Faculty of Business and Economics
Internship in Accounting
ACO 481
Internship from 1 June to 1 July
By
ALINE FARAH
Presented to
Mr Jihad el hokayem
Fall 2018
Letter of Transmittal
Mr. Jihad El Hokayem,
Notre dame university
Dear Mr. Jihad El Hokayem:
Subject: Submission of internship report
This report is an outcome of the internship program that I have involved for 1 month in GAA& PARTNERS- Antelias. I have tried my best to prepare this report with providing all my effort and cover all aspect regarding this matter.
The following is a report that summarizes my 1-month internship at GAA & Partners in Antelias. It discusses my responsibilities and my achievements. In addition, it also contains a comparison of what I learned in NDU with my responsibilities and my recommendations to NDU on important courses and obsolete ones. I hope that you will find my report satisfactory and well written.Sincerely
Aline Farah
Naccache, Mount-Lebanon
Lebanon
Phone: +9613184337
E-mail: [email protected]
Summary
Internship program is the most significant stage for a BBA student. The length of internship program is one month or approximately 150 hours, which carries a greatest learning technique to know about the business and cope up the environment in such a way like trained employees. The experience that got by an intern during the internship period will make them more elegant and professional in their future job sector. I started my internship at GAA&PARTNERS, from June 1st, 2018 and finished at June 30th, 2018. The internship report focuses on Account Management Team as well as its activities in GAA&PARTNERS.
This report aims toward providing an overview on account management department of GAA&PARTNERS. While preparing this report it has been tried to reveal the insights of the account management Department & performance analysis of the organization. A few recommendations and suggestions were also prescribed based on the observation and findings. Moreover I have made a SWOT analysis to figure out some of the finding regarding the performance of GAA&PARTNERS. Finally I have included my suggestions and recommendations in order to eradicate the weaknesses of their department.
Table of content
Brief history and owners of the company ………………………………. 5
Description of available services………………………………………….6
Major clients and suppliers……………………………………………….7
Detailed description of the work accomplished………………………..8-9
SWOT Analysis of GAA&PARTNERS………………………….……9-10
My training vs. my responsibilities at the company ……………………11
Concepts studied at NDU and applied………………………………11-12
Recommendations to improve the work of the organization…………12
Conclusion………………………………………………………………..13
Brief history and owners of the company
History
GAA & PARTNERS, Certified Public Accountant, is highly qualified firm of well trained and experienced professionals. Our commitment to excellence is exemplified by the personalized attention we provide our clients; our use of the best professional and hi-tech resources available; and our proven our client with timely and affordable professional services
Management
From authenticity to new techniques, GAA& PARTNERS had been established by Ghazi Abou Aoun, CPA expert in auditing and tax consultancy.
Influenced by his father, Samer Abou Aoun joined the company in continuity to what was built and to expand business horizon. As a CPA expert, Samer is adding value to the company’s valuable clients and support their business growth.
This combination will assure availability of a complete platform which will lead GAA;PARTNERS’ clients to achieve their target with steady steps by affording to them
Tools & techniques
Business reengineering
Creative vision
Assurance & commitment
GAA&PARTNERS aim will always be:
Do whatever you have to do
Work as much as you have to work for one holy target
Deliver any service on time and under quality control patronage.
Description of available services
Given our experience with the regulatory environment in which many of our clients operate, we have dedicated our services to multi-business practice. Timely and accurate financial reporting provides our clients with the critical information needed to make key business decisions. Through regular personal client contract we provide our clients with comprehensive and detailed information that influences the bottom line. Our company is engaged to provide below services but not limited to the following:
Company registration
Establishing and restructuring accounting department
Handing companies’ accounting records, filing and reporting
Outsourcing payroll
Compliance’s audit
Evaluating and assessing internal control
Government reports
Forensic accounting and reporting
Testifying and authentication of financial statements
Trademark certificate
Feasibility study – KAFLAT
Business plans
Major clients and suppliers
BO Print s.a.r.lVita Moda s.a.r.lArome s.a.r.lSaliba Printing press
Ets. Helene Abdel MassihDESIGNS heating & contracting sarlEts. Hani Abou HaydarEts. Sodium
O Pure s.a.r.lBureau maitre philippe torbeyAqua services s.a.r.lSahaco meublesBureau Abdel Satar el BibiIntersection Management s.a.r.lAmazon Shop
Bureau Francis Sfeir
Cremar Electical contracting
Consulting & Solution Provider
Mehaco s.a.r.lAstroy s.a.r.lGiscardo group s.a.r.lDany Azzam Haute coiffure & SPA
Soridental ( OFFSHORE)
BCC Services sarlNRJ sarlStrassco s.a.r.lAutostars (MOUNIR BAZERJI)
Subro- Daihatsu
HuggablesDetailed description of the work accomplished & Training program
The team I worked with consisted of three persons excluding me. First few days, I had to observe. I was asked to learn by communicating and taking note. The first week my primary work was to learn how to operate a customize software which is used for maintaining company account. By working as a member of this department, I had the opportunity to accumulate lot of information; to some extent I had access to see company’s voucher, ledger, audit report and so forth. It is worth to mention that, the members of the office were very informative. Moreover, studying in university course, course text book and search engine was helpful to accumulate theoretical knowledge with practical.
