What's your role at Emma like?
Emma – The Sleep Company is successful e-commerce and sleep technology company, developing and selling outstanding sleep products which aim to enhance people’s sleep. As part of the accounts payable team, I am basically responsible for the processing to payment of invoices for various entities of the Company globally. Processing of the invoices includes validation as to whether these expenses are valid transactions of the Company. Payment is simply processing in the banks the transactions that are already due for settlement. As long as you have basic accounting knowledge, the work that we do is easily understandable.
What's your background?
I grew up where I was born – in Legazpi City, Albay. Education-wise, the schools that I was admitted and entered, from nursery to college, were decent schools to learn enough and more for what lies ahead when I was still a student. I performed well academically and involved myself in extra-curricular activities and various organizations. The former nurtured my brain, while the latter allowed me to hone my interpersonal skills and possible hidden talents. I took the licensure examination for CPA in October 2019 and passed on the first take. So far, this has been the highlight of my life as other than I already gained the title of what I have been studying for, the October 2019 board exam for CPAs has such a low passing rate compared to the previous licensure examinations. Prior to knowing whether I was a CPA, I accepted an offer with one of the Big 4 Auditing Firms as an auditor in which I practised my degree and jumpstarted my career. A year and a half later, I joined Emma. I discovered Emma one late night when I can’t sleep. How ironic was it to find a sleep company on a sleepless night! I applied through the company link, aced the examinations and interviews, now here I am 3 months later – continuously making an impact in the simplest ways I can.
What's the coolest thing about your role?
The coolest thing about working in Emma is the freedom to express your opinions and suggestions. Emmies are open-minded to ideas that you bring to the table during discussions, so long as they are valid and sticks to the agenda. No Company has the perfect accounting process or controls yet, and so we are free to suggest whatever we think could help our current procedures.
What can you say you are proud of accomplishing at Emma?
Being 3 months in, the projects I have accomplished are more of internal achievements and progress tracking as to what I have learned so far. Despite being a relatively new Emmie, I am proud of being able to toss my ideas and suggestions which I believe can aid our accounting processes. I have volunteered to be the Emmie in charge of several team processes and is likewise accountable for these. Even with the short period, I have been in the Company, with what I have achieved, the agility of tasks here in Emma allowed me to grow faster as well professionally.
What’s the toughest part of your role?
The responsibility I hold is what I expected from what was discussed to me prior to accepting the offer of Emma. The time I allot for these tasks and other sudden work is enough so I don’t even work on weekends, holidays, and even beyond working hours. The only limitation would be not getting to experience other fields of accounting, however, recently, this has been made possible through internal team swaps which I intend to apply for once I crave for more knowledge and experience which I cannot get if I stay on the same team for a long time.
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