The Finance department is a group wide resource for the company and one that works with all other departments. It is split into the core accounts team, the royalties team and the payroll team. The accounts team covers all aspects of financial accounting including recording assets and liabilities, sales, the costs associated with producing, marketing and distributing books and overhead costs. The team produces accounts to satisfy statutory requirements and perhaps more importantly to produce management accounting information for executives to help them manage the business. Payment of advances and royalties to our authors is a critical function and the royalty team takes full responsibility for making sure that this is right. It is also important that the employees all get paid and that is how the payroll department fits in!
Outside of the core department there are other finance employees working within the publishing companies. These people have important roles to play in helping managers in the business make good commercial decisions, whether it be agreeing the cost of the rights to publish a certain title or setting prices to customers.
Finance work is suitable for people who enjoy working with numbers, are well organised to be able to meet deadlines and have good attention to detail. Team work is important too.
I joined Random House in 1997 as an Accounts Assistant and with regular training and self-development over a few years was promoted to the manager of a small financial accounting team.
Back in 2002, Random House placed all of it's managers and team leaders on courses with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) and I quickly realised that I wanted to develop my management skills further.
As a result, I was seconded to the warehouse of Random House’s distribution company TBS, with the duty warehouse managers, whose vast experience and knowledge helped me enormously, despite having to start at 6am!
I have continued with management training and have just completed my level 5 ILM training.
In 2005 I was seconded to the Royalties Department to assist with various projects and I was very pleased to accept the post of Head of Royalties in May 2007.
The Royalties department is responsible for setting up the financial clauses of the contracts, paying advances, reporting and paying royalties and processing sub-rights income. We send out over 50,000 statements every six months.
The work can be very demanding, especially at certain times of the year, which is why we are always looking to improve our systems and processes.
We pride ourselves on our ability to maintain good relationships with our authors, agents and work colleagues and will always take that extra measure to help.
The best part of my job has got to be the people that I work with. They are hard-working, dedicated and pull together as a team, especially when the pressure is on. They are also lively and fun, so no two days are the same.
