WKEXP 911 Reflective Journals

Dale McNeely Co-op Coordinator Hrislie Rica Chua Accounting Co-op Student B.Comm Accounting

Hrislie Chua Operations Accounting Clerk Graham Group Ltd. Placement Period: Jan Aug 2012 Supervisor: Amanda Johnson, Regional Operations Controller Learning Objectives Throughout our eight month work term with Graham, there are several things we wish to achieve. Initially, we want to learn the accounting computer systems employed by Graham in order to gain exposure to all the areas of Operational Accounting and the different divisions within Graham. By learning enough information about the company and its processes, we will strive to ultimately answer questions that others may have for us, rather than being the ones asking the questions. We will also aim to improve our abilities to work individually and as a member of a team, all while mastering our communication, problem solving and organizational skills. Applying the concepts we have learned in school to the experiences we encounter in this work environment will be a crucial way to complete our tasks in a timely and accurate manner. Overall, we want to create a positive experience for our coworkers, our managers, the entire Graham Group, and ourselves. We will take initiative, continually seek new tasks and find ways to complete processes more efficiently in order to consistently expand our knowledge of the company and exceed our managers expectations. **Note: The learning objectives listed above were written in collaboration with the two other co-op students that I work with, Bhavnish Bilimoria and Kevin Ward. This is because when we met up with our supervisor, she preferred that we make a group objective instead.

Journal Entries January 9 to 13, 2012 (Week One) Wow, first week of work is over. On the first day, I walked into the company not knowing what to expect. I was very nervous because this will be the first time in 5 years that I needed to transition to a new workplace environment. I was also feeling left behind because I started a week later than the other two co-op students Im working with. As soon as I went inside the building, our supervisor, Amanda Johnson, greeted me and introduced me to Stephen Simpson. He was in charge of giving me a tour of the building and to help me get settled in. I was told that I would start off helping out the Accounts Payable department while the other students would assist other departments and we would eventually rotate positions. Stephen introduced me to everyone in AP, the other two co-op students, and some other people we bumped into along the way. They were very warm and friendly and they definitely helped me feel relaxed and welcomed. It was quite a busy week for everyone because they were still catching up on year-end reports. After I got settled in, I was given a list of Graham University courses that I would need to finish before I can start doing actual work. Graham University is the companys computer module-based learning tool that teaches you how to perform certain tasks, how to use the companys software, and assesses your knowledge at the end with a graded quiz. On Wednesday, I was given the safety orientation by Karina Farina, the Edmonton offices safety specialist. She sat me down to watch a video about Grahams safety policies and procedures. Afterwards, she went over the company safety manual and elaborated on chemical safety and the plan of action in case of an emergency. She then took me on another tour of the building to show me where the fire exits are. Throughout the next few days, I continued to work on Graham University courses such as Project Controls, Job Cost Essentials, Project Change Procedures, Labor Timekeeping, Equipment Timekeeping, Lump Sum Owner Billing, Subtrade Administration, and Cost Reimbursable & Unit Price Billing. On Friday, Bhavnish, Kevin, and I had a P2P (Procure to Pay) hands-on training session in the training room with Jennifer Woodmass wherein she introduced us how to do mini-audits on paper and audits in their Toolbox system. We were then given the rest of the day to practice our newly-acquired skill with Jennifer hovering over us in case we needed help or had questions. This was the week that I was most certainly out of my comfort zone and had to adjust to the unfamiliarity of everything. I had to learn a lot of the companys processes because it was completely different from what I have learned in school so far. I found that the Graham University courses were a bit confusing and harder to understand. On the other hand, I realized that I had pretty good social skills. I was able to make friends and get to know my coworkers in my department right away. January 16 to 20, 2012 (Week Two) By the second week of my work term, I was still in the process of adjusting and getting used to the office environment. Everyone was still busy finishing leftover work from year-end. On Monday, Bhavnish, Kevin, and I sat down with Amanda to discuss what we hoped to accomplish and her expectations for all of us. She preferred that we just come up with a few group objectives that would encompass the whole 8 months of our work terms. Afterwards, I was asked to help out Hong Ly, the Accounts Payable clerk who deals with vendors whose names start with F to N because she was running behind on her