As a trainee in GAA;PARTNERS office located in Antelias, I had the opportunity to deal with different company such as medical, engineer, schools ect.. Each type has its own procedure, system, and method to be applied. In the accounting office, they follow the computerized system applied in the company itself. The most common systems used are, brains, omega and PSC. First, I will start talking about the systems. I learned a lot concerning this subject. I learned how to deal with the bank system, how to enter each of the visa and master card amounts in the clients account, how to do journal vouchers, in addition to all the transactions done with this system. Furthermore, I had the chance to learn the difference between a JV and JP, those symbols means journal voucher and journal purchase respectively. They are used to differentiate between official statements and personal statements. The transactions I was subject to are, purchase of goods, raw material, services, sales, and money transfer from account to account in the same bank, cash deposit, cash withdrawal, and check deposit in account, check withdrawal. Second, I learned how to analyze the bank statement, and compare it to the company statement in order to identify any deficiency. I practiced bank reconciliation; the person in charge of my internship taught me how to speak and contact company for missing bills and invoices, and I learnt how to deal with mistakes and correct them. I also learned how to analyze the stocks available in a restaurant and deal with every day transactions, system
adjustment, changing prices without forgetting the taxation part. Before even taking the course I learnt the different quarter to pay tax, how to calculate it and register it in the journal voucher. In addition the documents needed to add or remove employees such as R-10, R5, R3…
Since the first day, I was taught the different categories used in the Lebanese system for accounting, for example 401 suppliers, 6 expenses, 7 revenues and so forth.
Moreover, I learned how to stock files alphabetically and by number. I also learned something really important and it is time management. I used to work in a part time job in parallel to my internship and this helped me a lot in managing my time between my job, my internship and my family.
However it was a really good experience. Furthermore, I made a lot of connection at my internship whether with customers or with my coworkers which helped me a lot in my internship.
SWOT Analysis of GAA;PARTNERS
The SWOT analysis is the most basic but important step in order to evaluate the company’s performance. GAA&PARTNERS has a strength that differentiate it from competitor
Strength
Strong relationship with current client
Diversified product line
Good client services
Each company has its own weaknesses and should work on it so competitors cannot benefit from it
Weaknesses
Lack of experienced employees
Lack of job commitment of employees
Limited financial capacity
The market place is a wide arena and each company should know where there are opportunities and take the most of it
Opportunity
Advertising, and attending trade fair
clients become more concern regarding the quality of the service rather than its price
Adjust infrastructure to increase productivity
There are external factors that a company cannot have control over thus it will affect its performance
Threat
The market is becoming dreadfully competitive
Country’s economic crisis
Critical Observation
The Working environment is very friendly and employees are ready to help all the time. There is a good chain of command always followed. Moreover, GAA;PARTNERS has software to maintain their total accounting system while company is not relying on that software rather than keeping record of transaction manually. This manual method is time consuming and laborious. From my point of view I think the company should more efficiently use the customize software that they have. By upgrading and using software might fruitful for the company
My training vs. my responsibilities at the company
As an intern my work was not only to just watch employees doing their job and learn from them. My responsibilities were to practice and learn from my mistakes, to take time to understand each transaction made, to apply what I’ve been taught. I came to a point where the supervisor in charge of me gave me the authorization to enter transactions within the system, enter journal entries on my own and checking up after me. Plus, not talk about what I see in the office outside the office and to learn and take experience also, as a trainee I used to do some paper filing and arrangement.
Being a trainee at GAA and PARTNERS gave me the opportunity to discover how much I am capable of. How much responsibilities I can take care of. I learnt how to deal with all types of clients and personalities. Moreover I learnt how to follow steps and follow cycles to find the mistake made from before. Due to this internship I discovered how patient I am towards facing and solving problems. Furthermore I learnt how to observe and think in a very objective and rational manners in order to resolve every problem I encounter not only at work but also in life.
