By Farzana Rasheed
The Accountant I hired over the Christmas period disappeared
mid March. This fellow was hired at the end of a very frustrating year for
bookkeeping, after 2 previous failed attempts at trying to migrate to a modern
accounting system.
I am beginning to think that this position is cursed. My
tech team has – more or less – come together after having hired and fired and
lost countless interns, senior techies (local and foreign individuals). Our senior techie, Jonathan Barwon, has been
with us since 2010. Then, Daniel Collins has been with us since 2012. We also
have Emmanuel Jacobs who joined the same year. Rita Gailor is with us since
2015.
It’s the lack of having a reliable, professional, and
serious Accountant that has aggravated, frustrated and stressed me out for
several years now. Where can this Holy Grail be found?
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| Image from here. |
From 2012 to 2013, I hired a few trainers for Miss P to
teach her another accounting software, Quickbooks, which everyone in Monrovia
seemed to be using. She even asked for time off in the evenings to be able to
attend university classes. More or less she and I got along very well and, she
could handle many tasks. I was under the
impression she was learning this software until much to my annoyance, I
realised she was wasting my time and not really interested in accounting. She
would act sullen and not acknowledge any requests for reports and evidence of
her work in the accounts. We even switched gears and tried to engage in a
barter arrangement with an accounting firm (Parker and Associates) where we
would give them free IT maintenance and tech support in exchange for accounting
services. That never even took off.
And, our own staff, Miss P, was not interested.
Eventually, I let her go and, had to pay her a severance,
too. After this, we maintained
bookkeeping by hand, entering all transactions in a ledger and filing all
documents, invoices and receipts.
We focused on growing the business, developing our tech team
and refining our procedures. In those
years, I was always concerned that somehow our technical expertise was not up
to the mark, that our international clients expected international-level IT
engineers with degrees from MIT and Oxford. I spent much of my energy drafting
adverts looking for an international head of IT which I posted in the Liberia Google
Expats Group, Escape the City,
our company Facebook page, my own
Facebook page, and even on
a US University Job Centre on a friend’s advice.
Why was I spending time trying to find an
international-level engineer that our company couldn’t even afford? Why were we
letting our clients think our staff wasn’t up to the mark and, they that they
could expect Western-educated, Masters degree holder to come and trouble shoot
their IT problems for mere pennies? I’m referring to the time that was
2012-2014. In 2012, we had just moved to a swanky new office, literally from apartment
to a loft-style space, bigger and more stylish, to match our dreams for global
domination. The drive at that point was
to secure business, learn and adapt to our clients, and ensure we were meeting
their needs. I was ready to internalise the more difficult clients’ critiques.
In 2014, we found a a Sierra Leonean Accountant in response
to our advert. He was fantastic but he disappeared while I was stuck in
Pakistan for several months due to the ebola outbreak.
Finally in 2015, we finally decided it was important to try
to migrate to proper accounting software yet again. NATC had built up a large
regular turnover with many diverse clients. It was time to take our bookkeeping
into the 21st century.
At the beginning of the year, we were recommended to work
with an accounting firm, recommended to us by one of our clients. This firm is
managed by an expat and staffed with Liberian assistants. I had started working
at Mercy Corps and, it was Haresh, our head of operations, who met with this
company and, made the agreement. Initially, I was quite excited to know we were
now working with a professional company to whom we had outsourced our
bookkeeping. Surely, after all our failed efforts, we could now be sure we would
finally have a modern bookkeeping system. What’s more, our premier client had
trusted this fellow with their accounting needs.
This experience with this company was quite terrible. In the
beginning, neither Haresh nor I looked deeply into the actual work they were
doing. The head of the company, let’s call him Professional Expat Accountant,
had delegated a junior staff to come in 3 times a week for filing and to fill
in and print coversheets for petty cash expenses. He would come in now and then
to actually post the transactions in Quickbooks himself. He would send us the
Payroll every month. Professional Expat Accountant was always in such a rush
and, seemed to have this air of respectability, professionalism that I imagined
he was going to perform the job. A couple of times though Haresh told me he had
passed some sarcastic remarks. A couple of times, he and I met to decide on
some target results, to make sure we were on the track. The main thing his
company was tasked to do was to migrate us to Quickbooks and, only start with
the 2015 financial data. He was not expected to migrate any previous data.
Ideally, we should have started from 2010, when NATC was registered and
incorporated.
I asked him to produce a Profit and Loss statement for the
first 6 months. He said he was working towards it but needed some receipts for
some accounts. He made me a list and I went into the files and retrieved them.
We have everything filed, even supermarket receipts for purchases less than $
5.00. I was a little puzzled as to why we were paying him $ 600+ every month to
do our bookkeeping and why he couldn’t go into our files. There were a few
receipts and invoices (from our main supplier in the US with whom we do
hundreds of thousands of dollars of business with), which took forever to get.
