Meet our DLC Finance and Accounting Consultant, Anna Khojasaryan!
Meet our Finance and Accounting Consultant, Anna Khojasaryan! Anna has been a valuable part of DLC Consulting for 2 years! Get to know her better below!
Hometown: I was born in Armenia, but I grew up in Los Angeles for most of my life.
Alma Mater: My alma mater is CSUN, go Matadors!
Favorite things to do outside of the office: I enjoy hiking, decorating, trying new restaurants, cooking, and making ornaments.
How has your background impacted your experience as a consultant? As a consultant with an audit background, I have often been called upon to assist teams with audit requests on clients. In these situations, there is often a lot of back and forth on the items requested, as clients may not fully understand what the auditors are testing. To help prioritize the testing and streamline the process, I have created a tracker to keep both the auditors and the client informed about the status of audit requests at any given time. This has proven to be a valuable asset in ensuring that the audit process runs smoothly.
What is a typical workday for you? I begin my day by reviewing my emails and prioritizing tasks for the day. Tasks are first prioritized by deadline, with the most urgent tasks taking precedence. Next, tasks are arranged by importance, with more complex tasks, such as those that require research or analysis, given higher priority due to the potential longer completion time. To help me keep track of my tasks and prioritize my workload, I create a to-do list and review and update it regularly.
As part of a team that works 100% virtually, what technology or collaboration tools do you use to make your work life easier? Although not all my clients have been fully remote, my most recent client has required me to work remotely. To facilitate communication and collaboration in this environment, I have found Microsoft Teams to be a valuable tool. It has allowed our team members to meet and communicate face-to-face, even when they are not in the same physical location. I also use the chat feature to ask quick questions. In addition, I have used file sharing and storage solutions such as Dropbox and Sharepoint to access and share documents and other files easily with my team.
What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? I am motivated by the opportunity to learn new things and find new ways of doing things. I also enjoy improving processes for clients so that they can continue to approach tasks without any issues.
What kind of work have you been doing? During my time at DLC, I have been responsible for identifying issues and inefficiencies for clients, finding solutions, and implementing changes. I have also assisted clients with various types of audits.
Where do you see the benefits? At DLC, I have witnessed firsthand how our consultants benefit clients who are short-staffed, understaffed, or do not have the necessary expertise to handle complex transactions such as going public or merging with a larger company that requires extensive reporting. Our consultants work to establish processes and then seamlessly transition the work to a new, trained team to carry out the tasks effectively.
Linking data to finance and accounting, explain environments that have had lack of reporting infrastructure/inefficiencies and how have you brought organization and solutions: One of my clients experienced a significant change in management, resulting in the termination of majority of their staff. This presented a challenge as the company was only issuing checks to vendors, and the pandemic had caused delays in the mail service. As a result, vendors were threatening to shut down services or stop supplying to the company. I obtained approval from the controller to set up ACHs as a solution to this problem. We began the W9 process and collected the necessary ACH information, allowing us to process majority of the invoices via ACH. This streamlining of the payment process allowed us to reduce the number of checks being signed from approximately 120 per week to 30 per week within two weeks, which reduced the risk of delays or losses in payment and helped to maintain good relationships with vendors.
What is your process? While I am on a client, I make it a priority to stay alert and attentive to the team and work environment. I communicate with the team to get a better understanding of their job roles and duties, and if I identify any issues or concerns, I take steps to investigate and confirm my findings. I then communicate the issue to our point of contact at the client and provide suggestions on how to address it.
For example, during one of my projects, I was temporarily filling in for a manager who was on leave. She was responsible for completing month-end tasks. While working on her task list, I discovered that there was no fixed asset/depreciation reconciliation. Upon further review, I found that some expense accounts had unusually high balances. Upon further review it turned out the large balances was due to purchase of new equipment. I informed the controller of this issue and showed how $250k of fixed assets had been incorrectly expensed for the year. I suggested creating a fixed asset schedule with depreciation, and the controller agreed. The controller then provided me with the contact information for the facility/plant managers so that we could work together to determine the useful life of the equipment. By identifying and addressing this issue, we were able to ensure the accuracy of our financial records and make better informed decisions moving forward.
