Intern Impressions: Migrating Accounting Software

I am Abhi and I am working as an intern at Huse Hill Associates in the position of finance administration. The firm is currently in the process of changing their finance operations from MYOB to Xero for the financial year 2018-19. I am working on this project and have to prepare a standard operating procedure for the operations performed on Xero. As per my psych profile I am a tactile learner which means that I learn best by doing it, Huse Hill Associates is the perhaps the best place for me to learn because here I can learn starting with a small business and then use similar concepts and skills that I have gained with a large organisation. The office environment is very supportive and peaceful for someone like me who is still trying to learn their way in the New Zealand business industry. The guidance and knowledge I have gained while working with a team of highly experienced professionals has been very enlightening. For this migration I had to start working with MYOB which is a CPU based application and learn my way around accounting software. The company was working with MYOB Accounts Right which is perhaps a more complex software compare to Xero as there are no direct bank feeds available whereas with Xero dashboard a company’s assets and liabilities can all be seen on the same page, which gives a better understanding of how the business is doing financially. When working with MYOB Accounts Right one has manually code the expenses and income associated with the business. Unfortunately the coding done previously into MYOB had discrepancies so the entire financial year 2017-18 needed tidying up. Fortunately for me this helped me to learn how to work around the analytics part of a business. I personally like having responsibility as it gives me motivation to work to the best of my abilities. While going through the transactions for previous year which requires concentration I found out that not only were wrong accounts used; also some GST codes used were wrong in some instances which meant that the tax paid by the company had to be corrected. This is the reason that we want a correct standard operating procedure for Xero to avoid similar circumstances in the future. Xero is cloud based software which means the communication process with the accountant becomes easier and the chances of making mistakes while setting up Xero are reduced to a minimum. Working with Xero has been easier thus far due it being cloud based, but I must admit that editing invoices and payroll data was perhaps easier in MYOB or maybe I am still getting familiar with Xero. For an intern, hHA provides the opportunity to work and learn at my own pace without any rush and use methods of learning which suits me the best. While working at hHA, I have gained the skills not only to work with a company’s finance but also working with analytics and project management. I have worked on this project anonymously with the support of the managing director of the company and the chartered accountant working with the company.