Job Description + Day in the Life of Finance & Activities

Monday 6 February 2012, 12:21pm
by Alex Chow

B05.       The Vice-President (Finance and Activities) shall have the following responsibilities:

(a)    In the first instance, the VP (Finance and Activities) shall be responsible for the safeguarding of KUSU’s finances.

 This typically means that you attend monthly meetings with the operations managers and finance manager to discuss how the Union’s done in the past month. It also means overseeing the audit, chairing the Finance & General Purposes meeting, and jointly with the Sabbs giving a joint yes or no to big or one-off expenditures.   

(b)   In conjunction with the other Sabbatical Officers, the VP (Finance and Activities) shall delegate responsibility for the day-to-day running of KUSU and its trading services to the Senior Managers.  The VP (Finance and Activities) shall prepare annual and interim accounts, be joint signatory for KUSU, prepare and discuss contractual details with the Senior Managers, consulting where possible with Union Committee, Student Council and UGMs.

 Pretty much as above. In addition, reports have to be prepared for the Trustees on our financial performance.

(c)    In conjunction with the President and the Senior Managers, the VP (Finance and Activities) shall be responsible for KUSU’s Annual Budget submission to the University’s Finance Sub Committee.

This part has changed again. The original committee (Finance Sub Committee) no longer receives the accouts and it is now Financial Planning. Recently, they’ve been happy to receive the accounts without anyone presenting and to have a further meeting if they’re unhappy with anything.

(d)   The VP (Finance and Activities) shall monitor and approve KUSU expenditure in conjunction with the Senior Managers, being able, in accordance with KUSU’s Finance Regulations, to suspend any account that will exceed its budgeted expenditure.

This falls into point 1. The VP Finance typically monitors the amounts being spent on campaigns, elections and all sabbatical initiatives. They also go through every departmental account with the Operations Managers.

(e)   The VP (Finance and Activities) shall provide information on the state of KUSU’s finances when requested to do so by UGMs, Student Council and the University’s Finance Sub Committee.

 

Typically this is redrafting the audited accounts from Geen’s (our auditors) into a more student-friendly document whereby they can see how we performed against budget last year. It also involves working with the other general managers and finance manager and drafting a budget for the year. You’ll also have to keep on top of finances and it’s always a good idea to update every UGM on how the SU’s doing financially.

(f)     The VP (Finance and Activities) shall liaise and negotiate with all Union Committee Officers to justify expenditure requirements and as a result draw up budgetary recommendations, to implement KUSU policy as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Pretty much the same as point D. It’s also worth mentioning that together with the rest of the Sabbs you approve/deny any new purchasing proposals brought to F&GP.

(g)    Through liaison with the relevant staff, the VP (Finance and Activities) shall be responsible for the development of KUSU’s commercial services.

  What it says. A lot of the liaising is with the commercial operations manager and various different services managers

(h)          The VP (Finance and Activities) shall liaise with the Entertainments Officer on the financial aspects of the operation of KUSU’s Entertainments Department to ensure that regular entertainment is provided to correspond with expressed student needs.

 Liaising with the Ent’s officer and department to make sure good and relevant entertainment is put on. 

(i)                  The VP (Finance and Activities) shall liaise with KUSU’s Premises Department in such areas as building maintenance and development and the efficient operation of KUSU’s minibus services.

This mainly means securing funding for the safety bus at the transport and travel committee.

(j)           The VP (Finance and Activities) shall supervise the running of all Societies within KUSU, ensuring that they observe the Constitution and Bye-Laws.

 Pretty much the biggest part of the job and it’s a travesty that there’ only one point on it, shows how much the job can change. This point means that the VP Finance has ultimate responsibility over the running of societies at the SU. Typically this means keeping a track of every societies committee, organising society sign-ups, helping solve day-to-day problems, organising society training, overseeing the society accounts and the society grant system. These things sounds simple but when it’s for ~80 societies the work soon adds up.

 Potentially student activities will be taking away some of this admin work from the role, freeing up more time to develop provisions for societies. It will be up to the next VP Finance & Activities to further develop how that’s going to work.

(k)          The VP (Finance and Activities) shall sit on Union Committee, Staffing Committee and be chair of Finance and General Purposes Committee.

Pretty self explanatory.

