Finance Systems Apprentice Review

In my role as a finance systems apprentice, the main task I carry out is assisting the finance systems direction in a multitude of tasks, such as building dashboards in CXO, running monthly user audits, provisioning access to our systems, and encouraging the maintenance and usage of said systems. On a day to day basis, this looks like setting up users, carrying out various tasks as and when they are needed, whilst also working on longer projects.

During the course of this apprenticeship, I have learned many new skills as, before this role, I was in school and thus had no experience in the workforce. In work, I have learned how to manage my time effectively, as well as utilise various accounting packages that I was not familiar with before joining sage. In my college life, I have spent a lot of time learning accountancy skills that I would have otherwise never picked up.

I would say I enjoy the programme a fair bit. It has not been easy the whole time, and there have been periods where I have become a little disillusioned with if it was the right thing for me to be doing due to these challenges, but each time I have picked myself up and carried on, and can now safely say I do enjoy my role. I have had lots of support from within the business.

The programme is fairly well structured. We have one college day out of our five day week, which was previously on monday but has since been moved to wednesdays, which was communicated clearly to us, as is most every other internal communication we needed to know. Since we have been working at home due to the COVID outbreak, structure like this is very important in order to keep the programme running. It has been a tough time, but we have managed.

I receive a lot of support from my employer. For example, in the lead up to my exams, I am often allowed extra revision time during work hours in order to be fully prepared. I also have a supportive team of coworkers that are all skilled in the various applications we use, and so I can go to them for help whenever I need to. Overall, I am very happy with the support I receive.

I already somewhat answered this in the previous question, but to reiterate - I have been allowed to take time at work for extra revision time in advance of my exams during my course, and have also been offered and taken support from within work. This was organised between myself and my manager for my Advanced Bookkeeping unit, as this was the unit I struggled to pass the most. At this time, I have passed all of my exams due to the support.

I think my qualification has allowed me to understand my role far better. Now that I have a better understanding of how accountancy works in general, I have been able to better understand why we use certain systems, and also have a stronger grip on how I should use them too. This has also assisted when I am helping people who work outside my department, as before, I may not have been able to understand what they were requesting of me due to my lack of knowledge.

At my work, there are a few different activities to take part in, though they are quite few and far inbetween from my point of view. A group I am involved with is the Pride@Sage team, which is the team in sage that helps promote LGBT+ inclusivity within sage by running activities both during and outside of pride month, webinars to raise awareness about the members of the community, and other such things like that.

Yes

I would recommend sage to a friend as it is a company that I genuinely do enjoy working for. I get on well with the members of my team and other colleagues within sage, my working hours are flexible, and unlike a lot of companies, a lot of issues here are approached with a human perspective as opposed to one that only cares about profit margins and how much they can make their employees work.

When applying to Sage, I would recommend being open and honest about your skillset and specialties, as there are many different roles in sage that a person can be suited to, and it is all about finding out which one would be best for you. Make sure you apply in an area you are confident in or willing to learn, as getting up to speed in a new role is not always the easiest thing.