Typical purchase Ledger Day/Week/Month

marknotgeorge

Now that I've passed Foundation, I'm about to start Intermediate (tomorrow!) and I'm looking for work. I'm pretty certain that I want to go into industry (I don't want to stray away from the reason for the figures, if you know what I mean), so I'm looking at purchase and sales ledger jobs.

Now I know it's difficult to find a job without experience, but I feel that if I can gain as much knowledge about the roles I'm looking at, the better. I understand the ledgers and reconciliations, et cetera, but I need to know how they fit into the working day.

So, can anyone who's working in accounts in industry please give me a rundown on a typical day, week and month?

Thanks muchly. :thumbup1:

--Andrea--

Typical Purchase Ledger Day/Week/Month

Hi marknotgeorge,

In my industry (small construction firms) I would expect a purchase ledger clerk to carry out the following duties;

* receive, sort and code supplier invoices - e.g. stapling their original delivery note and purchase order
* enter them onto the system (eg Sage, Quickbooks)
* pass them to the relevant supervisor/ manager for authorisation
* raise any queries with suppliers - e.g. wrong value, wrong goods, goods not received, discounts not given (and marking them as 'in dispute' on the system so they are not paid accidentally)
* receive, sort and code supplier credits
* print 'supplier invoices due' report each week
* make payments on system
* send bacs payments or cheques for those invoices, send remittance advices telling supplier what they are being paid
* file invoices

Other duties include;

* dealing with queries, and there are often lots of these, suppliers telephone asking when they will be paid, what they have been paid, staff wanting copies of invoices or purchase orders, etc
* completing supplier questionnaires and application for credit forms
* printing reports from the system for managers, including P&L, BS, Trial Balance
* correcting entries if TB doesn't balance!
* processing End of month (which everyone thinks sounds complicated but is easy once you've been shown)
* processing End of year
* there is lots of retrieving invoices from the filing system, i.e. when there is a query, when someone wants to check a previous cost, when the accountant wants to audit them at the end of the year

Some Purchase Ledger Clerk also carries out the following duties (after training);

* Maintaining Fixed Asset Registers (eg adding and deleting assets when they are purchased/ sold)
* Covering Payroll during holidays or sickness
* Cis
* Covering Sales Ledger during holidays or sickness
* Management Reporting, e.g. job costing
* Look after company insurances (e.g. getting quotes for motor insurance, commercial insurance, etc)

This list is endless, duties are different within different firms and different sizes of firms.

If I was looking for a Purchase Ledger clerk these are the skills I would be looking for;

* Good sense of humour, and confident - a must when you are dealing with whinging suppliers
* Diligent filer - there is a lot of filing and retrieving documents, you have got to be diligent at this, if you don't file as you go, Purchase Ledger is not for you!
* Excellent sorter - Purchase Ledger clerks are always sorting documents into numerical order, alphabetical order, paid, unpaid, due to be paid, this year, next year, last year....
* Methodical, organised
* Nice telephone voice and good telephone manner because you can spend lots of time on the phone, and usually end up answering everyones mobile when they go into a meeting!
* Good understanding of double entry book-keeping and why we keep accounts and what we use them for

Don't be scared to apply for jobs because you think you don't have previous experience. Previous experience is always desired, but if you are a diligent, hard-working member of staff who is eager to learn and already undertaking their own training you'll be fine.

This is just a snapshot from what I know, I hope other people take the time to give you their experiences.

Good luck for the future,
Andrea :thumbup:

marknotgeorge

Thanks for that!

jkc

thats really good double that thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!