The National Zoo and Aquarium is a world class zoo. Its purpose is to inspire and assist in the conservation of the natural world through exciting and innovative educational experiences. The Zoo offers a number of unique experiences, which are operated under different entities.A consolidated set of financial statements was required for decision-making purposes. The consolidated group consists of four entities which requires a sub-consolidation of three of the entities, as well as a full consolidation. The consolidation was previously being completed manually, however a more timely and efficient process was deemed necessary.After consultations with the CFO, it was decided that Power BI would be the appropriate solution, as additional information could be added to the Power BI tool for future modifications.I was able to connect all the individual Xero entities, to Excel initially, and then to Power BI using an Odata feed link. To simplify the reporting, I created a new consolidated set of accounts for both the final Statement of Financial Position and the Profit and Loss statement, and created a simple process to map the individual entity accounts to the new consolidated accounts.Management is able to interact with the reports, including drilling down and through the data, changing the periods (monthly, quarterly, yearly) and share the reports with other stakeholders through the Power BI Cloud Service.The final solution also allows for the removal of related party accounts, and the ability to add manual journals to meet the requirements of management. The Power BI consolidation tool is able to retrospectively create consolidated accounts for historical periods.The engagement is ongoing and additional capabilities will be agreed upon and developed over time. However, the current development to date will greatly reduce the time taken to create a set of financial statements, improve its accuracy and allow for more periodical reporting.

Providing financial accounting and process improvement services (through automation) to Cloudtec Global and its clients.

TESG operates in the building compliance industry and was in Voluntary Administration at the time I was hired by the Administrator (Hamilton Murphy) to provide financial controller services during the Voluntary Administration period.The role involved providing financial support to the Administrator, in the form of completing VA documentation (such as the Report on Company Activities and Property - ROCAP) and also offering financial controller services to the Managing Director of TESG.The company previously did not have a very robust budgeting and reporting framework, so I worked with the various business (Building Surveyors, Fire Engineering and Essential Safety Measures) to develop individual budgets tailored to their specific requirements. This was achieved by having separate meetings with the various divisions to understand their business, such as their business development pipeline, contractual arrangements with clients and the current systems (Uptick, Xero etc.) in place to manage their projects and financials. This assisted me in designing tailored budgets that would allow for measurable and actionable KPIs to be developed for each business. These KPIs were then assigned to the most relevant staff in the division, and will be actively monitored on a monthly basis.A particular issue with the company before going into Voluntary Administration, was managing past due invoices and the credit worthiness of clients. I am currently working with the team to implement the CreditorWatch application across their divisions. I participated in training sessions on the application and quickly learnt how to set up the divisions in the system, create workflows and client groups that best suited the sensitivities of their clients when it came to recouping overdue invoices.The company is no longer in Administration and I am currently negotiating with TESG on a direct basis to provide ongoing financial controller services.

FoundU is a growing tech company that offers HR and Payroll automation to companies that are looking to streamline their recruiting, onboarding, rostering and payroll processes. The high level of growth led to a requirement for short term accounting services to assist with their billing process, and the rollover to their new billing system in their custom application.Initially I was tasked with understanding the billing process, in particular the various number of pricing models (actives users, fixed fee pricing, tiered pricing etc.) that were being offered to clients to best meet their needs. This led into the management of a small team that was responsible for ensuring that invoices were being correctly created, based on each client's specific pricing model.The more complex pricing models required working files to be created to support the billing, and these would have to be carefully reviewed to ensure their validity. Previous invoicing errors would often require manual intervention through the creation of journals to correct these errors.I provided support in determining whether clients were considered eligible for being upgraded to the new billing system, which negated the need for manual intervention in creating invoices. Over time, this greatly reduced the time taken to complete the invoice process.The company was also going through a pricing restructure at the time, and I provided financial analysis support to assist with identifying and stratifying the clients into predefined groups (based on current pricing, tenure and active users). The clients within each group when then have a uniform pricing change applied.This role provided me with a better understanding of how to manage billing integrations between a custom application and Xero, and how to apply a methodical approach within a pricing restructure process.

The initial scope of work was to ensure the financial accounts of a subsidiary (If You Say So Pty Ltd) were up to date and finalised, in preparation for the sale of the business to an interested party. The responsibilities included, reconciling all the outstanding bank transactions, verifying the validity of all assets and liabilities and preparing financial reports and responding to questions from the buyer.This initial work then led into additional work in completing similar work for the parent company (The Black Lab Coffee company) as the accounts had not been completed for the past nine months. In addition to the work completed for the subsidiary company, the intention was to automate the accounting processes as much as possible. The creating and implementation of business rules (to reduce the time take to complete the bank reconciliation process in Xero), implementing recurring invoices/bills for regular customers/supplies, setting up related party accounts to assist with the consolidation process and ensuring acounts balances were consistent between the parent company and its subsidiaries.

