PREFACE

It is mandatory at Midlands State University for students studying Bachelor of Commerce

Accounting Honors Degree to undergo Work Related Learning during the third year of studies,
during that period a students is obliged to compile three reports. Following the compilation, the
first report was submitted after the first quarter, that is, three months of Work Related Learning
Course, this report, that is, the second report serves to cover detailed analysis of activities carried
out by the author from the beginning of the attachment up to date.

This report serves to explain on major tasks performed by the student, experience gained,
challenges faced and the relevancy and applicability of modules theoretically learnt in to
practical working environment at James North Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. It serves to unveil what was
happening during the first six month of Work Related Learning.

ACKNOWLEGDEMENT
The authors applause goes to management at James North Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd for giving him
the opportunity for Work Related Learning at their organization. Special thanks goes to the
authors immediate supervisor, Mr. A. Magada (Company Accountant) for unwavering support,
inspiration and motivation he gave in assisting to put theory into practice.
Many thanks also goes to the Finance and Administration staff who includes, Mr Mangoro
(Finance Manager), Mr Midzi (Cashbook Clerk), Mr Dambanemweya (Stock and Costing
Clerk), Mr Makurumidze (Wages and Creditors Clerk) and Mr Bvonyongwa (Credit Controller)
who helped in grasping the organisational procedures and operational systems.
I would like to thank my parents for their continuous support and encouragement to me to
achieve the best of my potential.
The author also would not forget the encouragement and support received from his best friends,
B Mahembe, T Chinjo and T Chasakara and all the students who assisted and helped him in
writing his second report.

May God richly bless them all?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This second report is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Midlands State
University Bachelor of Commerce Accounting Honors Degree; the report is a continuation of the
first report, and in this particular report, the author will highlight the duties assigned in the
finance department, giving a descriptive account of the degree of execution, the relationship
between theory and practice as well as the relevance of the activities undertaken in the field of
Accounting.

In this report, the author will also highlight challenges faced during the process of carrying out
tasks which assigned to him.. Lastly the report is going to highlight the skills and developments,
expectations, challenges faced, then conclusions and recommendations within the period of
work-related at James North Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd.

CHAPTER 1
THE FINANCE DEPARTMENT
This is a very crucial department of the organization which manages companys finance for day
to day activities of the organization and ensures the viability of the company as a whole. This the
department in which the author carried out his attachment. The department has different
subsections which includes; cash management, debtors section, creditors and cost and stock
management. The Accounting package used by the company is SAGE LINE 500 which is just as
follows.

The hierarchy of James Norths accounts department is as follows:

FINANCE MANAGER
The finance department is being headed by the finance manager and he is the one who have the
final say on all the decisions of the department. The finance manager and the general manager
are the authorized signatories for all financial decisions of the company as a whole. The finance
manager is also responsible for all the financial planning.The finance manager is not responsible
for the day to day running of the department; this is the responsibility of the accountant. The
finance manager reports to the general manager.

ACCOUNTANT
The accountant is the one who monitors day to day activities of the department and he is the one
who is responsible of assigning duties to students on attachment in the department since they

have no job description. His duties among others are; coordinating and controlling the activities
of the whole department, he ensures that individual objectives of his subordinates are met and the
intended results have been attained, he also prepares the interim and annual financial reports and
the preparation of financial budgets for the Company. The accountant monitors the financial
activities of the company. The following are under his control:

credit controller,
debtorsclerk,
creditorsclerk,
cash management clerk,
inventory and costing clerk,
cashier as well as cash disbursement and banking clerk.

CASH DISBURSEMENT CLERK

The cash disbursement clerk works hand in hand with the cash disbursement auditor. They
coordinate and control the movement of cash in the company. The main duties of the cash
disbursement clerk among others are as follows:

Drafting of payment plan and processing of daily payments

Doing all paperwork before transacting with banks
Disbursement of cash to various stakeholders
Attaching invoices to respective vouchers
Capturing and posting of all vouchers into the system using Sage Line 500

CASH DISBURSEMENT AUDITOR

The cash disbursement auditor works hand in hand with the cash disbursement clerk and his
main duties as the auditor is to check on all disbursements if they are all authorized and if the
invoices are attached to various vouchers. He is also responsible for the following among other
things:

The preparation of bank reconciliations, that is, daily bank reconciliations as well as

monthly bank reconciliations.

