Finance Management Trainee Review

I am in management accounts so i have interaction with budget holders to discuss establishment of their payroll employees, deal with their finance queries, inspect and confirm various forms - such as approving someone from band 5 to band 6 if we have budget and WTE available. Every month we do month end whereby we close the positions by dealing with accruals, prepayments, GRNI, transfer journals of cost, recharges etc

As a part of my apprenticeship, i have 6 skills and behaviour tasks i must complete. working towards these has given me more experience. one of my targets is to become more comfortable speaking to hierarchal employees by presenting in meetings, and my communication presentation has aided in this target to be met. you definitely become more proficient in excel!

my programme is stressful but good. there is a lot to do in a level 7 apprentice - skills and behaviours, competencies, the ACCA exams, working fulltime, and off the job training. I enjoy it most of the time, but month end is stressful and i find everything that i must do very overwhelming sometimes. there's not enough time to get everything done.

my programme is very well organised. its an exam every 3 months, so month 1 you will be waiting for results so its a quieter time and a good time to do skills and behaviours, competencies, Off the job training etc. then studies start and its weekly classes, a revision course and a mock that they go through. work you can move around teams to get various experience in accounts.

my placement manager is very helpful and goes through competencies with me, sets side time so we can go through what further support i need to get them checked off. he often asks how i am doing generally so has that emotional care side. they often send me courses that may aid with the placement

i get so much support. they have learning support whereby they can aid with any wellbeing problems. i went to them and they referred me to talking therapies for stress. there is performance support who regularly email to touch base with how you are finding each module. there is a 9-5 tutor support on the bpp hub and videos for any chapters in a module that is assigned home study.

its giving me information and processes that were knowledge but i can now put into practise and are no longer theory. i was studying audit and it is now audit time, so i know what the auditors may ask of me. sometimes i do find it difficult to cross reference what we learn to what we do daily but overall helps me perform

i assume there are extra curricular activities but i am too busy with my studies to attend them. there is often chances to win ascot tickets and such like. we had a christmas do as a team which was nice. i am not very social so it doesn't bother me. professional networking events mainly comes from the acca professional body

Yes

I feel it is a good working environment and those in finance are very friendly from what ive seen. i would suggest to anyone to work for nhs as although we aren't delivering the care front line, what we manage finance wise has knock on effects for the trust and the support they deliver.

do your research on NHS and NHS Finance. it is very different to finance in the private sector, with different rules applying to foundation trusts. Specifically for finance, definitely look into the challenges the NHS are facing financially but if you are going into NHS generally, check to make sure you know what it entails. look at glass door for reviews of people who worked in the area youre applying