Role of an Accounts Department

FR85

Can someone clarify what their role is in a hire company situation? I have an idea in my head but the ideas in their heads seems to be entirely different!!

I work for a hire company, I take orders, answer the phone, do quotes, prep outgoing equipment, load said equipment, check it back in and then forward all billing information or as much as possible into the accounts team.
In there I think they play with pens and elastics and think what can we do to mess with poor FR's head today??!!

Example, client coming in, I looked over their request, I prepared the quote for them, sent it onto our accounts team the put them in touch with the clients accounts department, all was going well until now .I was asked who we were supposed to bill and what were my agreed payment terms!!!!! She has the contact info, she has filled out W8 forms (US Client) and has liaised with their team and then comes back to ME looking for THEIR billing information.........

Am I being stupid here or is there an element of laziness flowing about this place? It's been at me for a while and today I blew the lid clean off!!
I don't want to have to tell them their job or state that they are coming across as complete gob****es but I'm close to it!!

If nothing else the venting has really helped!!

Thanks!:eek:

Neon_Lights

FR85 wrote: »

Can someone clarify what their role is in a hire company situation? I have an idea in my head but the ideas in their heads seems to be entirely different!!

I work for a hire company, I take orders, answer the phone, do quotes, prep outgoing equipment, load said equipment, check it back in and then forward all billing information or as much as possible into the accounts team.
In there I think they play with pens and elastics and think what can we do to mess with poor FR's head today??!!

Example, client coming in, I looked over their request, I prepared the quote for them, sent it onto our accounts team the put them in touch with the clients accounts department, all was going well until now .I was asked who we were supposed to bill and what were my agreed payment terms!!!!! She has the contact info, she has filled out W8 forms (US Client) and has liaised with their team and then comes back to ME looking for THEIR billing information.........

Am I being stupid here or is there an element of laziness flowing about this place? It's been at me for a while and today I blew the lid clean off!!
I don't want to have to tell them their job or state that they are coming across as complete gob****es but I'm close to it!!

If nothing else the venting has really helped!!

Thanks!:eek:

I work on the systems side for an accounting/financial function in a business. They are the most lazy, ungrateful, self entitled prats I've known.

All you do at a lower level is post journals and reconcile stuff that could be automatically reconciled. While at the same time trying to implement these man made standards"

It's a bit of a facile function really especially from the financial side, have a little more respect for management accounting.

CIARAN_BOYLE

entirely dependent on the situation where the demarcation of duties lie. its horrible when it's not clearly available and you don't know what your duties are and what someone else's are.

Neon_Lights

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

entirely dependent on the situation where the demarcation of duties lie. its horrible when it's not clearly available and you don't know what your duties are and what someone else's are.

It's horrible that you need a demarcation. And that people aren't resourceful enough to retrieve the information.

Mrs OBumble

Depends on the business.

Sometimes their job is to do everything to do with finance: in some companies, you wouldn't even be allowed to prepare quotes, you'd have to wait for them to do it instead.

In others, it's purely to ensure that everyone else has done the paperwork and got the right signatures, and then just to do the data entry and press the button so that an invoice or payment is sent for someone to approve.


Why don't you talk to your boss about your frustrations (politely), and ask if you can spend a few days shadowing someone in accounts, to get a greater insight into what they do so that you can understand more about how you can work together as a team?

Or you could invite them out for drink and get to know them better that way, to reduce their desire to mess with your head.

FR85

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Depends on the business.

Sometimes their job is to do everything to do with finance: in some companies, you wouldn't even be allowed to prepare quotes, you'd have to wait for them to do it instead.

In others, it's purely to ensure that everyone else has done the paperwork and got the right signatures, and then just to do the data entry and press the button so that an invoice or payment is sent for someone to approve.


Why don't you talk to your boss about your frustrations (politely), and ask if you can spend a few days shadowing someone in accounts, to get a greater insight into what they do so that you can understand more about how you can work together as a team?

Or you could invite them out for drink and get to know them better that way, to reduce their desire to mess with your head.