He is also responsible for preparing some cash flow forecasts.
He prepares an asset register.

CREDIT CONTROLLER
The credit controller is the one who is responsible for the opening of accounts for those
customers who wish to by goods on credit after assessing the credit worthiness of the customer
through confirmation with the trade referees that will be listed by the customer. The credit
controller works hand in hand with the debtors clerk. Some of his duties among others are:

Holding meetings with departmental managers to update them on the status of debtors
Allocation of receipts and invoices in cash on delivery and prepayment accounts
Reversal of entries in cases where customers have been overcharged or wrong type of

goods have been delivered

Preparation of weekly and monthly debtors aged analysis
Reconciliations of debtors accounts

DEBTORS CLERK
The debtors clerk works hand in hand with the credit controller since their duties and
responsibilities are interlinked. The following are his duties among others:

Compiling daily report reconciling fiscalised device to the accounting system(SAGE)

Daily debtors follow up for allocated customers
Capturing of debtors allocation journals
Compiling daily cash sales report

CREDITORS CLERK
The creditors clerk deals with the payment of the companys suppliers as well as control of
creditors. The following are his duties among others:

Reconciliation of suppliers accounts

Compiling of creditors age analysis as well as creditors notes
Preparation of expense analysis
Capturing and posting of suppliers invoices

INVENTORY AND COSTING CLERK

The inventory and costing clerk is responsible for the costing function as well as stocks accruals
management. He arranges monthly stock takes and makes sure that all consignment stocks have
been counted. It is his responsibility to make sure that the cost of sales figure is reasonable and
reliable. Below are some of his duties among others:

Daily costing of special orders

Daily reconciliation of stocks accruals
Weekly inventory audits
Monthly preparation of valuation report
Reconciliation of cost of sales

CHAPTER2
PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS BEFORE
WORK RELATED LEARNING
Perceptions and expectations
Before embarking on the Work Related Learning at James North Zimbabwe, i had high hopes
and expectations to apply the whole package of the Accounting theory at work. My other
anticipation was the use of Pastel as learnt from the University as we as application of Microsoft

tools for execution of duties. The welcome at the work place was something I was worried about
and how i could fit in the organization. Some worries kept popping up if I was going to execute
duties as expected and whether staff will be accommodative to errors. I also expected to get a lot
of support and guidance as an intern and I was looking forward to appreciate the role of team
working to carry out duties. Also as a finance and administration intern, I thought my
concentration will be on the recording of transactions. More anticipation also rested on the
application of almost all that was learnt at University i.e. financial accounting; management and
cost accounting; business communication; business law; information technology; taxation;
business management; economics and auditing among others.

Industrial reality
Basing on the expectations highlighted above, I had an appreciation of what is actually
transpiring in the industry. At James North, another package different from PASTEL is used
which calls for the need to grasp the use of Information Technology for carrying out tasks.
However, in actual practice I had a mastery of skill in the use of Microsoft tools which meant a
combination of theory to effect practice. Actual activity also reflected more of deviations from
expectations as management proved so welcome and the staff was very supportive. As a finance
intern, i was also included in programming activities which ruled out the expectation of being
concentrated in finance and administration activities only.

Understanding operations
This was the first activity that got me introduced at James North Zimbabwe. Induction and
orientation were the prime activities to occupy my first few weeks at the organization and i
appreciated that one cannot be imbibed into the organization so quickly without having time to
understand the operations. I was also introduced to the programming activities to fully equip
myself with the required knowledge of the organization.

