Junior Accountant

I've always liked the clarity that numbers give you: an account either balances or it doesn't, and I find real satisfaction in that kind of precision. During my degree I did a placement year in the finance team of a mid-sized retailer, and what stuck with me was seeing how the accounts actually told the story of the business, stock levels, seasonal cash flow, supplier payment terms, all sitting behind numbers that looked dry on their own. I studied accounting and finance at university and I'm partway through my AAT qualification, which I'm continuing alongside full-time work. What draws me to this specific role is the range: I'd be touching purchase ledger, sales ledger, and some month-end support, rather than sitting in one narrow function for years before I understand how the pieces connect. I want to build a proper foundation in the basics, reconciliations, journals, the close process, before specialising later. I'm also someone who likes routine done well: I don't find repetitive reconciliation work boring, I find it satisfying when the numbers tie out.

In my placement year I worked mainly in Xero, doing supplier invoice entry, matching purchase orders, and running the aged creditors report each week. I've also used Sage 50 briefly during a university module, so I understand the general logic of double-entry software even where the interface differs. Excel is where I spend most of my time day to day: I'm comfortable with VLOOKUP and now XLOOKUP, pivot tables for summarising transaction data, and basic formulas for reconciliations like SUMIF when I'm matching a bank statement to the ledger. I built a simple template during my placement that flagged any supplier invoice over 30 days old automatically, which saved the team from manually scanning the aged creditors list each week. I haven't worked in a large ERP system like SAP or Oracle, but I understand the principles, chart of accounts, cost centres, approval workflows, are broadly similar across platforms, and I pick up new software quickly. I'm also comfortable with basic Google Sheets for shared trackers when a team works that way instead of Excel.

I've learned that accuracy at this stage comes from process, not confidence. When I'm doing something for the first time, I write down the steps as I go so I have a checklist for next time and so I can spot where I might have gone wrong if a number doesn't tie out. I always double-check my own work before handing it over. For something like a bank reconciliation, that means checking the closing balance matches before I move on, not just assuming it will. If I'm not sure about something, I ask rather than guess: on my placement, I once nearly posted a credit note to the wrong supplier account because two supplier names were very similar, and it was only because I checked with a colleague before posting that I caught it. Since then I always verify supplier and account codes against the reference number, not just the name. I also keep a short list of mistakes I've made and what I changed as a result, which sounds a bit much, but it means I don't repeat the same error twice.

My first step is to check whether there's an existing process document or a previous example I can work from, because most routine accounting tasks have been done before by someone on the team. If I can't find anything, I'll have a go at a first attempt based on what I do understand, then ask a specific question rather than a vague one: not 'how do I do this' but 'I think the accrual should be posted this way, does that look right before I post it'. I find that shows I've tried to think it through rather than just handing the problem back. I also ask early rather than waiting until a deadline is close, because a five-minute question on day one is much less disruptive than a wrong journal that has to be corrected after month-end has closed. During my placement I did this with a fixed asset disposal I hadn't processed before: I drafted the journal, checked it against a similar disposal from a prior month, then confirmed with my manager before posting. It turned out I had the depreciation adjustment right but had missed the disposal proceeds entry, which I would not have caught without asking.

During my placement year I was processing supplier invoices and I coded one to the wrong cost centre, a marketing invoice that I posted to the operations budget because the supplier also did some operations work for us and I didn't check the invoice description closely enough. It wasn't caught until the operations manager queried why their budget was over for the month. It caught me off guard, but I went straight to my manager rather than waiting to see if it would sort itself out. We traced it back together, I corrected the journal with a clear note explaining the original error, and I let the operations manager know directly what had happened and that it was fixed. Afterwards I started checking the supplier description and cost centre together every time, not just the supplier name, and I asked my manager to spot-check my coding for the first few weeks after that until I'd built the habit properly. It was a small error in the end, about £340, but it taught me that catching something quickly and being upfront about it matters more than the mistake itself.

