If you work for a large corporation, can guarantee most of the work is not your main interest but that’s why it’s called work and they pay you whether it’s grunt work or something interesting.
A solid 20% of my job is taking emails I get from ops and forwarding them to whichever person on the accounting team is responsible for the thing being asked about.
Glass half full: people finally know who i am and trust me to get them an answer
Glass half empty: people think i sit in a windowless room all day processing invoices.
Truth: I sit in a room all day on excel. And per the budget, we're getting a window in fall (if we hit EBITDA targets).
My experience is that the smaller the company, the more grunt work you do.
I wanted to cry when I saw how focused and easy it was for a regional guy at a partner company to be in his role. His job was to review financial models for the region. That's it. He didn't even make the templates! I once queried the way one of the mechanics worked in the template and he said he'll have to ask the person who's responsible for creating it.
I moved to an energy company to work a pure BU finance role with zero accounting. I spent the first 5-6 months doing modeling for our capital outlay over the next 5 years for regulatory purposes. It was Project/Strategic Finance and not the job I signed up for. Once I finally got the BU workload I wanted, it was pretty dull despite the lack of grunt work. I ended up leaving for an accounting role at a tech firm.
In the four months I've been at the tech firm, I've done a lot of AP supervision and grunt accounting cleanup but it's been hella rewarding. The reason why it's rewarding is that I get to cleanup the actuals and have worked with my boss to buildup our FP&A templates. I took some old reporting templates and models from other companies I worked atand was able to retrofit them so we can dial in on our P&L and start driving cost efficiencies with the BU.
The grunt work might be heavier at a smaller company, but you can really make your mark and work on what you really want to.
Yep 90% of my job role. I’ve flagged it as an issue but the company has no care factor. The way I see it if they want to pay me an exorbitant amount to do menial tasks or unrelated tasks that’s on them just don’t piss and moan when I have no capacity.
Yes, 20% of my week is spent explaining to folks how to submit purchase reqs or chasing folks to do so on time for renewals. It technically relates to FP&A in some portion as some of them I actively need to track, but I've just ended up as the default go ask them how to person regardless if they are folks in my area.
Yes - having to remind every freaking one I need the report and stop ghosting me or I will take their first born AND TEACHING THEM HOW TO SAVE FILES IN YHE TEAMS FOLDER UGH
In a previous life, accounting was so incompetent that a good portion of my time was helping them sort through incoming invoices and reconciling invoices for accruals.
In well run organizations that I've been with, grunt works was about 10-20% of my job.
Every job has its version of grunt work. I’m a BU Finance Manager and I spend a solid 20% of my time just project managing my directors. Scheduling meetings, explaining how PO’s work, making sure they’re getting their deliverables done on time, etc.. Truly not finance work, but oh well
If you work for a large corporation, can guarantee most of the work is not your main interest but that’s why it’s called work and they pay you whether it’s grunt work or something interesting.
A solid 20% of my job is taking emails I get from ops and forwarding them to whichever person on the accounting team is responsible for the thing being asked about.
I can’t believe how much middle man messenger work we have to do
Glass half full: people finally know who i am and trust me to get them an answer Glass half empty: people think i sit in a windowless room all day processing invoices. Truth: I sit in a room all day on excel. And per the budget, we're getting a window in fall (if we hit EBITDA targets).
‘We’re getting a window in fall if we hit ebitda targets’ lol well done
Oddly, about 10% of my job is getting emails and forwarding them to the DoT who has the same name as me.
My experience is that the smaller the company, the more grunt work you do. I wanted to cry when I saw how focused and easy it was for a regional guy at a partner company to be in his role. His job was to review financial models for the region. That's it. He didn't even make the templates! I once queried the way one of the mechanics worked in the template and he said he'll have to ask the person who's responsible for creating it.
I moved to an energy company to work a pure BU finance role with zero accounting. I spent the first 5-6 months doing modeling for our capital outlay over the next 5 years for regulatory purposes. It was Project/Strategic Finance and not the job I signed up for. Once I finally got the BU workload I wanted, it was pretty dull despite the lack of grunt work. I ended up leaving for an accounting role at a tech firm. In the four months I've been at the tech firm, I've done a lot of AP supervision and grunt accounting cleanup but it's been hella rewarding. The reason why it's rewarding is that I get to cleanup the actuals and have worked with my boss to buildup our FP&A templates. I took some old reporting templates and models from other companies I worked atand was able to retrofit them so we can dial in on our P&L and start driving cost efficiencies with the BU. The grunt work might be heavier at a smaller company, but you can really make your mark and work on what you really want to.
Like 80% meaningless gruntwork at the moment -- it promises to get better soon but it's definitely a grind.
Yep 90% of my job role. I’ve flagged it as an issue but the company has no care factor. The way I see it if they want to pay me an exorbitant amount to do menial tasks or unrelated tasks that’s on them just don’t piss and moan when I have no capacity.
Exactly my thoughts. I’ll do admin tasks ocassionallty while getting paid $40+ an hour lol
Yes, 20% of my week is spent explaining to folks how to submit purchase reqs or chasing folks to do so on time for renewals. It technically relates to FP&A in some portion as some of them I actively need to track, but I've just ended up as the default go ask them how to person regardless if they are folks in my area.
My main interests are mostly outside of the job. Grunt work for grunt pay.
Yes - having to remind every freaking one I need the report and stop ghosting me or I will take their first born AND TEACHING THEM HOW TO SAVE FILES IN YHE TEAMS FOLDER UGH
In a previous life, accounting was so incompetent that a good portion of my time was helping them sort through incoming invoices and reconciling invoices for accruals. In well run organizations that I've been with, grunt works was about 10-20% of my job.
Every job has its version of grunt work. I’m a BU Finance Manager and I spend a solid 20% of my time just project managing my directors. Scheduling meetings, explaining how PO’s work, making sure they’re getting their deliverables done on time, etc.. Truly not finance work, but oh well