CHAPTER 3
DUTIES PERFORMED
1. CASH MANAGEMENT SECTION

Cash is the life blood of a business, at James North cash is mainly distributed through petty cash
vouchers, cash withdrawals as well as bank transfers, all these forms of payment has to be
authorized by the General Manager and the Finance Manager before cash is disbursed. Petty cash
vouchers will be having an amount of $100 and below and a payments plan is made for all
payments greater than $100, the payment plan has to be authorized by the FM and GM before
cash is withdrawn.The cash flow for petty cash is maintained at a float of $2000.This is the
department in which author spent most his time in since it was the section which was having a lot
of work and back log. Under cash management the author carried out the following tasks among
others:
Capturing of transactions into the system.
Doing the paper work for payments to be done through bank transfers.
Preparing bank reconciliation statements.
Preparing some cash flow forecasts.

1.1 CAPTURING OF TRANSACTIONS INTO THE

SYTEM

When a cash requisition voucher is filled and the proper authorization is made, that is the
General Manager and Finance Manager has signed the voucher, cash is then disbursed to the
recipient. When cash have been disbursed the recipient have to bring back an invoice or receipt
which shows that the money have been used for the purpose intended to and the value of the
product bought, this invoice is then attached to the voucher. After the invoices are attached to
vouchers they are then posted into the system. The invoice will be also be used for tax purposes
where the company will need to claim input tax, so this must also be posted into the system. The
author did the posting of transactions into the system using Cash Management Module of SAGE
LINE 500. The critical areas that the author has to take great caution were the General
Ledger(G.L) codes and the bank accounts. The G.L codes ensure that an item is correctly
allocated to the right expenditure code, for example if money requested was for fuel then the
amount was posted to fuel expense code. During the process of posting the author also has to
take note of the bank account where the money will have withdrawn from or transferred from

since these will have a great impact on bank reconciliations. Transfers were mainly made to
creditors.

This task taught the author much on how the system works from the initiation of all cash
transactions and master the way in which the accounting package of Sage Line 500 works. This
process also taught the author about the importance of good filling.

1.2 PREPARING BANK RECONCILIATION

STATEMENTS
After the author mastered how the cash transactions work from the requisition upto when the
voucher is posted into the system, he then continues to carry out monthly bank reconciliations.
These reconciliations also work as a control measure for cash transactions, since at any given
time the bank balance should be equal to the cash book balance and if there are some differences
there will be a need to note what actually transpired and come up with reconciling items and
determine their nature.

The author started bank on reconciling Stanbic USD account which is the main account of the
company and this is the account which was having a lot of activities. The author took a bank
statement supplied by the bank and cash book that will be spooled from Bank Account
Distribution of Cash Management Module of Sage Line 500. With these two the author will then
tick items which appear on both the bank statement and the cash book. After the ticking the
author will then prepare reconciliationstatement so that the bank balance will be equal to the cash
book balance. Some reconciling items were as a result of cut off dates and some were as a result
of some miss-posts which will have done during the posting process either by cash management
or sales people or creditors person. After the reconciliation statement reconciling items were

acted upon and the only reconciling items that were left were those which were going to clear in
the next period that were mainly due to the effects of cutoff dates.

The process of bank reconciliations taught the author well about the need for great caution and
accuracy on every transaction that is done in the business processes especially when it comes to
the issues to do with the posting. The process also enabled the author to know the system of Sage
Line 500 very well since he was supposed to navigate and drill done the transaction in order to
get to the bottom line of what will have actually transpired.These reconciliations also enabled the
author to master the processes of reconciliation which enabled to easily master reconciliations
done in other sections.

1.3 PREPARATION OF CASH FLOW FORECASTS

Now that the author was well familiar with business transactions and how the system works he
was now tasked to prepare some weekly cash flow forecasts. These forecasts were important for
planning and budgeting purposes especially when it comes to the use of optimal resource, in this
case which was cash. The author has to prepare cash flow forecast through consultation with
various departments which includes the debtors section, creditors section, the procurement
department and the work shop department among others.

During the preparation of the cash flow forecast the author consult the debtors section
concerning some receipts that were expected to come through and also some cash sales which
they were expecting to be sold following the normal trend of what normally happens. The author
will also consult the creditors person concerning those creditors which were having amounts that
were due to be paid. From the procurement department the author was given some amounts of
critical raw materials which were needed to be purchased for production process. The work shop
department will then give the author the figure for some repairs and maintenance that were
supposed to be done. The HR department will then give him the figures for wages and salaries

and also those costs related to employee welfare. With the input from all these departments the
author was able to come up with a comprehensive thing that will be used for decision making by
management. After the preparation of the forecast the author will then put some actual figures
that will have been incurred and determine the variances and then analyze the causes for these
variances, this will then aid future decision making process and for control purpose.

