She was always intimidated by jobs that involved numbers so a profession in that field was never a blip on her career radar. Marketing and design were where she set her sights. She could be creative and tell a story. Then in 2009, she changed directions and took a job with Areas in accounts payable handling travel expense reports.
That is when she discovered that numbers were actually not difficult to navigate and in fact, could paint a vivid picture of how well or deficient a location was faring. This could then lead to creating a strategy for improvement. Understanding the power of these numbers became so appealing she changed her major from marketing to accounting.
“I always thought that numbers were hard to figure out, but I started seeing how they could tell the story of how the businesses were doing,” says this person. “I saw locations at many airports open for the first time and realized that their numbers paint a picture and give us a tool to figure out how to do better.”
This Guess Who feature has been with Areas for 13 years and serves as a liaison between field operations and accounting. “I love working with the field and getting team members’ perspective on why things are going the way they are,” she says. “Seeing it on paper shows a different angle so a more well-rounded solution can be created, and we can set new goals.”
She says every solution is tailored to the struggles at the specific location. “We review the P&L and look at how we can improve on the different accounts. Take payroll as an example, I’ll sit down with the team, and we will review the current labor schedules, and make adjustments to ensure we are scheduling efficiently at peak times. If we look at cost of goods, we can review the sales mix and identify our alcohol percentage, which leads us to work with other departments in an effort to improve sales. Lastly, we focus on training, and having one-on-ones with each location to further provide assistance to the field.”
She believes the most challenging piece of the job is time and trying to get everything to everyone, so they have the time to review the numbers during the month-end close. “There is so much more opportunity, in terms of reporting that our department could create if we had the time. I look forward to when CrunchTime, and our finance dashboards get rolled out; because then I and others on the team can better serve the company by digging into more data.”