What is your role within RG?
I am a Senior Manager in our Audit and Assurance department and I also work with a number of clients who are not subject to the annual audit requirement, assisting with various aspects of their accounting, tax compliance and VAT work.
Tell me about your career to date…
I started my career as an accounts assistant back in 1987. The firm I worked for merged with another local accounting firm in which I continued my career until I sought new challenges in 1996 to become office manager in a small Newcastle accountancy firm. Some ten years’ later I decided to make my final move and joined Ryecroft Glenton in 2006.
Since joining Ryecroft Glenton I have worked alongside a number of partners on both audit and non-audit work, which has given me the opportunity to do some travelling and helped me to obtain a diverse portfolio of clients that keeps my work quite varied.
What does your current role involve?
My role is mainly managing audit teams and working with other staff and partners, to ensure jobs are completed efficiently while our clients’ expectations and deadlines are met.
I look after a wide range of businesses and deal with a variety of the services we provide, so I have regular monthly and quarterly work to manage for clients as well as overseeing annual audits, accounts and corporation tax compliance requirements.
I’m fortunate that my role is client facing which gives me the opportunity to understand their businesses, the challenges and opportunities they face and their personal goals and ambitions, so I can advise them on matters that are important to them.
What makes RG different?
I believe at Ryecroft Glenton we build longstanding relationships with clients, with specific points of contact and always striving to minimise the disruption to a business while we are carrying out compliance work. As a result of this approach, we can gain a more in depth understanding of our clients’ businesses.
There are a number of clients I deal with where I have been involved now for the full sixteen years I have been with the firm and even one for twenty-six years as they came to Ryecroft Glenton from my previous employer.
My most notable achievements to date would be….
Managing for just over sixteen years at the firm without going under the spotlight, so I guess now it’s time for some new goals!
Tell us about your day so far….
To begin my workday, I reviewed my diary appointments for the day ahead and checked through emails received overnight. I made a few telephone calls and drafted reply e-mails to clients, colleagues etc. and added a few appointments to the diary.
Having received some management accounts I reviewed the profit levels and gave the client details of the projected quarterly corporation tax liability, along with payment instructions. This was followed up with a short telephone call to discuss the liability and agree to schedule a further review at the beginning of April so that the figures could be reassessed for the third quarterly instalment once the year end results were known.
After this I reviewed a set of accounts. We have a proof reading process and the team that I am part of proof read colleagues’ accounts as part of an impartial quality review process. I looked over a set of accounts annotating them with any changes that needed to be made or highlighting any points that I thought may need further explanation. Along with the review of the accounts I completed a disclosure checklist which ensures that the accounts are in full reporting compliance based on the nature of the business. The annotated accounts were then sent back to my colleague for them to consider the points raised and amend if necessary.
In the afternoon I had an audit close down meeting via Teams, and following the meeting received back a letter of representation from the client. The letter together with copies of the accounts, corporation tax return, letter of representation and our audit finding report were uploaded to DocuSign, tagged for signing and sent out to the client and audit partner.
Whilst I awaited the signing of the audit documents I cleared down the next batch of the day’s emails, had a quick Teams call with a colleague to assist with some accounts formatting and then back to the audit that was being finalized today. Minutes of the meeting earlier in the day were written up and added to the file before signing off the remainder of the completion section of the audit file.
As this was the end of the work week and I am off to Rome on holiday I added an out of office notice to my e mails and headed home. I’ll probably check my e-mails on my phone later in the evening in case anything urgent comes up which can’t wait until my return to work.