deadlines. She first taught me how to use the Search function in the Toolbox system and refreshed my memory on how to do audits. Since I wasnt really used to the whole process yet, she told me to do the ones that I can and leave the rest to her. At first I couldnt figure out how to do much of the harder ones with the fear of making a mistake. Making mistakes using this system is hard because it requires a lot of processes to reverse it, and it will take up a lot of other peoples time. Learning to use Toolbox and doing audits do get better with time, the more time I spend using the system, the more I find myself accomplishing tasks a lot faster. By the end of the week, I could do most of the purchase orders that needed auditing in the system. In addition to doing audits, she also had me sort and match waybills to certain jobs, enter them into Excel, and determine whether it should be charged to a specific job or to the shop/company. Although I knew my way around Excel pretty well, I had to re-discover where certain functions are because Graham still uses the 2003 Microsoft Office. It didnt turn out to be all that difficult. I managed to finish the task ahead of time, and Hong was obviously surprised when I handed it to her finished. In addition to waybills, Hong also had me reconcile the invoices uploaded to the Toolbox system with those of the hard copies. The ones that were already uploaded were considered as a double billing and had to be thrown out. The ones that werent uploaded yet had to be mini-audited and sent to Calgary to be uploaded. Because they have another system called CGC where everything goes after it has passed Toolbox, Hong taught me how to search for past invoices in that system in the event that I couldnt find it in Toolbox. CGC is also used for a lot of other company processes, I just have to learn. Overall, I have finally started getting the hang of using Toolbox and have increased my efficiency at using it. Hong seems pretty satisfied with my performance so far, so that makes my week way better. Although I dont really like the fact that Grahams technology is obviously behind with the times (CGC reminds me of the Pacman era with the black screen and colored block letters), I love the fact that I have been meeting new people from other departments during lunch. I realized that there are a lot more facets to managerial accounting than I initially thought it would have. I cant wait to learn all the other things there is to learn. January 23 to 27, 2012 (Week Three) The third week brought about more responsibility and personal realizations. I was never used to sleeping early to wake up early the following day. Being in school had me pulling all-nighters and has gotten me used to sleeping in as my classes were usually late in the morning. As a result of that and multiple car accidents blocking the roads on the way, I was usually 5-10 minutes late for work this week. I would make up for the lost time by coming back early from lunch but I know that regardless of me doing that, being late in the morning will not reflect well on my performance. I continued helping Hong with her remaining courier waybills, invoices, mini-audits, and audits that were left over from last week. In addition, I am happy to be given new responsibilities! She had me emailing company purchasers or project coordinators up in Fort McMurray because some invoices did not have Purchase Order (P.O.) numbers, had wrong ones, or were already paid. It is company policy for all invoices to have corresponding PO numbers in order to be paid. No PO number, no payment. I had to email them so that they can find the right one, or give me new PO numbers so that I can get the invoices uploaded to the system. I found that because some of these people take a while to respond, there are invoices that were past due by more than three months. Even though I had been taking more initiative and asking everyone else

