I first started my apprenticeship with QHS in the office as a general clerk in June 2017, before moving on to work with the finance team. It was here that I was introduced to a number of the tasks I would be assisting with in order to ensure calculations were being done correctly for our monthly accounts. It immediately occurred to me that the way these were being handled was not as efficient as they could be as were heavily reliant on large amounts of manual data entry, so I identified this as an area of the business that needed improvement.

The existing process meant that these jobs would take a lot of time to accurately complete. In order to increase accuracy and speed on these tasks I created a number of spreadsheets that would allow data that had been copied from an external source to be put in. This reduced these tasks from being major parts of an individual’s role to being something that can be completed in significantly less time than previously, freeing up time for other productive work. Some examples of this are our monthly phone bills, which used to take approximately 4 hours to verify and cost (reduced to 15 minutes), as well as our monthly parking costs which took around 3 hours (reduced to 30 minutes).

I also have reviewed the way that we produce, send, and record our sales invoices. Prior to when I started at QHS we had a very rigid approach to invoicing where invoices could only be produced in a single format and we could only assign invoices to a single cost centre. By familiarising myself with the Sage software that we already had in place, I was able to utilise it to its full potential, tailoring and optimising our invoice layouts at the request of different customers who required different information. QHS saw the benefits of this immediately in that it reduced the number of invoices that were in dispute or going overdue. It also allowed us to split the cost afterwards, leading to much more accurate accounts reporting.

Another area that I have focused on changing is the way that IT is approached within the business and the processes that back that up. Previously there was very low visibility of the IT assets that we employed and the way in which they are being used. I have resolved this by keeping a full register of what equipment has been issued to each person, in order to ensure a 100% control rate of either item return or cost recovery when employees leave. This in turn allowed us to review our contracts with our suppliers so that what we paid more accurately matched our use, ultimately reducing our total spending by 57%.

I have invested in further developing my skills and knowledge to carry out better IT support, both in terms of providing assistance with computer errors at QHS’s Head Office, as well as being able to carry out basic repairs to mobile devices. This allows a faster turnaround at a lower cost than having to bring in an external provider of these services and ensures that technical issues cause minimum disruption to any part of QHS’ operations.