My current position is that of admin and bookkeeper. My training has been pretty much on the job and I'm self taught in my job and on our accounting system except for the very basics of it. When I was offered the position last year, it was arranged for a software trainer to come in and show me what I didn't already know to speed up the transition. That was a big help, but no one sat down and told me what to charge where - to learn that I had to look back at what my predecessor had done and figure it out on my own.
Fortunately, I took accounting classes in high school, business school and when I started on my Associate's degree a couple of years ago. That has helped with my understanding of finances, but I still have a lot to learn. My theory on learning accounting has always been to learn the procedure first and the understanding of why you're doing certain tasks will come with experience. By not trying to understand the "why's" from the get go, I learned much quicker. A lot of accounting is procedure and once you learn that, you get a better feel for where the numbers need to come from and why to get the information you want/need.
I can't say how much is expected of me, but I know how much I'm depended on to know what's going on and how to find information that's needed. I don't know how much more responsiblity I'll be given in the next several months with all of our changes, but Big Bossie has mentioned sending me to a software user's conference in the spring to learn more about our system. I'd love to go, but that decision can't be made until he can discuss what's going to happen with our accounting department/system with the company who's buying into ours.
Michelle
