Business Support Apprentice Review

My role is within the finance department of the charity, with responsibility for supporting the Senior Finance Officer with financial record keeping of the organisation. My main responsibilities are processing of day to day financial transactions including sales and purchase invoice, credit notes and credit card payments. My other duties include providing admin support to projects, answering the phone to colleagues and clients and other general office duties

I have developed my interpersonal skills greatly since starting work at the charity, and am now fully confident of engaging with individuals both over the phone and in person, one on one and in group settings. Since starting the course I have enhanced my knowledge of financial transactions and reporting and am now confident with the use of Sage for the purposes of recording transactions.

I have greatly enjoyed my time on the program and feel it was well worth the effort involved in engaging with the course. In particular I enjoyed the online teaching sessions. I have greatly enjoyed learning new skills, especially things I'd never come across before such as manager accounting and budgeting as these were areas not required in my role, so it was nice to get an overview and understanding of how they work

I feel that with the challenges of Covid it has been an especially tricky environment to learn it. However, I feel that the online Zoom lessons were very well organised, and I always received the learning materials well in time for the lessons. The reviews and observations with my tutor were also always booked in well in advance, so were able to run smoothly

I have received incredible support from my employer in my endeavors with the course. I receive monthly supervisions with my line manager where I bring up what I think is working well with the apprenticeship and whether I think things could be going better. If I've ever had a problem there was always someone I could turn to within the Company, either a colleague, or my line manager or fellow apprentice, so I have never felt like I was left to deal with any problem on my own

I have received a lot of support from the training provider during the course of the apprenticeship. Regular reviews were undertaken to ensure everything was going smoothly, and when I did have a problem I was able to contact my tutor via email or mobile in order to get them resolved

The qualification has given me a better understanding of bookkeeping, financial transactions and accounts preparation which have all be very useful in my day to day work. I have progressed to doing more of the final accounts work, including loading transactions onto Sage, performing bank reconciliations and preparing and submitting VAT returns

n/a

Yes

Lincolnshire Action Trust is an organisation with people at the heart of its business strategy, its employees, its clients and its stakeholders. It is a warm and welcoming organisation, fully committed to the principles of Equality and Diversity. Furthermore, by working for LAT one knows that their work is going towards helping some of the most marginalized and discriminated against individuals in society to help break the cycle of re-offending

Be honest and be yourself are the main two pieces of advise I would give to those looking to apply to work here. At LAT it doesn't matter what your background is, as long as you're keen to get stuck in and offer a helping hand to those in need