Concepts studied in the university and applied in the internship
As we all know the internship is the reality that theories and ideas studied in the university will be applied in real lifetime work. In my internship I have seen how the transactions and journal entries are made and this is one thing I learned at university. Also, I have seen how reconciliation between the bank statement and the company is made the way they work and cooperate together and here I can say that at university we need more practical cases concerning banks as accounting students. I have also seen how sales and purchases between two parties are made and how the withdrawal and check payments are recorded. In addition, I have seen how important are courses taken at university like the ACO 201, 202, 311, and 323 which helped me understand the journal entries of the bank and applying them in the system, in addition the BAF 311 which gave me an idea when it comes to time value of money.
In my personnel opinion, adding more practical course to the curriculum would give a better chance to students to benefit from their internship. After practicing at university some software such as sage50 and having an idea of a real life experience they would engage in better performance and learn faster. After the update of the contract sheet and adding taxation as a major course plus the accounting platform, students will be ready to engage in the internship having already an idea of the system and will be capable of assimilating more information than us who do not have these experiences in advance.
Recommendations to improve the work of the organization
Working at GAA&PARTNERS office was a great experience for me. I have learnt many things throughout my internship period. From my little knowledge what I have some recommendation as follows:
The office has very few employees comparing to the high pressure. The department can increase the workforce and share the work together. In order to increase the rate of work efficiency the company needs to upgrade their computers and software’s to a friendlier with more features than the present one. Moreover, they do waste a lot of paper for every transaction and every journal voucher remembering that the society is in transit to an Eco friendly workplace and doing so will increase their name to a brighter future. After my judgment looking genuinely in this idea, it would be really innovative to our country since other countries are now implementing this strategy. I would also suggest a different location, this office is mostly underground which is not very comfortable to visit and make less efficient for employees to work. This change would increase efficiency and the effectiveness of the work done on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
Conclusion
GAA;PARTNERS is an audit firm well known; they have a large variety of clients from different sector and different backgrounds. They work with medical, engineer, small businesses, bank and so forth. This was an added challenge to all the accounting staffs as the listing the accountability of the organization has gained a higher reach. The Accounting department took the challenge and proved their spirit by the timely publication of yearly Annual Financial Reports. Each and every section in the department deserves to be complemented. In this report, I have tried my best to identify management accounting technique and procedures used by this company. What and how GAA;PARTNERS uses accounting information for decision making along with describing the procedure and systems of using accounting information. In this report, I imply our acquired knowledge from accounting course and try to comply with the techniques procedure and systems followed by the company.
Thank You Letter
Naqqache,
Maten,
+9613184337
[email protected] 8, 2018
Mr. Samer Abou AounCPA
GAA;PARTNERS
AnteliasMatenDear Mr.Samer Abou AounI am writing to you concerning the internship opportunity in your company. I have heard of it through one the employee in the ministry of finance. He proposed and recommended me to apply for this internship position. I am an Accounting Senior student at Notre Dame University (NDU) with very limited experience in accounting.
As you are yourself a LACPA member and owning an accounting firm I believe that in your office I will be exposed to different situation and types of company which will enhance my knowledge in accounting and my skills in solving problems.
In order to get more details concerning this position and what are the requirements needed, I would like to take an appointment for an interview if possible. I am confident that my theoretical knowledge will be of good use in your company.
I am looking forward to work with you, I will be in touch with to know further details about the hiring plan and steps.
I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of doing my internship at GAA;PARTNERS. If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me by email at
[email protected] or by phone at +9613184337.
Thank you in advance , and I hope to hear from you in the near future.
Best regards,
Aline Farah
Enclosure :
Aline Farah
Naqqach, Lebanon
[email protected]
(961) 03-184337
Professional Experience
GAA;PARTNERS internship, 1 june 2018- 29 June 2018: Accounting Department
Data Entry
Purchase Order, Invoice, Receipt.
Bank reconciliation
Filing
Talent Square- Dbayeh, 01 August 2017- Present
Entertainment
Taking care of children between 2 to 12
Education
Bachelor Degree in Business Administration- Accounting, Notre Dame University (NDU)
2015- Present (expected graduation date: Spring 2019)
Dean’s list- fall 2016 and spring 2018
Economics and Sociology, College de la Sagesse- Jdeideh, 2015
Computer Skills
Microsoft Office
Limited knowledge in
MS Project
SPSS program.
Languages
Arabic
English
French
Interests and Hobbies:
2006- 2013: Piano lessons
2006-2013: Scouts engagement
Drama lessons in high school
May 10, 2019
Mr. Jihad El Hokayem,
Notre Dame University
Dear Mr. El Hokayem:
Subject Internship Course
In order to graduate in Spring 2019 from NDU, I still need 12 credits for which I will register in Spring 2019.
An internship arrangement has been made. A one-month internship has been made at GAA&PARTNERS from 1 June to 1 July 2018.
I thank you in advance for your kind support.
Sincerely
Aline Farah
Naccache, Mount-Lebanon
Lebanon
Phone: +9613184337
E-mail: [email protected]