Here the author learned that due to liquidity crunch that is currently striking the country most of
the receipts and payments that were forecasted for were unable to be met which will then means
that management should be flexible enough to be able to accommodate the current situation and
plan accordingly.

2. DEBTORS/ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE SECTION

After the author has mastered everything in cash management he then moves on to the debtors
section,this section mainly deals with customers who buy goods on credit, in this section the
author was tasked to for make some follow ups on customers supplier statements so as to
prepare some individual debtors reconciliations.

2.1 INDIVIDUAL DEBTORS RECONCILIATIONS

The process of these reconciliations was that, the author will take the customers statement and
JNZ statement then comparesthe receipts and invoices that are on these statements at the end the
balances on these two statements must be equal. Where the balances differ it will then be
communicated to the customer maybe in some cases the customer will not be having some
invoices on their statement so they will then be sent a copy of that invoice as a proof, in some
circumstances the customer maybe claiming to have made a payment so a proof of payment will
be required, this will act as a control measure on the balances that will be owed by customers.
These reconciliations were done month on month.The main challenge on these reconciliations

was on those customers who did not sent their statements so that we can be able to reconcile the
two statements.

The process of requesting some statements from customers boosted the authors communication
skills since he have to talk to different people who have different reactions.

2.2 ALLOCATION AND WRITE OFF JOURNALS

Under the debtors section the author was also tasked to do some allocation journals for 2012
invoices and receipts that were still open in the system and this was a directive from the General
Manager. There were also some invoices for 2012 which were open in the system and these ones
were needed to be made some write offsince they were considered irrecoverable and most of
them were immaterial.

3. INVENTORY AND COSTING SECTION

Under this section the author was tasked to do the following among others:

Attending monthly stock takes

Keying in of stock take figures
Monthly preparations of stock accruals reconciliations
Consignment stocks reconciliations
Cost of sales analysis

3.1 ATTENDING MONTHLY STOCK TAKE

The author attended monthly stock counts as a team leader leading a team of four people who
will be counting the stock on the section that the author will have allocated to. The main
responsibility that the author was obliged to do was to make sure that everything is accurately
counted and he will then write it down on the stock sheet.

The stock take process was acting as a control measure to see if the physical stock in the
warehouse agrees with the one that will be shown in the system and if there are any variances
which are material they will then be investigated.

3.2 KEYING IN OF STOCK TAKE FIGURES

After the stock count process all the stock figures are supposed to be entered into the system
which is called the process of keying in, so the author was also tasked this process. Firstly the
author has to create a bin card for finished goods and a bin card for raw materials through Sage
Line 500 Stocks Module. After the creation of this bin card the author then puts some stock
figures to their respective product code. After the key in process a variance report is prepared,
where there are some variations adjustments are madethen run month end stock valuation. The
stock valuation report would comprise of finished products, raw materials and work in progress.
The stock valuation totals must tally with the stock value in the trial balance and if it does not
investigations will be done and adjustments will be made by way of a journal to make the
balances agree.

3.3 STOCK ACCRUALS RECONCILIATION

When stocks of raw materials are received the invoice in posted in the stores and stock accruals
is credited with the invoice amount of goods received and when a payment is made for those
particular invoicesstock accruals is debited either by cash management or creditors. So at the end
stock accruals account should have a zero balance.

At the month end the author was tasked to reconcile the stock accruals account so that it zeros
out. The main causes that were causing the account not to balance to zero were some errors that
were made during the process of posting so these errors were then corrected through a journal.

4. ASSISTING IN THE
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

PREPARATION

OF

Now that the author was well familiar with company transactions and accounts he was then
tasked to assist the accountant in the preparation of financial statements for board meeting. The
statements that were prepared are Statement of comprehensive income, Statement of financial
position and cash flow statement.