Competency

Question 1

Do you prefer on-the-job training or educational training?

Answer 1

On the job-training.
Learning and working at the same time boosts productivity. Education has limitations on practicality

Question 2

Walk me through the three financial statements?

Answer 2

Balance sheet: Company’s liability, assets and equity
Income statement: Company’s revenues and expenses
Cash flow: Cash flows from operating, investing, and financing activities.

Question 3

What happens on the income statement if inventory goes up by $10?

Answer 3

Nothing

Question 4

What is VLOOKUP?

Answer 4

Looking up a piece of information in a table and extracting some corresponding information

Lookup value
Range containing the lookup value
The column number in the range containing the return value Approximate match or exact match

Question 5

Limitations of VLOOKUP?

Answer 5

It is easily broken if column numbers of data set change

Question 6

What is a pivot table?

Answer 6

Pivot tables group, calculate, and analyse data in a user-friendly way
e.g. a table of vegetable products. Filter fields to only show name of products and price

Question 7

What is an accounts assistant role?

Answer 7

Sales ledger - Records all sales regardless of whether you receive the payment. Customer queries and driver schedules
Purchase ledger - processing invoices in Sage
Credit control - Chasing late payments
Banking tasks - Reconciling the company accounts

Question 8

VAT return?

Answer 8

Done quarterly and how much VAT a company is due to pay HMRC

Question 9

Prepayment?

Answer 9

Payment in advance
Common prepayments are wages and rent

Question 10

Accruals?

Answer 10

Revenue or expenses earned, not yet recorded in the company’s financial statements

Question 11

What is Eisenhower matrix?

Answer 11

What to do first - Done immediately
What to schedule - For the long-term
What to delegate - Need help from others
What to delete - ultimately irrelevant

Question 12

What is fixed asset register?

Answer 12

Record of all the fixed assets that a company owns

Question 13

How is my telephone manner?

Answer 13

Handle conflict by removing emotion, don’t be angry
Answer the phone promptly, don’t leave customer waiting
Speak clearly to address customer’s issue, don’t ramble

Question 14

What is made note of in a credit control call?

Answer 14

Invoice reference number
Goods / services the invoice is for
Invoice issue date
Number of days overdue (if applicable)
Record of communication

Question 15

What is a credit controller?

Answer 15

Maintaining customer relations
Account reconciliation
Creating and upholding payment procedures and policies

Question 16

What is the name of our CEO?

Answer 16

(Name here)

Question 17

VAT rates?

Answer 17

Standard rate: 20%. For most goods and services
Reduced rate: 5%. Children’s car seats and home energy
Zero rate: 0%. Most food and children’s clothes

VAT inclusive - includes tax as part of the purchase order
VAT exclusive - tax is added onto the purchase order

Question 18

CIS returns?

Answer 18

Contractors are expected to withhold 20% to 30% of payment due to a subcontractor, so it can be paid to HMRC via CIS monthly return

Question 19

What is BACS?

Answer 19

Owned by PayUK
Clearing and settlement of UK automated direct debit

Question 20

What are invoices?

Answer 20

A time-stamped commercial document that itemizes and records a transaction between a buyer and a seller

Question 21

What is exclusive to bookkeeping?

Answer 21

Data entry
Bank reconciliation
Invoicing
Paying bills

Question 22

What is included in bookkeeping and accounting?

Answer 22

Monthly reports
Payroll
Tax preparation

Question 23

What is exclusive to accounting?

Answer 23

End of year report

Question 24

What is made note of in a credit control call?

Answer 24

Invoice reference number
Invoice issue date
Goods/services the invoice is for
Number of days overdue
Communication had so far

Question 25

What is in a sales invoice?

Answer 25

Invoice to
Invoice date
Invoice number
Description
Unit Price
Total

If VAT registered:
VAT registration number
VAT rate per item
VAT amount

Question 26

Aged receivables report?

Answer 26

Date of the report
Customer name
Amount due

Question 27

What is SUMIF?

Answer 27

SUMIF function in Excel sums cells based on one criteria
Range of cells then criteria (e.g. values greater than 5)