(l)            The VP (Finance and Activities) shall attend the NUSSL convention.

 NUSSL is a purchasing consortium run by the NUS which a lot of Student Union’s use to lower the price of our alcohol by bulk buying. By attending the trade fair and convention you’ll get chance to talk to different suppliers and learn more of them. 

(m)         The VP (Finance and Activities) shall play an active role in University Open and Visit days.

A day in the life of VP Finance & Activities

10:00 AM – Get into work. Check whether I’ve got mail at the reception, potentially buy a Hot Chocolate at Barista.

10:03 AM – Have a look at diary to work out how many meetings I’ve got and when they are. I’ll typically then look at whether I’ve got to print any papers or do any final action points for the meeting (these are normally already done).

10:10 AM – Check e-mails and respond. These will mainly be society queries but can also be on anything from safety buses to Student Loan times. There can be up to 25 e-mails on an average day, but if it’s around society sign-up or anything similar, you can get up to twice that number. A lot of it will be simple admin tasks like recording committee details. However, some will be more complex, like sorting out outstanding society debts, society issues with the University, e.t.c. These may take quite a few calls/e-mails to sort out.

 I also use this time to check out any facebook messages, e.t.c.

11:00 – See a society exec. Over the course of the day, quite a few societies will come visit my office. Quite a few of these will be just asking for a quick signature or update. Some may have deeper queries, like asking how to make use of society grants, asking for help/advice in planning an event or on hiring out transport.

11:30 – Help out in the Finance office. Society accounts only have myself and one person in the Finance office looking over them. It can involve making sure the correct payments have gone to the correct societies, making sure society grants have gone in, etc. Alternatively it might be reviewing KUSU’s performance for the month.

12:00 – Lunch. I usually eat in my office and try to get a full half hour in. It’s not unusual to be interrupted during it though.

12:30 – Meeting preparation. This can be anything from organising students to ordering products and writing reports.

13:00 – Do some work towards manifesto points or website. Over the past couple of months I’ve worked with Student Activities to get some society “how to” guides onto the KUSU website. I’ve also done work on Milk It, Milk It 2, e.t.c. If I’m not doing any of the above I’ll look at my manifesto and see what else I can do to make the points become reality.

14:00 – Meeting (Finance & General Purposes). This position typically has only one or two “formal” meetings in a day, which is lighter than the likes of the President, Education or Welfare roles. The types of meeting vary in terms of preparation needed and length. The typical KUSU F&GP or Staffing meeting will usually take about an hour. F&GP needs a bit of preparation as there’s usually action points relating to society grants and such.

14:45 – Meeting with other sabbaticals e.t.c. to help develop KUSU and some of its decisions. Despite sharing a corridor we rarely get the chance to get together and let each other know what’s happening. We use this time to update on the things we are doing and any University developments the other Sabbs should know about. It’s also a good time to discuss UGMs, elections and such.      

16:00 – Clear some e-mails out the way before tomorrow.

16:30 – Go home.

 It’s very hard to write a “typical day” as there’s so much varied work. For example, I’ve sat on job panels, visited other Student Union’s, gone to University Senate, gone to a Trade Fair with loads of alcohol companies give you free samples so you’ll stock their products and done a mega boring audit. As the cliché goes, no two days are the same.

I’ve written 10-16:30, which is probably a typical day. However I can be at work until 10ish (UGM/Student Council) and during Freshers fortnight I probably worked 60~70 hour weeks.

 It’s also worth saying that I’ve found myself trying to find more things to do. The finance side of the job is slowly becoming more obsolete as the Trustee board (and by extension it’s Chair) and a more competent Commercial Operations Manager have meant a few parts of the VP F + A’s finance portfolio is being done in other places. In addition, the recently hired Student Activities team have meant that lots of the admin work for societies has been transferred to them. Whilst I found myself incredibly busy during September and October trying to fulfil all parts of my role, I’ve found that other parts are gradually being taken care of elsewhere in the last couple of months.

 That’s not to say that the job roles’ obsolete, I think KUSU will ALWAYS need a societies officer, not enough people pay attention to the fantastic work they’re doing. I just think in the next couple of years some other things might be incorporated into the role. It’s up to you! You might find that I’m being melodramatic and there’s loads of work to do.

 If you’ve got any questions, please do ask. I’m more than willing to help.