GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

know all the numbers. We have Nila Dave, our Senior Finance Officer. She is

a qualified chartered certified accountant (ACCA). Her main role is to look after

all the management accounts for all the group. We have Susan Tomkins, our

payroll officer. She is a qualified accounting technician (AAT). She has

worked for many accountancy firms before she joined us. She looks after

payrolls and sales ledgers for the group. Shamil Karia is our finance assistant

and the youngest of the team. He looks after all the purchasing and

bookkeeping. We are always telling him how lucky he is to have four women

working with him, but he will rather disagree. (Laughter) He is IT savvy and

always happy to help. Currently he is doing his AAT, final stage, with only one

final paper to do in July to complete his qualification. Ana Werner is another

finance assistant. Ana works part time and she is the longest serving member

of the team. She started with Quorn Grange Hotel and then moved on to

Finance in 2015. Like Shamil, Ana has one more paper to do in July to

complete her Level 2 in AAT. I have the most confidence in both of them in

achieving their qualifications this summer. This is part of the commitment of

the organisation, to develop people in the finance team.

We are most fortunate that now we have a well-qualified and assiduous finance

team to take us on to the next level and face manage challenges ahead. Over

the past month we have kept improving our systems and performance. Our

records speak for themselves. At the beginning of 2017 our auditors, two of

them, spent only three weeks to complete the audit work for our group. That is

on average two to three days per accounts, which is amazing. I am not talking

about the auditors though. Well, the auditors were amazing, but my team and I

are even more amazing. (Laughter) As we did a great job on the preparation, I

believe it was our contributions which allowed for this. We have five major

accounts, one consolidated and two minor, eight altogether. These are

complicated accounts with many intercompany transactions, investment,

pension etc., all of different sectors and all with different requirements. At the

same time we kept running the internal monthly management accounts as well.

All routines were resumed completely from February onwards. This is an

unassailable truth that every one of my team, their abilities, their work, are

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