in A/P whether they needed help with anything or not, because they were busy fixing things for month-end, they would usually say that they do not have anything for me to do. So off I go doing audits again. This whole week was a routine. Since things to be audited would constantly be uploaded into Toolbox, I had a stream of tasks to do for the rest of the week. By Friday, I had done most of the audits in Toolbox, except for the few complicated ones, that Hong was pleasantly surprised that I went through most of them already. I took that as a good sign! Also, one of the purchasers whom I emailed early in the week replied with new PO numbers for the outstanding invoices, I had to do mini audits on all of them and send them to Calgary. Since I was finished with most of Hongs tasks, Jennifer taught me how to do stock transfers in CGC. I did not find it too challenging as I have pretty good keyboard skills. The only aspect I found hard was getting the hang of not relying on the mouse as the system only accepts keyboard commands. Overall, I have to say that I was pretty efficient with entering the stock transfers because I managed to finish the whole stack of sheets she gave me right before the end of the day. This week has made me realize that I need to train myself to get used to the early mornings and give myself extra time in case there are any road emergencies I encounter along the way. On the positive side, I have far better keyboard number pad skills than I expected. I have yet to be proficient at using the CGC keyboard shortcuts but I think that will come with time. January 30 to February 3, 2012 (Week 4) Wow, it has been a month since I first started. Time does go by pretty fast. Even though I feel like I have learned a lot already, I know that this is only the beginning, that there are more things and processes to learn. Early this week, Jennifer had me do stock transfers again. Only this time, there were different kinds. I thought that there was just one kind, Shop to Equipment. Little did I know that there are actually 4! That threw me off for a while and I had to constantly ask Jen questions and help with how to figure them out. What makes these other kinds harder to do the people filling out these forms would sometimes use the wrong form types and have incomplete information. I had to figure out what kind of stock transfer it is based on the information supplied and enter it into the correct form using the correct codes. This process was very time-consuming but I learned a lot of patience, especially with working with CGC. In addition to Shop to Equipment transfers, there are also Equipment to Equipment, Job to Equipment, General Ledger to Equipment, etc. Through it all, I appreciated the fact that Jen was very patient with my mistakes and my constant questions. I had to make myself a step-by-step instruction manual to keep up with the information required by the different kinds of transfers. By the end of the week, I was able to go through them fairly quickly, leaving Jen pretty happy. I divided my time between helping Jen and Hong. Hong made me do courier waybills and auditing once again. Although I still havent gotten proficient at working with Toolbox, I find myself getting better and better at it as each week passes by. I, however, have perfected the art of being efficient at doing mini-audits. Sometime during the week, Jen handed me a huge stack of Acklands Grainger invoices to do mini-audits on. She was so surprised when I handed them back to her before lunch the following day. I must say that this week has been more of perfecting the skills I have learned as opposed to learning more new stuff. I am happy that I have been getting better at the things Im supposed to do and that the staff now trusts me enough to give me more and more responsibilities. Overall, I have learned quite a few new things and have realized the things I am good at. I have also

rediscovered skills that I am actually good at but havent been using in a long time. This first month of my work term is only a preview of the next seven months of co-op, and so far, I love it. February 6 to 10, 2012 (Week 5) One of the worst things that the accounts payable department has to deal with is disputing unpaid overdue invoices; especially if there is a possibility that the vendor is asking for payment for a service that has no proof that it actually happened. This week, Peggy Brown handed me a stack of overdue invoices from Superior Propane that Graham allegedly had not paid. Graham has a rule that if an invoice does not have a matching Purchase Order (PO), the invoice will not get paid. In this case, the whole stack of invoices did not have matching POs. Peggy had me sort them out and check them against the list of invoice numbers that we were supposedly issued. I discovered some missing ones and was asked to deal with Claude from Superior Propanes Accounts Receivable department. After sending me the missing invoices, he would continuously send me emails or call me demanding for payment when he hasnt given us enough time to process and trace the invoices yet. Peggy told me that under these circumstances, I shouldnt be nice to the guy given that he was pretty rude to me. Throughout numerous phone calls and disputes, I learned that you cant deal with people nicely all the time. I really learned to stand my ground and be very assertive to Claude. After Peggy took over for me, she taught me how to fill in the expense forms for some of the company executives. I had to enter function codes for each expense they incurred and make sure that the receipt is attached. She then had me reconcile old unpaid Telus invoices that they were currently disputing because some were apparently overcharged. I had to counter check old records to make sure that they were indeed charged correctly. Another thing she had me do was to enter and code utility bills to their specific cost codes and make sure that they were accurate. Apart from practicing the skills I already know, I definitely learned a lot of the minute processes in AP this week. Doing the expense reports gave me better insight regarding the executives spending and the amount of money the company spends on a branchs day-to-day operations. February 13 to 17, 2012 (Week 6) Nothing new this week. Lynne Teschuk kept me busy with an endless flow of invoices to mini-audit and Cheryl Kerich had me help her with some courier waybills, just like the way Hong taught me how to do them. I feel I am getting pretty proficient with the AP processes and the order of how things should be done. February 20 to 24, 2012 (Week 7) This week was pretty slow the slowest since I started working for Graham. Everyone did not have much to do so I wasnt given a lot of things to do either. Apart from the miniaudits and stock transfers I had to do, there was nothing new for me to work with. I really do feel like I am getting so much better and faster at getting my tasks accomplished. The only exciting thing I heard this week was that Amanda told me that I am going to be moved upstairs to Bhavnishs old cubicle (since he got transferred to the North LRT site) next week and I am going to be moving into doing subtrades and subcontracts.

