Laura
Brockie

WHO I HELP

All 400 of my colleagues across all departments and offices.

HOW I HELP

Sending client invoices. Reconciling bank payments through Xero. Processing staff expenses & timesheets. Setting up new clients and staff on the system. Making payments & internal transfers. Sending remittances & bank payment confirmations. Training new team members. Answering queries. Supporting specialised internal projects.

SECTORS/SUPPORT

I provide support to the Finance team and help and work with staff across the Group.

“I HELP COLLEAGUES FIND THE BEST SOLUTIONS FOR THEM & FOR THE GROUP.”

As Internal Finance Assistant Manager, Laura Brockie’s work entails dealing with both the purchase and sales ledger. She provides support to the finance group as well as supporting the implementing of the AAB groups practices and policies.

Laura assists the finance manager with the day-to-day responsibilities and smooth running of the Finance team, making sure they complete tasks for clients and colleagues as quickly as possible. Her duties include making payments (including internal transfers), sending client invoices, reconciling bank payments, processing staff expenses and timesheets, reconciling company credit cards, setting up new clients and colleagues on our system.

Laura also trains new members of the team and is heavily involved with specialised internal projects regarding changing how the team works and the systems they use, and implementing new procedures. She is always looking to improve the way we work and get the most out of our current systems.

NO QUERY TOO SMALL

“For me, an ideal relationship with a colleague would be one where the communication is good and they feel they can contact finance at any time, even with a query they might not be confident is a finance query, no matter how big or small.”

QUICK REPONSES

“Colleagues expect quick responses from the finance team, with an easy understanding of their issues. I help them find solutions that work for them and the Group.”

BUILDING GOOD RELATIONSHIPS

“The most satisfying aspects of working with colleagues is helping them and learning from their expertise. I also really enjoy building a good relationship with staff which is so important for us to be able to understand each other.  There is a sense of teamwork through all the AAB departments.

FINDING THE ROOT OF – & THE SOLUTION TO – THE PROBLEM

“The greatest challenge I have is when our financial systems don’t perform as we would expect or deliver the information we require. It is my job to find out what we need or how something should work and contact the correct team directly to get this fixed as quickly as possible, which often means a wait time which is out of our hands.”

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

“The growth of AAB excites me. It’s great to see what new challenges I’ll be faced with, and finding ways to overcome them. I like to see changes and see improvement and see people do well. I have seen our finance team double in size and there are opportunities for me to learn more outwith what I thought I was capable of. AAB are really good at supporting development and encouraging you to do well.”

SOLID UNDERSTANDING

“It is really important to me that I understand what our colleagues need so I can make sure we are working in the quickest and best way possible to deliver a brilliant service to our clients.”

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF OUR SYSTEM

“My greatest strength I bring to AAB is my knowledge on the system we currently use, I have delved into it and taken on a great interest in how it works and what we can get out of it.”

TRAINING OTHERS

“The greatest compliment a colleague has paid me was their general appreciation for the work I put in. Specifically for training videos I had produced for the whole firm, they expressed how detailed and useful these had been to learn at their own time and refer back to.”

EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT

“My pet hate about working in Internal Finance is trying to explain my job. Every day is different, every staff query, client query is different and every day has challenges that make me think outside the box.”