In my second week on placement I was asked to help with the VAT return, which I had only covered briefly in one university module. I spent that evening going through HMRC's guidance on the specific VAT scheme the company used, flat rate versus standard, because I wanted to understand the logic before I touched any numbers rather than just following instructions blindly. The next morning I asked my manager to talk me through the previous quarter's return line by line, using it as a worked example against what I'd read. I made notes I could refer back to and built a simple checklist for myself covering which transactions needed to be included and which were exempt or outside scope. By the third quarter I was preparing the first draft of the return myself, with my manager reviewing before submission. What helped me most was combining reading with a real example rather than trying to learn the theory in isolation, and being honest that I was starting from a fairly basic level rather than pretending I already understood it.

Near the end of my placement, month-end fell in the same week as our year-end stock count, and I was covering some of my manager's usual tasks while she was on leave. I had supplier statement reconciliations due, a batch of expense claims to process, and I was also asked to help count stock for two mornings. I made a short list of everything with deadlines against each item and flagged to my temporary manager which tasks I thought could slip a day without causing a problem, the expense claims, versus which couldn't, the reconciliations feeding into month-end close. She agreed with my prioritisation and I got confirmation before assuming anything myself. I finished the reconciliations and the stock count on time, and cleared the expense claims two days later once things had calmed down, which I'd flagged in advance so nobody was chasing me for them. The main thing I learned was that asking someone to confirm priorities, rather than guessing, saved me from spending time on the wrong thing under pressure.

Accounts payable is money the business owes to others, mainly suppliers for goods or services it has received but not yet paid for. It sits on the balance sheet as a liability. Accounts receivable is the opposite: money owed to the business by customers who have been invoiced but haven't paid yet, and it sits as an asset. During my placement I worked mostly on the payable side, matching supplier invoices to purchase orders and delivery notes before they were approved for payment, and running the aged creditors report to flag anything close to or past its payment terms. I also helped with receivables occasionally, chasing a handful of overdue customer invoices by email using a template escalation process, polite reminder first, then a firmer follow-up if there was still no response after two weeks. Understanding both sides matters for cash flow: a business can look profitable on paper but still run into trouble if receivables are collected slowly while payables are due quickly. I always check the ageing on both when I'm asked to help assess how a company's short-term cash position looks.

I'd start by comparing the closing balance on the bank statement to the closing balance in the cash book or ledger cash account. Any difference usually comes down to timing: a supplier payment that's been recorded in the ledger but hasn't cleared the bank yet, or a customer receipt that's hit the bank account but hasn't been posted in the system. I list out each of these reconciling items separately so the two balances agree once they're accounted for. If there's a bank charge or interest payment on the statement that isn't in the ledger, I post that as a new entry rather than treating it as a reconciling item, since it's a transaction we simply hadn't recorded yet. Anything I can't immediately explain, an unfamiliar transaction or an amount that doesn't match anything in the ledger, I flag to my manager rather than guessing at what it might be, because posting the wrong thing to make a reconciliation balance is worse than leaving it open with a note. On my placement I did this weekly for a smaller subsidiary account, and I always kept the reconciliation and the supporting bank statement together so it was easy to check back on later.

Depreciation spreads the cost of a fixed asset, something like equipment, vehicles, or office furniture, over the period it's expected to be useful, rather than expensing the full cost in the year it was bought. This matches the cost of the asset to the periods it actually helps generate revenue, which is one of the core accrual accounting principles I learned at university and then saw applied in practice on placement. The most common method I've worked with is straight-line depreciation: if a piece of equipment costs £6,000 and has a useful life of five years with no expected resale value, you'd depreciate it by £1,200 a year, or £100 a month. Each month the journal is a debit to depreciation expense and a credit to accumulated depreciation, which reduces the asset's net book value on the balance sheet over time without changing the original cost recorded. During my placement I helped maintain the fixed asset register, adding new purchases, calculating the monthly depreciation charge, and checking it against the schedule before it was posted as part of month-end. I also learned to check the useful life assumptions made sense against similar existing assets rather than just copying a default.