Experience

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  Beginning 2 End Limited (UK)

  • Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom

  • Client Account Manager

    • Nov 2007 - Jun 2015
    • Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom

    Scheduled, prepared, presented (for client approval) and then submitted client statutory accounts and tax returns (VAT, EU Intrastate, Company and personal) required under UK tax and company law.Prepared internal bookkeeping. Set up client direct debit payments and managed payment collection.Completed mortgage and visa application documentation by client demand to to unique specification, often in co operation with their own experts.Did business start up registration, advice and KYC with reference to statutory and accounting body standards. Helped prepare the records for regular ICAEW practice audit in 2014 (clean audit achieved for Beginning 2 End).During my final year: From 17 new referrals obtained, 12 permanent retained clients secured. The partners received 5 client emails complimenting my service. H M Revenue & Customs random audits took place at several clients with successful outcomes (no penalties or warnings).Packages used: SAGE, CaseWare, Quickbooks, Excel (extensive, including macro), IRIS, MS Access, Visual Basic, HTML (including website debugging).The owners of Beginning 2 End sold the business as a going concern during May 2015 and paid me a bonus to help with the hand over to the new owners.Returned to South Africa on 30 June 2015.

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  First Security (Guards) Ltd

  • London, United Kingdom

  • Security Officer

    • Jul 2004 - Nov 2007
    • London, United Kingdom

    Worked as security guard while completing accounting degree and certificate in web design. Towards the end of my time at 30St Mary Axe I ran the function & events security. Moved to Beginning 2 End Ltd.

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  Metropolitan

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • Industrial Engineer Consultant

    • May 2002 - Dec 2003
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

    Worked part time to fund my studies for the B. Comm degree. The contract deliverable was to provide measurable standards in support of an urgent incentive pay scheme restructuring at Metropolitan Head Office processing areas. My evaluation was that given the diverse back office tasks with standardized procedures a method based analysis would yield standards of sufficient quality quicker than traditional statistical measurement to a clock. This didn't agree with the initial expectations of the senior manager, but I was able to show them enough merit on a test case to get approval for the other procedures.The piecework reward structure was something that they had in place (be it out of date) and the staff were generally happy with. The division manager felt that we should keep that expectation and it tied in better with existing budget procedures implemented from the Director level.Created implemented and trained the staff in using an excel worksheet to help them track thier own performance before the month-end figures became their final reward. I also helped them develop a metric for IT systems outage resulting from system upgrades & maintenance.Achievements: A backlog that had been present 2 ½ years was eliminated within two months after implementation. The method was being exported to other processing areas. The work also identified the IT downtime which enabled managers to bring this aspect into control, resulting in a further 17% saving in staff downtime losses. The savings in backlog and downtime allowed for two cells out of six to move to a dedicated client call answering service, which had been one of the primary challenges for the department. Follow up visits confirmed that we achieved job enrichment and overall job satisfaction for these staff. I emigrated to the UK in 2004 (completed my degree through distance learning).

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  Donaldson

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • Engineering technologist intern

    • Jan 1997 - Dec 1997
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

    Worked at Donaldson Cape Town plant as part of my final qualification as Industrial Engineering Technologist, under guidance of professional Industrial Engineers and was widely exposed to all aspects of the professional practice while carrying ultimate responsibility for delivery of five projects of my own (these were some projects to identify needs and others to give answers to needs previously identified).The company is part of a multinational supply chain for Caterpillar at South African mines and nearby Africa, and was in the process of expanding operations.Achievements: To support expansion we produced budgeting (materials use, staffing, development costs, etc.) and new performance measurement variables (output to target, material use against standard, product quality assurance costs, supplier quality, etc.) information for the Chief Accountant and Finance Director. I also had to share work in updating our Standard Operating Procedures for the ISO quality system in liaison with the Mechanical Engineering department, assembly line staff and managers.I helped implement and monitor two new processes on which one of the fully qualified engineers was working (Quality controls at the Polyurethane foam line and installation, staff training and arranging external suppliers for a new gasket assembly station for older products).Lastly I was tasked with doing the pilot design for improvements in the receiving systems at the premises to expand capacity and workflow, where I managed to get another 12-25% out of the same available area with variable minimal additional outlay in a few extra racks. (The workflow bottleneck being identified early as problems with international shipping rather than the inherent systems.) The project was scheduled for a following student to implement, as it was near the end of my internship. I left to start my B Comm (Fin Acc) degree at University Stellenbosch.