But it was not as if there was no other corresponding records: there were
e-mails, copies of foreign transfer remittance slips, Airway Bill Numbers,
delivery notes, transactions related to the money we paid to FEDEX, etc. Our
supplier was taking forever to send us official invoices and receipts for the
goods he shipped us and for the funds he received but there was enough
corresponding paperwork and evidence to still post the transactions in the
system and to produce the overall summary we needed. The Professional Expat
Accountant would use this as an excuse not to provide a financial statement and
prove that his services were really valuable to us. I was getting quite angry
at our supplier, my polite e-mails had escalated into frustrated rants.
During this time, we left for 2 trips abroad and both the times, we asked the
office assistant seconded to us by Professional Expat Accountant to act as an
office manager. This lady was helpful during our absence by responding to our
e-mails, following up on certain issues and, opening and closing the office.
She goofed up a couple of times but did a passable job.
In June or July, the Professional Expat Accountant told me that he was willing
to second his senior staff who actually knew Quickbooks to our office so that
they could more quickly finish the job at hand. He wanted to increase his
monthly fee by $ 200.00. I should have put my foot down because he hadn’t really
delivered anything until now. Somehow, I convinced Haresh and we entered into a
new arrangement.
After this, quite cheekily, our friend asked us for office
space. His company was initially working out of the client who initially
recommended them. Since this client was closing down, they needed a space.
“Synergy” is what came to my over-excited mind. I thought it
would be a great working atmosphere to have another professional services
company working in the same space. Also, the accounting fee was going to be
reduced by a couple hundred bucks, from $ 850 to $ 650 (back where it was
initially). It was clearly a win-win situation.
The Professional Expat Accountant started moving in. I was
kind of surprised why he couldn’t use the same desk assigned to him previously. He insisted they wanted to move in his own desk and furniture. I told him I
don’t want to spoil the aesthetics of my office and would appreciate it if they
could just use the same desk. He asked “What aesthetics?” We tried to come to
an agreement but he kept throwing sarcastic remarks at me. I told him, “ But I
am a fussy person and don’t want my office space to get cluttered” and he
retorted, “I can see you are fussy.” It was really quite shocking that he was
so disrespectful and thought he would be able to throw his weight around, as if
the $ 200.00 fee reduction was a favour to me. Where did he think he was going
to be able to rent a space with electricity, Internet, toilet facilities, a
common printer and printer and so much more for $ 200.00 in Monrovia? Following
the heated discussion, which frankly left me shocked, I sent Professional Expat
Accountant an e-mail to say he needs to remove his furniture and the
arrangement was not going to work.
A couple days afterwards, he came in smiling and had his
things removed. We never talked about it again. The pretense was about to end
anyway.
Things finally fell apart when after all this time we
finally decided to sit down and, look over the long-awaited Profit and Loss
Statement. There were a lot of mistakes, which really aggravated us, given the
already tense relationship. For instance, our equity was - $ 350,000. Our
assets were less than a $ 3,000. We had hardly spent $ 1,000 on LEC, which was
a gross error. And, best of all, we had made more than half a million dollars
in gross profits. We blew our tops off. The junior accountant who gave us this
report agreed it was a bad report. We sent an e-mail to Professional Expat
Accountant and listed all the problems and asked for rectification. The boss
said the report could only reflect what information was given to him. Then he
promptly sent us his bill for $ 850.00. We again blew our tops and told him in
e-mail that his fees could not be released unless he did his job. We met in
person too but he would not agree to anything I said and, all he could hear was
he was not going to be paid. He replied to my e-mail, almost insultingly and
didn’t think he was at fault and deserved to be paid his fees. We didn’t hear from him again and, that was
the end of our experience of outsourcing accounting services. I still fume at
our experience with Professional Expat Accountant.
Despite
this rotten experience, I decided to put the word out again that NATC was
looking for an Accountant. I used the old trusted medium of the Liberia Expats
Google Group:
Dear folks,
NATC is looking for a qualified and experienced bookkeeper, well versed in Quickbooks, to manage our accounts. A part time arrangement is preferred. Excellent renumeration is on offer.
Please don't hit "Reply All."
Regards,
Farzana
I received quite a few applications including one excited
phone call. This candidate sent in his CV by e-mail and came over the next day
for an interview. A smart-looking young man with a surname from one of the eminent families of Liberia, he had a good CV.
His past experience included a stint as a Branch Manager in New York and
Quickbooks as his skill. I asked him some basic questions and he replied
confidently enough. Haresh and I interviewed him together and, although Haresh
had reservations, I decided to give this fellow a shot. We hired him mid-way
through the month and agreed to match his salary requirement.
After a few weeks, we realised he was actually NOT very good
in Quickbooks AT ALL. He had posted the same transaction twice. He had made so
many wrong entries. And, he seemed to be absent minded. He wanted us to hire a friend of his to help
him audit the books, rectify the accounts, and teach him Quickbooks. That
friend of his was clearly looking for some extra bucks. As soon as he declared
that his work would depend on the information we give him, we showed him the
door. We had a meeting with our new Accountant and, decided to give him yet
another chance. He was going to do a bit
of social media marketing for us, maintain filing and the ledger by hand, and
some other random tasks. We agreed on a salary although later he cheekily
adjusted it so he got what he wanted after deduction of taxes.
