One of our core company values is “Have Fun, Be Humble”. Our finance team- work hard to make sure that everything and everyone gets paid. Simpson Strong-Tie Billing Specialist Maria shares what the dynamic financial team is responsible for at our company and how her team makes time to bond and have fun together.
As a finance team, we work together to ensure that Simpson Strong-Tie gets paid for the No-Equal® service that our sales, engineering, production, shipping and other teams provide our customers. Our team consists of six departments including the billing, purchasing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, claims and accounting departments.
Finance is not only about numbers, but also about data analysis and auditing! Although I majored in marketing, I have always found interest in numbers and auditing. And it was this passion that led me to succeed in the finance field.
As a billing specialist, my main role consists of the auditing part of billing, where I check the root cause of errors (if any) on orders, and I always ensure our customers get their invoices correctly and on time. Another part of my job is helping our claims team and accounts payable team with some of their duties and projects. I have worked with our SAP team numerous times to improve some billing processes and I got selected to have a knowledge transfer session with another branch.
When the pandemic hit, our management had to make a quick decision and ask us to work from home for our safety. I immediately thought about the customers’ invoices that will automatically print on my printer which I would not have access to anymore. So, that month, I dedicated my time to calling our customers and getting valid email addresses. I had our customers switch to receive invoices via email instead of us mailing them out. Almost 90% of these customers agreed to keep receiving their invoices via email even after the pandemic ended, and that was a win for us — and for the environment!
Our jobs on the finance team can be fast-paced and demanding, so occasionally we plan a fun team activity to reconnect with each other outside of the office. This is in line with one of our nine company values, “Be Humble, Have Fun.” Our last outing was to an axe-throwing place where we got to *try* to stick the axes to the targets on the wooden wall in front of us (and I emphasize the word TRY here). Thank God, no one got injured during this outing.
We were separated into four groups, where each group focused on collecting the most points so they could make fun of the losing team! I didn’t know I could be THAT competitive! Surprisingly, I was able to hit the bull’s-eye three times and the edge of the wall and the floor the rest of the times.
While waiting for our turn, we caught up with one another, sharing what was going on in our personal lives. It was nice being able to reconnect and talk about all the changes that have happened in our lives since the pandemic.
I really respect companies that offer team-building activities for their employees. These kinds of events allow employees to step away from everyday tasks to remember that their value as human beings comes from more than their job performance!
My advice to anyone trying to discover a career path is to find something to do that you love to do, so you won’t have to work a day in your life! When you love your work, you bring your best to it and you make your teammates’ jobs more enjoyable, too!
