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Typical Week
Monday
Monday is not a good day for
accountants, as a 3 day work is
awaiting us. I start at 9 everyday.
The first thing is to prepare Cash
Flow and daily revenue report for
our General Manager and Financial
Controller. Every morning the GM
holds a 10 min meeting with all
Head of Departments to discuss current
issues.
Also every Monday evenings I meet
with my friends in central London at
one of my friends house, and we
talk about current events as well as
moral and spiritual subjects while
we have our tea.
Tuesday
After the Cash Flow reports and
morning meeting, I focus on
Payment and Receipts. I check every
single transaction credits and payment
with our system reconciled
against our bank account.
In the evening we have our school
meeting with the teachers. We discuss
previous week matters besides
next weeks plans. Especially this
week we have a very busy agenda as
the new term is to start and so many
things to be organized for the opening
day.
Wednesday
Invoices are getting more and more
on my desk, it is time to post them
into system and file them away for
VAT audit. IT takes almost a day to
clean my desk from Invoices. And of
the day I make sure that all credit
card transactions are inline with our
Front office transaction.
Thursday
As our Revenue Controller is off
today I have got to prepare a
Management Report checking Guest
Balances, Credit Limits, CC Refunds,
F&B voids and discounts, and sort
out any remaining customer queries
or Bank letters.
Friday
Hurray, Friday! I am sure this day is
the most favourite day for everyone.
Friday is my summary of all week, I
do bits and pieces as I do on other
days to keep updated.
Saturday
I wake up at the same time as midweek.
Have breakfast with the
teachers and get ready for 11, school
start. After four hours, we are all
exhausted at the same time. It is very
difficult to keep pace with kids.
Sunday Sunday, I either go out with my wife,
or picnic/bbq with friends. It is also
my day to cook at home.
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  My Background When I was at high school, politics and
foreign affairs subject were very popular,
and hence I went to University of
Istanbul to study International
Relations. I felt the importance of
English while at University and after
graduating I joined some of my classmates
and in 1997 came to London to
learn English. Although my intentions
was only a mere 3 months stay a good
opportunity to do a Master's degree in
Finance and Administration came up
and I took the opportunity in London.
While I was doing my Master's, the economic
crisis in Turkey broke out, so I
decided to stay and find a job in
London. I have now recently married
and live in South London with my wife.
There are two aspects of my working
life. In one hand, I work in a luxury
hotel in Mayfair as a Finance Manager,
in the other hand I run a supplementary
school on Saturdays for Turkish
speaking pupils.
Firstly, I want to mention my accounting
job. After a year working at Hilton
on Park Lane as an Income Auditor I
was offered a Finance Manager role at
Westbury Mayfair Hotel. I now run the
Finance Department of the 5 star hotel.
Secondly, I do run a supplementary
weekend school called Croydon
Anatolia. Basically, we teach Turkish to
our pupils and also provide some extra
help with their mainstream school sub-
jects. The satisfaction of teaching our
language and culture to our kids is
something I cannot describe. Our
weekend school is on Saturdays from
11 to 3pm. We teach Turkish, Maths,
Science and English. We also celebrate
our national and religious festivals.
I think if I didn't have such duty, I
would not stay in London. Although I
like London very much, I would live in
Istanbul and could get at a similar job
or maybe better. But because I believe
that helping our next generation in this
country is something I can never
achieve somewhere else.
My Work Environment At Westbury Mayfair hotel we are 5
people in the Accounts dept. within the
200 staff of the hotel. The hotel has 250
rooms with additional conference facilities.
Every company has a credit controller
(accounts receivable) who collect the
money, Purchase Ledger (Accounts
payable) who pays all the invoices,
General cashier, Payroll Manager, and
in the hotel sector there is also a position
for Revenue Controller / Income
Auditor. As supervisor of these positions
I get involved with all these procedures,
and at the end of the month
feed this data into the system to get a
trial balance sheet, and monthly Profit
& Lost accounts.
At Croydon Anatolia, we have around
60 students and 8 teachers who all
work voluntarily on Saturdays after
their full-time jobs during the week.
It is difficult for us to teach the children
in the limited time we have - with so
many things to teach. Luckily my wife
also helps with kinder garden class.
Worst Bits At the hotel the routine things of the
accounts department can get a bit
mundane.
At school, worst thing is dealing with a
student who doesn't listen. We have
only 4 hours to teach - and this is obviously
not enough.
Best Bits In accounts, best part is when you have
zero discrepancy at the end of reconciliations,
I really enjoy it.
At School witnessing students eager to
learn is a beautiful feeling. One of the
Pro-Insight members (Cemil) who is
now studying Medicine was one of my
students when I was a teacher. It is such
pleasure seeing my students being successful
in their career.
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