled. The company accountant checks the bank statement reconciliation, reviews the outstanding debtors and authorises the purchase ledger payments and payroll payments. The Sales Director reviews outstanding debtors over four months overdue and another director is required to sign of all payments from the purchase ledger and payroll. 5.7 Training Needs 5.7.1 Some training needs have been addressed following the training review. Development training has been arranged for the general ledger clerk, purchase ledger clerk and stock control and costing technician as authorised by the company accountant although the latter was absent for the relevant three days. 5.7.2 Further training would be beneficial for the remaining staff especially the payroll and personnel database clerk. Also the sales ledger clerk has expressed an interest in gaining some credit control qualifications and the purchase ledger clerk has foundation AAT but there are no formal procedures for regular staff training and development requirements. 5.8 Work Planning, Scheduling and Communication 5.8.1 There is a schedule in place for the year end closures. The sales and purchase ledgers are both required to close before the general ledger tasks can be completed and closed. 5.8.2 These deadlines have not been met recently due to other tasks being set to the purchase and sales ledger clerks meaning that these ledgers have not been closed on time and subsequently the general ledger has also closed late. 5.8.3 There are no formal procedures in place explaining how to complete the year end tasks and no meetings take place to plan how best to achieve this. 5.9 Query Log 5.9.1 A query log has been maintained and the detailed log can be found in appendix C. It shows that some queries can be resolved and others needed to be referred. Further training in employment would prevent a lot of the queries from coming up again. 5.10 Weaknesses within the department. 5.10.1 There are no formal inductions which means new staff are not formally informed of the companies systems and procedures. 5.10.2 There are no formal appraisal procedures in place to discuss how each member of staff is coping with their work or any problems they may have. 5.10.3 There are no formal job descriptions so staff are not fully aware of what their responsibilities are and may then be unwilling to take on extra tasks if required. 5.10.4 There are several problems with time management as stated earlier (5.5) which leads to some members of staff very busy at year end and also a lot of work is not done when staff are absent. 5.10.5 There are no set plans or schedules for month end procedures to ensure that all tasks are completed as required. 5.11 Recommendations 5.11.1 Introduce a formal induction process for all new staff so that they are aware of all company rules and procedures. 5.11.2 Introduce a formal appraisal system on at least an annual basis to update staff on their progress and also to give them an opportunity to air any issues they may be having. 5.11.3 Produce job descriptions for all staff so that they are fully aware of their responsibilities. 5.11.4 Introduce training for each member of staff on at least one other area within the department so that there is cover for absences. Ensure that the staff then do some of the work within this area on a regular basis to keep their skills up to date. 5.11.5 Draw up month end schedules for the department to ensure all work is completed satisfactorily.