I am currently providing specialist process improvement support to the finance function at Civitas Group. The finance team is having issues with completing EOM accounting activities and reporting requirements for senior management. Initially, time was spent in understanding the business itself, accounting requirements and decision-making requirements of senior management. I was able to identify and scope over 20 individual areas in which the finance function could streamline their finance processes to achieve efficiencies, including reduced processing time and accuracy in reporting and also implementing better practice accounting procedures.To date these include:- Automating the creation of current financial reports by accessing company data (from multiple applications such as MYOB) through APIs and using Power Query in Excel to cleanse and transform data.- Refining the bank reconciliation process through the use of automated bank feeds and the creation of business rules to reduce errors and time to completion.- Developing an Excel model to extract and reconcile historical data from MYOB and the NDIS management system (Visual Care) to identify valid NDIS services provided by Civitas that were not submitted to the NDIA.- Developing an automated approach within MYOB and Excel (using Velixo) to completing consolidations for both tax and reporting purposes.- Upskilling current staff in the new applications, processes and methodologies that have been implemented to date to ensure continuity of the new processes.This engagement is currently ongoing on a more limited basis to ensure the processes are fully understood by the Civitas staff and are embedded into the standard operating procedures of the Civitas finance function.

The CEO was not able to make timely and strategic decisions based upon the native reporting capability from its NDIS CRM (Visual Care). The reports were not able to be produced at the project level which did not allow for the insights required to implement corrective actions.I was able to use my previous experience the Visual Care application to connect their instance to Power BI through an API. I developed a flexible database structure in order to build a number of visualisations that allowed for the identification of projects with poor or negative operating margins. The reports are entirely automated and can be refreshed weekly in minutes. The CEO is now able to make decisions quickly and decisively in order to rectify the profitability of these individual projects.This successful engagement has led to additional work with the client.

The Costing and Profitability Analysis lead for the Financial Strategy and Performance Team in Brisbane. We provide the following specialised services to clients:- Procurement Financial Advisory where we provide support in calculating and assessing the financial impact of a tendered offer in order to determine whether the client is receiving value for money. We can assist across the procurement lifecycle from the development of the tender documentation to the negotiations with the preferred tenderers(s). Our approach brings rigour and insight to the financial aspects of procurement.- Cost Estimation where we assist clients in predicting the future cost of an activity or asset and creating defensible cost estimates to support a range of decision making. We are able to apply a number of different cost estimate processes (such as parametric costing) using a number of different applications (such as @Risk by Palisade) to determine the confidence and variability in estimates.- Cost Allocation and Analysis which is vital for reasoned, robust and defensible decision-making by management. A key part of generating cost information is assigning resources to activities using an activity-based approach to provide an accurate indication of the cost and profitability of good and services being delivered to customers.- Financial Forecasing and Monitoring to assist organisations (and projects) in understanding not only what payments are being made but also why they are made. We bring simplicity to the regular production of financial reporting and forecasts by providing better practice frameworks to embed into the organisation and also applications that improve the recording and development of financial processes.We provide assistance to both State and Federal governments and also the private sector. We use a number of better practice approaches for the services we offer to accelerate our client delivery activities and increase the value we offer to clients.

I am a Manager in KPMG’s Government Advisory Services’ Practice with a focus on modelling and government financial management. I have undertaken a number of modelling and costing engagements for Australian Government Departments and Agencies.Key responsibilities • Develop robust and flexible excel-based cost models for use by various Commonwealth departments and statutory authorities.• Provide financial analysis support for Commonwealth tender processes from the initial Business Case development through to the tender evaluation stage.• Provide financial reporting assistance, including consolidation of financial statements, monthly reporting and reconciliations and other ad-hoc financial assistance as required.• Manage budgets and timelines for individual client jobs and implement strategies to ensure these remain on track.• Develop written job proposals to ensure a constant flow of work.• Deliver internal Chartered Accountant (CA) training to prospective internal CA candidates and also provide excel based training on an ad-hoc basis.• Mentor and provide performance feedback on junior staff.• Developed a number of internal guidelines and best practice methodology for cost modelling.Key achievements • Developed a Workforce Budgeting tool for the Workforce team of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC). The tool is being used to facilitate the workforce planning and scenario analysis requirements of GOLDOC in preparation for the Games.• Financial Analyst for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Passport Redevelopment Program tender process. Developed a lifecycle cost for the current passport system and calculated the benefits realisation of individual tenderer applications. Provided high level financial and pricing support during the negotiation process with preferred tenderers.

I worked as a Departmental Officer in the Medical Benefits Division where I was exposed to a range of budget related issues across the Division. I was involved in the development of new policy proposals and the administration of Commonwealth funding under various budget measures.Key responsibilities • Manage the budgeting and financial responsibilities for the Radiation Oncology section, including tracking current and expected future expenditure on various funding programs. • Develop and manage contracts between the Government and various radiation oncology service providers and related institutions.• Prepare written reports and minutes for approval by the Minister for Health & Ageing and other SES staff.• Manage various working group committees aimed at delivering improvements in the delivery of Radiation Oncology services.

I worked as a Licensing Officer in the Licensing and Quota management section where I was responsible for managing Commonwealth commercial fishing licenses for the SBT fishery and for developing an activity based pricing model to assist in the calculation of annual levies for all fisheries.Key responsibilities • Administer fishing licenses and manage quota transfers for the commercial fishing industry in the Southern Blue-fin Tuna Fishery.• Provide advice to commercial fisherman in relation to the various Commonwealth Fishing Acts and Regulations that govern commercial fisheries in Australia.• Provide budgeting assistance for the Licensing and Quota Management section.