A typical day is crazy at the minute. I am now home-based, so the working day consists of a lot of different Microsoft Teams meetings, while the volume of emails has increased as well. Our remote systems were set up fast and help the workload.
I have a director of finance above me, who I work very closely with. He oversees capital budgets, the building maintenance, hotel services, IT and the finance department. I’m in charge of all the accounting and the financial aspects. I manage a team of nine: the management accountants, the purchasing team, a purchase ledger clerk and an officer who deals with staff pay.
I spend a lot of time with the budget holders. I help them make best use of their budgets and resources, present new business cases, and gain grants for additional fundraising and activities. The budget holders include clinical staff, overhead departments and income generating departments.
The funding environment is very challenging. We are having to rethink how we go ahead and plan. One of the biggest challenges has been all the rewrites – our shops closed and all our fundraising events were cancelled. It’s a massive issue for us.
Home-working has made the team more efficient. We won’t be returning to the offices when they reopen
Hospice UK was able to sort out government funding for hospices, but it has meant a lot of extra reporting. It has been like having another funding body that has to be notified about how we are doing and our financials.
My whole team had to move to home-working and get used to new environments and new ways of working. Resolving the initial IT problems while doing additional reporting has been hard, but we’ve done it. The team is more efficient now. Everyone has now opted to stay home-based. We won’t be returning to the offices when they reopen.
We have quite an old-fashioned accounts package. I am trying to merge all the finance, patient and sickness/absence information so managers can log in and see it all within one desktop app. They can see whether costs have gone up because sickness costs have gone up, whether savings on staff travel have come from patient numbers going down or more efficient logistics management.
My advice to someone beginning their accounting career would be to have multiple experiences. Learn what good practice is and how to improve it, and then move on. It’s great knowing one organisation in full, but the more you know externally, the better it is. And do connect with other people in other organisations. We have a hospice finance forum and we share ideas.
I sit on a board for women in leadership, doing network meetings, where members can share problems in a very safe environment. It enables you to talk to someone external to your organisation who isn’t going to judge you. It’s peer-to-peer support.
I have a three-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old step-son. I have lots of family time with them. Flexible working means I can have my daughter here while working. I’ve also renovated a house. I like to be busy.