This new Demoted Accountant’s job was to enter transactions
in the ledger, maintain it, file all paper work, prepare simple summary reports
in Excel, take deposits to the Bank, interact with clients, and so on. The
tasks were quite simple in my opinion and, I really wanted him to thrive in
this role and make himself indispensible. He was absent-minded but extremely
polite, cheerful with a friendly disposition.
I thought I needed to be patient, support and nurture him so over time I
would have responsible, efficient and presentable office manager. Haresh and I
are the faces that have to provide explanations, do the feedback with clients,
interact with our banks and partners, so it would be nice for the company to
have another face. I found myself to be patient with him and not be as tough as
with my other staff. Some of his endearing goof ups included:
- Depositing cheques into the wrong account (over and over again)
- Sending the same e-mail over and over again to the same recipient
- Wrong filing
- Forwarding the wrong e-mail thread to a client
As hard as it is to believe, we kept overlooking these
mistakes, giving constructive feedback and letting life be. The goal was to
keep looking for an Accountant while nurturing this staff member. A company
needs good people. A company needs clearly defined roles and a team to take
responsibility for these roles.
My Demoted Accountant even had the chance to really put
together a great event: the NATC-LivArts Technology Arts Competition. He had
mentioned he was good at putting together events. Unfortunately, his efforts
had as much impact as an inflated balloon. I ended up doing most of the work
myself so that we would not fall behind schedule. His main contribution to the
event was to make a nice speech when asked to during the Event.
Why and how did demoted Accountant leave NATC? Around the
time of Christmas, when the cards were finally printed and ready for delivery,
his job was to make sure they all got delivered. He simply had to organise the
cards and get them delivered area by area i.e. Mamba Point, Sinkor, Bushrod
Island, etc. We have a few junior staff as well as the tech team always going
on site. He insisted on delivering the cards in Mamba Point himself on foot. I
asked him why he wanted to walk around midday in the blistering heat. I wanted
him to be at his desk and attend to more important things. He said he would be
back in 15 minutes. He didn’t return until 2-3 hours later and then, took for
his evening class. Oh yes, I forgot to mention he was taking classes in a
subject completed unrelated to our company and was allowed to do so.
Anyway, on the following Saturday, our whole team was on
site to do an Internet Services installation. Our Demoted Accountant had not
shown up to work because initially, we were going to keep the office closed but
we bagged this new business and asked our technical staff work on Saturday.
When we arrive on site, who do we see on site? Our flustered Demoted Accountant
was there, helping our new client move offices. Apparently, when delivering the
Christmas card, he got some side business with our new client because he was
also a Logistics guy. We were really angry that he was soliciting business with
our clients, or rather hustling for work on the side while he was goofing up at
work.
I was angry for a long time afterwards, at this young fellow
and myself. I was angry that I had tolerated his goof ups, not thoroughly
checked his references, and, instead of looking for a real Accountant, settled
for a clown. I was also angry at this fellow for being so absent minded,
disrespectful and thinking he could get away.
My sense of frustration peaked and, I desperately I reached
out to the Sierra Leonean Accountant who had disappeared in 2014. He knew
Quickbooks, was quite professional, was good at reporting, and had even
conducted a professional training for a client in Microsoft Office and
Microsoft Outlook. I contacted him by e-mail and we spoke on the telephone. We
also exchanged messages on Whatsapp. His reasons for leaving in 2014 were kind
of vague and, we agreed we would leave things behind. From his new CV it was
clear he had not had any steady employment since he left us. I thought he had
been too embarrassed to ask for his job back. We all agreed on his salary (same
as before). He shortly arrived in Monrovia, sooner than even we expected. I
reimbursed him for his fare from Freetown to Monrovia. It was Christmas time
and, I invited him to my friend’s house to spend the day with us. After the
holiday period, he was at his desk and quickly got to the job. He cleaned up
the files, made the filing system a little simpler, and started posting the
backlog of transactions into the system.
He was meant to be on probation for 3 months but we still
paid his house rent in advance for a year.
Coincidentally, an opportunity to do the same kind of
training he had conducted for us in 2014 came up again at a new client site. He
conducted the same training. He did a great job and, we were quite happy to
finally be able to get our Accounting back on track. He and I went over the 2015
Profit and Loss statement and although he had finished the backlog of
transactions, there were some problems that I asked him to sort out. For
instance, there were too many sub categories, which could easily be placed into
one account. We agreed on some targets and he was to produce a final report
before I left for Pakistan in early February. He was almost done but didn’t
finish his work before I left. He finally finished something and Haresh was
meant to check it in my absence. I don’t know if he did or not.
A couple of weeks before I was returning to Monrovia, Haresh
told me our Accountant was MIA. Moreover, he had asked for a $ 100.00 salary
advance. We tried calling him. We posted messages on the NATC Whatsapp Channel.
No response until he surfaced to say he had to go back to Sierra Leone for
family issues.
And that was that. I could not have been more livid, infuriated and angry at having trusted the same person twice.
Now, I am again on the lookout for an Accountant “well
versed in Quickbooks.” Can I say I am exhausted and fed up? Wish I could
strangle all the Accountants in this world.
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