Sharondeep Sandhu
COMPANY PROFILE
The company consists of three directors;
Sawarn Singh Sahota, Mandeep Singh Sahota
and Harminder Sahota. Sawaran Singh Sahota
is in charge of the VAT department. He
is the founder of this company and has
successfully built the company excellent
reputation and given clients good value for
their money. Mandeep Singh Sahota is a
qualified Chartered Certified Accountant who
after gaining his qualifications took over the
Accounts and Taxation Department and helped
the company grow through using latest
Software packages. By keeping up with the IT
industry he has managed to keep the company
on the same level as the leading companies in
the industries. Harminder Sahota is the
company’s secretary whose job role consists of
making sure all departments keep the
deadlines and that all work is done efficiently.
STRENGTHS AND
WEAKNESS
The experience I gained from this placement
has been extremely valuable. This is because
the positive aspects of working in a small
company are I got firsthand experience
working with the directors. If I had any queries
or problems I could go straight to Mandeep and
discuss them with him. On the other hand this
would not have been possible in a much large
firm. One of the biggest strengths of working
for Justa & Co is that they made extra effort in
training up the employees. By the end of the
five month placement I was capable of
finalizing all Sole Trader and Partnership
accounts. This was an amazing skill I had
learned because only in my second year I had
learned the theory in the Taxation module. To
be able to apply this knowledge and
understand it in was a great achievement.
Another great strength of the placement was
that I was being paid for my work which was a
bonus since I had gone into the placement
thinking it would be free work experience. I was
treated as an employee and given the same
responsibilities as other employees that had
worked there. Instead of doing stereotype jobs
like photo copying or making tea on my first
day I was given a set of accounts to start
learning how to finalize.
Another plus side was that Mandeep trained
me up to use the Sage Accounts Production
6.0 Software and the Sage Personal Tax. I
became familiarized with it quickly and I
learned once again to apply knowledge I had
learned at university into practice here i.e.
double entry bookkeeping.
Other small positive aspects to working at
Justa & Co. was that I made great friends and I
thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere I worked
in. They helped me in difficulties I might have
had and we used to discuss different
techniques we had learned at university.
Another thing was I didn’t have to travel much
to get to work since I lived ten minutes away so
I didn’t have the stress of dealing with rush
hour traffic first thing in the morning. The
company had free parking so I could also drive
there meaning I could save money on bus fare.
The company was flexible on working hours, if
I was late for different circumstances or
couldn’t make it to work they didn’t mind as
long as they were informed and I didn’t fall
behind on my work
The biggest successful thing that happened to
me in this placement was that I was made
Senior
Accounts
Assistant
and
my
responsibilities were to delegate work and I no
longer had to do data entry but instead I was
only finalizing jobs that were already entered
onto the system. I was in charge of training
new
employees and make sure they didn’t have any
trouble. Mandeep was impressed with how I
had picked up the work in such a short period
of time that he has offered me a job for once I
graduate.
Despite all these positive aspects there are a
couple of weakness towards working at Justa
& Co. since the company is family based it is
hard to get my career further as there aren’t
any career progressions for working there.
Despite gaining qualifications and having
experience you could not get the same benefits
from working there as you could from other
places. For example most of the employees
are on minimum wage and there is no hint of
increasing wages due to gaining qualifications.
Another dislike of the job was that I was put
under a lot of pressure to make sure all the
work was going out on time. I was not only
expected to keep on top of all employees
finalizing personal sole trader accounts. I found
that sometimes they work was not done and I
was held responsible for their actions. I found
this frustrating as most of my days were filled
with stress of completing my work and going
around and trying to make sure everyone
else’s work was complete.
ADDITIONAL SKILLS
I do feel I am very lucky to have gotten this
work placement at Justa & Co because I did
leave with so many skills that I think are going
to make me stand out from the crowd. One of
the most important skills I gained was applying
the theory I learned and put it into practice. I
was trained within the first two weeks on how
to use the SAGE Accounts Production 6.0 and
Personal and Partnership Taxation. This is my
biggest achievement as I learned to do theory
such as double entry book keeping, capital
allowances, adjusted profit computation on this
package.
I also learnt the process of what steps needed
to be taken to complete a set of accounts.
From being given the papers from the clients to
generating their personal tax returns to Her
Majesty Revenue Customs. This was an
exciting process to learn as the work I learned
at university was
becoming so
clear when I was
learning it in
the industry. I
gained
understanding on
the
importance
of
Data
Protection Act and how client confidentiality is
important in this profession. I watched my
superiors on how they handled situations and
in what manner you should address your
clients.
I was also given the opportunity to practice my
team working skills as most jobs required
working in teams. Since the job was passed
around on numerous occasions. To work
efficiently as a team we would have to make
sure that the job was done properly otherwise
the repercussions would be huge and the
accounts would not be considered reliable. one
some occasions the job wasn’t done to the
standards it should be hence I had to retrace
my steps back to the beginning of the jobs and
I found this to be tedious and slowed the job
down. This did cause friction when a job went
wrong because not many people would step up
and accept blame and help solve the problem.
I found responsibility was upon me because
Mandeep Sahota would question me if a job
wasn’t perfect. I did get the feeling that some
jobs did not get done properly because they
knew that they would not get judged for it.
Therefore working in a team in work
environment is a lot more difficult than it is at
university.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
I have known for a while that I have wanted to
enter the accountancy industry. I find it exciting
and it accelerates me to perform to my highest
potential. I enjoyed this experience and do feel
it is valuable to helping me grow in my career. I
enjoyed working with the people and found the
jobs I did to be thrilling.
I would really enjoy going to work for a bigger
company however I am not sure if I would be
given such huge responsibility like I was given
here. Therefore there are pros and cons to
working for a small and big company.
This company Justa & Co. has offered me a
job after I have graduated
however they will not
finance me for the ACCA
which is what I hope to do
once I have gradated. At the
moment I am unsure whether or not to accept
this since I do want to try and work in a larger
company.
I do not want to be set in one job I would like to
explore all my options and see where I have
the most satisfaction. I would also like to work
in an industry as well where I am dealing with
the company accounts rather than an
accountancy firm dedicated to loads of clients.
My biggest dream is to land a job within the top
four accountancy firm however with it being so
competitive and requirements high I do not feel
I am in the right place to try for that job.
I will continue with the year and see what other
offers are given to me. At this moment in time I
feel this placement will open doors if not now
but in the near future.