A Dive into My Personal Experience during an Accounting and Finance Internship

Financial Skill Application: Excel, Asset Recognition, and Double Entry

During the internship period, I was required to apply accounting and finance knowledge or business skills to work. For instance, I will record and analyze financial data or transactions by using a spreadsheet or Microsoft Excel. With the thousands of transactions made by the company, I have applied the technical skills where I use Microsoft Excel to make data entry in order to calculate the average price of each vegetable in that particular month for GST submission. Using this makes my tasks easier and faster instead of calculating the average price manually, which is time-consuming and inaccurate.

On the other hand, I was required to apply asset recognition knowledge in order to determine the money spent by the company, whether it is an asset or expenditure in the balance sheet. For instance, when the money is spent on the purpose of upkeep of the farm, such as planting material, plant seeds, vegetable washing equipment, and cement used for building the road in the farm, will be recognized as company assets as they will bring future economic benefits to the company. In contrast, the money spent on the maintenance of farm equipment or company motor vehicles will be recorded as the company’s expenditure.

Furthermore, I am also required to understand and apply the knowledge of double entry, especially in the aspects of accounts receivable and accounts payable when the money is incurred or generated. For instance, most of the customers make their transactions based on credit sales. Hence, I need to record the revenue by a company and make an accounting entry once the money has been received from the debtors. Since the payments could be received and incurred at any time, I need to ensure that the company’s accounting records for the cash and bank account are equal to the bank statement at the end of each month.

Enhancing Workplace Skills: Organization, Teamwork, Ethics, Communication

This could help in detecting the problems and correcting them immediately to prevent any fraud or mistakes being made to the company’s account. Apart from that, I learned and applied several business skills in the workplace. At the beginning of the internship, I felt stressed and uncomfortable when doing the same jobs with other colleagues. At the same time, the work assigned to me is more than expected. Hence, in order to get along well with my colleagues and deal with work overload, I applied organizational skills by understanding the workflow of the organization and planning and scheduling before starting the work assigned by the supervisor.

Since I am working in a team, my team members and I will plan and schedule what to do for the whole month in order to increase productivity and efficiency in the workplace. For instance, the company has a lot of stuff to do at the end of each month, such as GST submission, filing invoices, and checking the debtor/creditor account and statement. By this, I will schedule the task to ensure that I am staying on track with deadlines. Instead of filing the invoice once a month, I will do it once a week so that I have extra time to deal with data entry for GST.

At the same time, I would not discriminate against my team members based on gender, religion, or race during the work. To adhere to the company’s ethical code of conduct, I worked on protecting the company’s reputation by respecting each other and not spreading the client’s private information to its competitors. Before making any decisions, I will seek guidance from supervisors as they have more experience in this industry.   Besides that, I also developed and applied communication skills in the workplace. For instance, I was able to convey messages and ideas to supervisors, colleagues, and customers verbally and non-verbally.

Skills for Future Growth: Organization, Technical, Interpersonal

I speak different languages, such as English, Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia, and Hokkien with different people in order to deliver the message clearly. In addition, I will interact with them through electronic communications to exchange information during the work as we work in a team and present the monthly sales and income generated to the manager at the end of each month. Without applying this knowledge and skills, I will not be able to collaborate or work in a team with colleagues and will not be able to meet the supervisor’s expectations.     Part 4 After gaining experience in this accounting and finance industry, I realized that it is important for me to make improvements for my future career.

For example, I need to be more organized and prioritize in order to improve my performance at the workplace. I will list down all the tasks assigned by the supervisor or employer and delegate the tasks into smaller parts by creating a daily schedule and following it. By this, all the tasks can be finished on time and meet the deadline given by the employer.  Besides that, improving my technical skills is important, and I can deal with multitasking more effectively and efficiently. For instance, when dealing with big data analysis of an organization, it is a complex task and time-consuming.

Possessing technical skills can reduce technical problems during work and increase productivity and customer satisfaction where the large data can be identified correctly, generate more revenue and operate the business effectively. At the same time, it can also protect the company’s data or information from being breached, which may possibly lead to loss of customers.   Interpersonal skill is also important in both work success and career progress. When dealing with work in a team or group, it requires employees to get along well by having effective communication and understanding among each other.

Reflecting on Growth and Future Prospects

If there is any misunderstanding or confusion between the employees, it may directly affect the company’s organizational culture and lead to a negative working environment. Because of this, the work will not be finished on time or within the deadlines. Hence, I will communicate and discuss with the team members when starting a project. When facing problems during work, I will discuss them together with the team members to come up with better strategies and possible solutions for them.  On the other hand, teamwork is one of the areas that needs to be improved since it is a way for the company to achieve its goals and objectives.

To achieve or accomplish the tasks, I need to understand the strengths and weaknesses and delegate the responsibilities among the employees. At the same time, I need to improve my weaknesses, such as being more confident so that I can contribute and provide better ideas when dealing with the same projects with other team members. Having a better understanding of one’s own abilities may help in working together effectively and maintaining the company’s productivity. Conclusions During the internship period, I was given the opportunity to work in the finance and accounting department, where I gained real-world experience and was exposed to accounting activities before starting my career.

By taking this internship course, I have learned and gained professional knowledge and skills from supervisors and colleagues of the organization. Instead of the hesitation to talk to anyone, I also learned how to interact with people and meet their needs and satisfaction by using appropriate communication skills. Through this, I successfully built a new long-term relationship with my colleagues at Woon Chin & Sons Agriculture. Apart from that, I have become more organized and able to work multitasking independently at the workplace. By this, it leads me to meet the deadlines and supervisor’s expectations.

Does it meet your objective? Yes, helps in reducing the burden, increasing sales, anticipating the problem, and providing solutions. The three-month internship helped me to have a better understanding and informed career decisions regarding the career path in the accounting industry. An internship provides me an opportunity to be exposed to current accounting tasks at the workplace and gain a broader vision that I would not get in the classroom. Because of this, I feel that I am excited and interested in having a job in the finance and accounting industry in my future career. Besides, the feedback from a supervisor is useful for me because I could learn from my mistakes and maintain positive feedback in my future career.

References:

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