February 27 to March 2, 2012 (Week 8) I finally moved upstairs to Bhavs desk. I now have Stephen, Georgette Michaels and Kevin as my neighbors. After being introduced to Peter Fast by Amanda, he gave me a brief overview of how the Subtrades and Subcontracts area of Accounting works. There was too much information for me to fully digest in one session. He had me enter in a progress billing invoice into Toolbox to start, and then scan it and uploaded it into the system. My whole stint with the Subtrades area only got that far though. What happened was that he wanted the organization of Shelley Kathrens office files of invoices to be prioritized first. She was the past Accounting Supervisor whos no longer with Graham. There were boxes of unorganized progress billing invoices that were never scanned as electronic documents, uploaded into the system, and filed away into the document storage room downstairs. So I was pretty much doing a lot of sorting, scanning, uploading, and filing invoices all week. At the end of the week, Georgette showed me how to do labor timekeeping for the Calgary air traffic control tower job that shes working on. Although different projects have different rules when it comes to timekeeping, she just wanted to give me a general idea of how to work with the program. She then gave me a stack of timesheets to enter and after she checked my work over, she seemed really impressed. In addition to learning how Grahams filing system works and how to do basic labor timekeeping this week, I believe that I proved to be a really fast learner. March 5 to 9, 2012 (Week 9) This week was one of the busiest weeks weve had so far. I realized that I will never escape from the AP department. There were endless stacks of invoices coming into the AP department that they would continue bringing invoices upstairs for me to do miniaudits on. Added to that, Graham is involved in a lawsuit with another company. Peter and Shawn Hiron had Kevin and I work on the lawsuit case under document control. We were tasked with looking and sorting through numerous electronic documents for correspondence and some proof or back-up of payment. We definitely had to pay meticulous attention to detail and concentrate because we were given a very strict deadline by the corporate lawyers. Thankfully, we managed to finish a little bit ahead of time which earned us praise from our supervisors. In addition to a ton of mini-audits and dealing with the lawsuit materials, we participated in a training session regarding the new electronic corporate expense forms that they were implementing. With this, the receipts would get scanned along with the completed expense report and sent directly to corporate payroll, bypassing the local AP department. I might not have to personally use this new online form throughout my term here at Graham but it feels good to know that I can readily answer questions anyone may have regarding this new system. March 12 to 16, 2012 (Week 10) With most of the deadlines over and out of the way, there wasnt much to do this week. AP and their multiple stacks of invoices for mini-auditing was what kept me pretty busy. I realized that I felt really comfortable doing mini-audits that I started paying less attention to detail. The end result was that Lynne would point out certain things that I overlooked. I really appreciated the constructive feedback that she provided me throughout the week because it really kept me on my toes and I had to make sure that I dont repeat any more of the mistakes that I made.