Thanks for all the points and ideas but we've worked together for close to 20 years but they seem to introduce new systems that we have to work with and there is no talking to them about our needs or ideas. It's not about getting to know them or getting to know what they should be doing, I know what should be happening but they go miles out of the way to get the desired result.
I have spoken to a mates sister who is an accountant and she said she has seen not really seen anything like what I have described but has mentioned all business's are different but the end result should be the same.
I could understand if I wasn't passing along the billing information, contact details or that but to hand it to them on a plate and then be asked such silly questions!

FR85

Neon_Lights wrote: »

It's horrible that you need a demarcation. And that people aren't resourceful enough to retrieve the information.

Exactly, if I don't have the answers I go looking for them based on the info I do have!!

FR85

Neon_Lights wrote: »

I work on the systems side for an accounting/financial function in a business. They are the most lazy, ungrateful, self entitled prats I've known.

All you do at a lower level is post journals and reconcile stuff that could be automatically reconciled. While at the same time trying to implement these man made standards"

It's a bit of a facile function really especially from the financial side, have a little more respect for management accounting.

I wouldn't go that far, they are lovely in my place, would help out in anyway possible but it's their approach, it's there way or no way, "we cannot process if we don't have X"....X is there staring you in the face, you used X to fill in Y so don't tell me that. They basically pass along every problem they have onto someone else to sort out instead of dealing with it themselves and getting on with it.

pilly

FR85 wrote:

I wouldn't go that far, they are lovely in my place, would help out in anyway possible but it's their approach, it's there way or no way, "we cannot process if we don't have X"....X is there staring you in the face, you used X to fill in Y so don't tell me that. They basically pass along every problem they have onto someone else to sort out instead of dealing with it themselves and getting on with it.

They're lovely? You called them all the names under the sun above!

pilly

How would they know what payment terms you agreed?

FR85

pilly wrote: »

They're lovely? You called them all the names under the sun above!

I mean on a personal level they are all cool but the gloves come off at 9.01 am and then its game over!!

witchgirl26

FR85 wrote: »

Thanks for all the points and ideas but we've worked together for close to 20 years but they seem to introduce new systems that we have to work with and there is no talking to them about our needs or ideas. It's not about getting to know them or getting to know what they should be doing, I know what should be happening but they go miles out of the way to get the desired result.
I have spoken to a mates sister who is an accountant and she said she has seen not really seen anything like what I have described but has mentioned all business's are different but the end result should be the same.
I could understand if I wasn't passing along the billing information, contact details or that but to hand it to them on a plate and then be asked such silly questions!

Maybe they were checking was there a particular individual who you had dealt with who should be named on the the billing? Possibly didn't word it very well but still. Also they would have to get the information for both to ensure what they had been told from the client's team matched what you had been given to ensure no fraud taking place.

In regards the payment terms - as an accountant I would never accept confirmation of these from the client. Sure they could say anything "ah yeah Jimmy agreed to 90 days" when in reality Jimmy said 30.

I understand frustration at communications not being great potentially but that can only be solved by actually talking to them. And don't assume you know what they should be doing. Do they assume that they know what you should be?

In regards your needs and ideas and new systems - sometimes these may not be taken into account as the new processes are dictated by accounting standards and legal requirements that they have to follow.

If this is an ongoing frustration it sounds more like a communication issue between 2 departments as opposed to an actual problem with the accounts department being lazy necessarily. Maybe a meeting to actually thrash out a process for interacting would help.

bucketybuck

FR85 wrote: »

Example, client coming in, I looked over their request, I prepared the quote for them, sent it onto our accounts team the put them in touch with the clients accounts department, all was going well until now .I was asked who we were supposed to bill and what were my agreed payment terms!!!!! She has the contact info, she has filled out W8 forms (US Client) and has liaised with their team and then comes back to ME looking for THEIR billing information.........

Maybe I have missed something but I don't really see the problem here. You are the customer contact, you are the one who agreed the hire with customer, surely you should be the one confirming for accounts exactly who agreed the sale and what the terms and price of the sale were?

I work in a similar industry, and we would be doing the actual invoicing at our level. Once the invoice is created and posted, that's when it becomes the accounts department's problem.

It sounds like you are doing quotes and giving out the equipment, but expecting accounts to do the actual invoicing, no?