Supporting Schedules

Living alone, I admit that I spend a lot of time thinking about the past.  And the hobby of digging into my family history certainly aids to that phenomenon.  This week, however, there has been another string to that bow.  I've been reminded of my past career, in which I worked in the accounts departments of a sequence of industrial and commercial businesses across East Anglia.

In that profession, one of the most stressful times is that between the end of the financial year and the arrival of the audit team.  In the larger organisations, one of the most time consuming aspects of the pre-audit season was the compilation of Supporting Schedules.  Once the actual figures have been balanced (something that's automatic these days with computerised ledger systems), there is the need to justify that these balances actually reflect what has been going on.

At one office in my past, this was further complicated by the fact that we were dealing with transactions that were not all denominated in Sterling.  With an American parent and two other European subsidiaries, we dealt with four currencies as a matter of course, and there were always difficulties arising from the rates of exchange that had been used.

After that career, when I began work as a self-employed courier driver, it was second nature to do my own accounts.  With a 'business' of that small size, the tax inspector was only really interested in three figures, and in fourteen years I was never asked for more detail.  Nevertheless I now have, stored away in a cupboard, something resembling the same formal accounts for each year as would be prepared and submitted for a business with a million-pound turnover.

Some would say that I was playing a game, and I admit that that's a realistic judgement, but it gave me a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction.  Of course, the great tool that assisted in the preparation of these figures was Excel, and the whole 'presentation' included reports of journeys, fuel consumption, and comparisons to a budget that was really no more than an initial estimate of how the coming year would pan out, and not a tool to control expenditure.

Soon after I moved to Yorkshire, I learned that my church was looking for an area treasurer, and I offered my services, thinking that I ought to be well able to cope with this.  As with my predecessor in the post, Excel has played a great role in this.  I spent quite a while following through her spreadsheets for 2020, and found that these were very complex.  With all due caution I decided them to be unnecessarily so, determined what ought to be required for 2021, and spent a week or so compiling a fresh suite of spreadsheets into which I slotted all the year's transactions as they were provided to me.

Now, with only a few weeks left before the date that these have been promised to the accountants, I've reached that time of pressure that I described at the beginning, and the last week has been devoted to preparing those Supporting Schedules.

As I look back on the task, which is now almost complete, I realise that this exercise - that of explaining and justifying balances - can be applied not only to financial results, but also to the present-day outcomes of the various compartments of my life.  I suppose the very fact that I'm doing this particular job in the first place is just one of those compartments for review!  If my life weren't quite so full, would I actually be happier, or would I regret not having so many options to which to turn my hand?