March 19 to 23, 2012 (Week 11) Stephen told me at the beginning of this week that I will finally be assigned to this new project called Heartland Transmission. I will be doing mostly labor timekeeping for all the construction workers and office employees there. Since the site is outside of the Edmonton city limits, I will not be relocated to site and would get all the timecards scanned & emailed to me twice a week instead. Bronwen Harvey gave me a training session on how to enter timecards and other benefits such as living allowance into the system. She also taught me how to do Purchasing such as how to create new Purchase Order (PO) numbers, how to receive invoices and the specific things I needed to check before uploading everything into CGC. I was also taught how to assemble hire-on packages for the new workers that they were hiring for the project as well as everything that needs to go into one. After assembly, the forms need to be sent out for the guys to sign them & attach void cheques for direct deposit enrollment. After getting them back, I am supposed to scan and email them to the Payroll department to get them enrolled into the system and set them up with employee numbers. Without these employee numbers, I will not be able to enter their time worked and they will not get paid. I also met the team of Project Coordinators, Superintendents, and Cost Control Managers that are working on this project. Among them were Mathew Hanna, James Lacey, Michael Clarke, Chad Zentner, and Maja Kalkucka. Since this job will have workers from two contracting companies BFI and Jasper, I was told that Id have to know the companies policies regarding overtime and benefits to do my job efficiently. Added to those, I have major deadlines from now on: Hire-on packages have to be sent to payroll by Friday of every week and time worked has to be entered by 5pm every Monday for the previous week. Sometime during the week I received BFI dispatch slips from Maja and Stephen helped me put my first one together. I had to fill out the forms for each employee and give the completed packages to Mathew so he can bring them to site and have them signed by the workers. James also sent me a vendor payroll invoice and some timecards that werent entered from the previous week. Since I am not used to the timesheet format that they were using, I felt a little overwhelmed and Bronwen had to eventually guide me through my first set. As for the vendor invoice, Stephen showed me how to do that. I had to generate a labor timekeeping report for that specific employee and make sure that the hours they were billing were indeed the hours that they worked. Because in this specific case, the hours did not balance, I had to leave it until next week and wait for the superintendent to sort it out. Overall, I must say that this week has been very overwhelming. I felt like I was thrown headfirst into the tasks and responsibilities required of me. On the contrary, I have learned a lot of new things and acquired even more understanding behind how each project operates. I know that given time, I will eventually get a good grip on the processes. I am actually starting to like this area better than Accounts Payable because it gives me the feeling of being involved in something bigger. March 26 to 30, 2012 (Week 12) I began this week with Stephen showing me how to assemble the Vendor Payroll Package to be sent to the Payroll department so that the invoice can finally be paid. Three things have to be included into the package: the vendor invoice, the labor timekeeping report that shows the total hours worked, and a Workers Compensation Board (WCB) Clearance. The WCB can be obtained online through the website. After ensuring that the

package is complete, I just had to scan and send it over to the Payroll department. Michael also had a list of hours worked for me to move over to another function code. It wasnt hard at all because Bronwen already taught me how to do reversals & reassignments last time. Sometime during the middle of the week, a couple of completed hire-on packages came back, some were completed but the others were missing void cheques and direct deposit enrollment forms. I sent the completed ones over to payroll right away but had to phone the Superintendent regarding the missing cheques. Darrell Donescz, the Superintendent for the BFI employees dropped by to bring me some timecards for the BFI workers. I entered the time in right away and was told that I should upload into CGC as soon as I am done. It took me quite a while to work my way around the timecards because some of them were really messy and unorganized that I had to place quite a few calls just to confirm the codes and the hours worked. This occurrence is not unusual for job thats just starting out like this one is. I really hope all the kinks will get sorted out soon for the benefit of everyone but I know that it will take a lot of time and patience. This week really pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to be very self-reliant. I had to find the right people who have the right answers for all my questions. I also had to learn how to demand the information I need from people in a very nice way. Final Entry - Summary After my initial work term, I do believe that I have met most of the learning objectives that we set out in the beginning of the term and have exceeded my own personal expectations for myself. That being said, I have also talked things over with Amanda and she said that I am meeting her expectations so far. Although at times it really felt like there was too much information to digest, I was able to compartmentalize them and ended up learning a lot. I was able to prove that I am very capable of working independently as well as having good communication skills to be able to work well with a team. With regards to Grahams Toolbox system, I have learned to be pretty proficient with a fraction of it (the areas that I use) and can easily answer others questions regarding those. Being a big corporation, Graham already has their own processes and procedures set in place already which means that we couldnt really apply what we learned in school. This is the only aspect Im disappointed about. Overall, I would say that my experience working with Graham so far has been very positive. I love the fact that I continually receive guidance and constructive feedback from my mentors and the other people I work with. I am continuing to learn as I go and I know that I will come out of this experience a better person and student. Working for Grahams accounting department has definitely given me insight into the day-to-day life of the CGA/CMA side of accounting and will help shape my decision whether to pursue a CA or CMA designation in the future.