Work Experience & Educational Background Essay

I am employed in the accounting department at an insurance company. I obtained the job due to my professional skills and abilities, which are of the utmost importance for my professional career. In order to develop my professional skills I attended the following classes: Principles of Accounting which helped me to master the complete accounting cycle, while Intermediate Accounting reinforced my knowledge of the financial statements. It is due to Immediate Accounting I learned where the information came from and how to compose the statements.   Also, I attended Computerized accounting classes such as Quick Books and Peachtree, have also proved to be useful as I use Peachtree at my current employment.  Computerized classes are extremely important in the contemporary business environment and I need to develop my computing skills and abilities to keep pace with constantly progressing technologies. Furthermore, Electronic Spreadsheets has proved to be helpful too because I use a large number of spreadsheets that I must maintain and create in my day to day duties.

I am currently employed as Accounting Associate at American Fellowship Mutual Insurance Company.  I have gained solid accounting skills such as reconciling bank statements, preparing general journal entries, and maintaining fixed assets as well as investments. I steadily worked to obtain this position developing my professional skills and abilities. My previous position was an Accounts Payable Clerk at Insurance Program Administrators and it was a very useful experience for me.  That position helped me to shape the professional vision of the complete structures that I needed to understand the entire accounts payable cycle, from the beginning when the invoices are received and then I have to code them to the appropriate general ledger number, until the check is printed for payment. Also, I have learned from both positions to be extremely detail-oriented, scrupulous. This professional characteristic of mine is very helpful when I need to match and review invoices.

However, initially my education had nothing to do with accounting since I had different plans concerning my professional career. At the beginning of my professional education, I was studying nursing part-time at Oakland Community College (OCC) with a focus on the Medical Transcription. It was at OCC where I completed some of the general prerequisite classes.  Due to the shift in my family obligations, I needed to change my career. This is why I transferred to the Davenport University to study accounting there. I started my accounting degree part-time since I had to combine my work and education.  Unfortunately, I had to stop attending the University to deal with family issues, which forced me to return back to my family and to spend more time with my relatives.  I later moved to a new home and upon getting settled, I received a flyer about Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) that inspired me to make an appointment and I began attending classes part-time soon after.  I was not happy with HFCC. It was a good school, but it failed to meet my expectations and my demands in regard to the quality of education.

I once again moved but this time I left the city of Detroit for Downriver. I noticed a flyer in the mail from Baker College, which led me to their website. I was impressed by the offer made by Baker College and I decided to make an appointment. Finally, I found what I was missing in my education. Baker is a better fit for me. I like the classes and the instructors and it has more of the personal touch that I needed since I believe that educators should find an individual approach to each student to meet his or her needs and interests. In addition, Baker College sets high standards of education which are very important for me.

Chosen Career Field

Accounting is my chosen career and it is defined as the system of recording and summarizing business and financial transactions, analyzing, verifying, and reporting the results.

My current employer, American Fellowship Mutual Insurance Company, is an insurance company that provides automobile and homeowners insurance. The history of American Fellowship began with the married couple that had an idea to look out for the auto industry were Maurice A Fox and his wife Emma Fox on August18th started American Fellowship, 1920, who became president and secretary of treasury respectively. They commenced business on May 11, 1921 and, at that time, their business was known as Detroit Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.

Their location was 2865 E Grand Blvd in Detroit. The name was changed to American Fellowship Mutual Insurance Company in 1959, when they decided to insure homes in addition to the insurance of automobiles.  Today, they are located on 25925 Telegraph Rd Ste 200 Southfield, MI.  American Fellowship has only twenty-seven employees with no physical facilities.

American Fellowship is a small Michigan based insurance company, and just like every other small company they had to make staff adjustments by laying off a few general clerks. The standard rate increases on the premiums payments were due to the challenges of the local and statewide economy. Any adjustment with the staff, such as downsizing, regarding the economy is discussed with management and I would not have anything to do with that.  In such I would excluded from the participation of the management of the company and I could not influence decisions taken by the administration of the company. American Fellowship is a very different company. The major weakness of American Fellowship is its size. American Fellowship is a small company and the Chairman of the Board is an elder man, who is not very familiar with modern technology. Hence, the company has a large number of internal control problems.  The computer system they utilize is over twenty years old and it is not accurate.  It is usually off by anywhere from ninety to several hundred dollars in regards to the insurance quotes to customers and insurance agents.  The Accounts payable system does not recognize when an invoice is paid twice or if an insured’s refund check is a duplicate.  I have made a few suggestions to my supervisor concerning switching to Peachtree for the accounts payables.  However, he told me in confidence that, since I am a woman, I would not be taken seriously and that the company is not interested in making any changes. Therefore, the company will keep doing what they have been doing for the past several years.

American Fellowship’s competitors are as follows:  AAA, State Farm,   Citizens, and all other personal automobile and homeowners insurance companies in Michigan.

My responsibilities include the preparation of monthly journal entries, processing accounts payable, monthly reconciliation of our four bank accounts to reconcile and maintain the fixed assets and the investments.  I also assist the insurance agents with questions and discrepancies regarding commissions as well as answering questions from mortgage companies and insurances customers with premium payments by phone.   My previous accounting classes have helped me to complete these responsibilities and the required computer classes were a great help also.

Auditing has been beneficial to me since it helps to make sure that everything is processed correctly, and when the time comes for the auditors to review American Fellowship Mutual Insurance Company, I know what is expected of me and how to retrieve all the necessary documents. American Fellowship requires about one year or less office experience preferably in an insurance setting. There are no requirements for supervisory because the only supervisors at American Fellowship are Managers that were promoted due to twenty-five or more years with the company. thus, the company is focused on loyal employees and I should count on positive effects of my professional work if I stay loyal to the company.   American Fellowship is not concerned with education that means that a college degree is not necessary to obtain employment.   My position is of great importance to the company because the Accounting Department checks that everything is accounted for, all the premium payments are posted to the right accounts. In addition, the Accounting Department maintains the financial structure of the company.

The company’s organization chart is as follows:  Chairman of the Board, President, Vice-President of Administration, Vice President-Secretary And General Counsel, Executive Secretary-Treasury, Controller and Operation Manager.

Relevant Courses

My income tax and auditing classes have been particularly for my professional development.  It is due to those classes, I finally found an aspect of accounting that I enjoy and will pursue after graduating from Baker, which is auditing and I plan to continue my education in order to become a fraud examiner.  I would suggest adding a more advanced excel class, which can enlarge my skills of working with excel application, since many companies are expecting candidates to be proficient with pivot tables and more advanced Excel formulas and macros, while in the future this trend will grow stronger.  All of my classes, which I attended so far, have helped me to prepare for my Bachelor degree in Accounting.