During my work experience at iTax Accountants, I was fortunate enough to have learnt and experienced firsthand the financial aspect of how a business runs. In my first week, I was instructed to arrange all costs and receipts of a company and to sort them out as transactions, helping me develop key skills such as organisation and time management. I was instantly made to feel comfortable and as though I was part of the team. I was given a lot of responsibilities within my first few days, which challenged me and motivated me to work harder.

Another one of my tasks included calculating the pay as you earn (PAYE) deductions, calculating the employees’ national insurance contributions (NIC) deductions and liabilities and calculating statutory and non-statutory deductions. I ensured all monthly Payrolls were successfully submitted in the correct pay periods, and approved by HMRC under RTI, before emailing payslips, which included due dates for payments to each individual employee of the provided company. The payslips would also include a P45 for each leaver if required.

I also used the previous months’ file to gain a better understanding of the client and ensure all outstanding matters are up to date. I completed the anti money laundering checks for all the clients using Veriphy, to ensure that investors in a business are legitimate and are investing for themselves, and not on behalf on someone else who may have come into money via illegal means. I emailed clients to ask to provide documentation to confirm their identity and addresses and checked that these are correct and accurate. Along with this, I also proceeded with the completion of engagement risk assessments, which helps to determine the risk level of working with the client, through factors such as ownership, management, business environment and financial considerations.

With the help of my manager, I successfully calculated all the taxes of individual employees of a business using TaxFiler, taking into account their VAT, pension schemes and corporation tax.

As well as the work I learnt inside of the office environment, I also successfully completed the HR and Payroll Administrator Course with Distinction. This enabled me to gain a lot of knowledge about how a business works in terms of taking care of employee relations, paying tax on time, and the recruitment process. Another course I recently completed was the Xero Accounting and Bookkeeping Training Course, achieving 100%. In this, I learnt about credit notes, sales reporting, invoice settings, and also gained some further knowledge on the Payroll system.

The work that I had to complete varied day‐to‐day depending on what we were about to begin. Overall, my work experience at iTax Accountants was very positive. I was very happy with the amount of things that I have learned and experienced in such a short space of time. I do intend on carrying this on further and developing my knowledge in the accounting industry.