Internship in Finance & Controlling department

This summer I was doing my practical training in Lukoil Lubricants Europe GmbH, Austria. The main financial department and Headquarters are located in Vienna, in one of the most beautiful city in the world.

On a daily basis, I was assisting Chief Accountant and supporting Finance & Controlling team by doing given tasks. For example, the company receives many invoices and reminders every day, which are handled by the various departments individually and ultimately ended up in the finance department. I checked the correctness of data of these invoices, address, date, whether they were sent to e-office or not. In case of reminders to pay invoices, I was checking at what stage of processing this invoice was and whether it was paid or not. In addition to invoicing, I was doing many tasks to assist Chief Accountant. For example, calling other employees to explain some issues or remind about deadlines, printing documents, storing and sorting financial reports, and send letters to other branches. Occasionally, I have participated in general organizational events and meeting about results we achieved or main plans to follow.

Monthly, I was helping the main accountant to check the branches’ reports, correct data and close month properly. Beforehand, I was preparing key figures, reports and ad hoc analyses. For example, I made internal invoices which must be created for the respective branches and then sent to the accountors for posting and then check them in branches’ monthly financial statements. In other words, I was responsible for checking data in their reports with our recorded data. What is more, the same procedure was done with fixed assets. Where I compared data posted in the table of calculated depreciation with data posted in their month-closing report. Moreover, very month I was recording bank statements and money transactions within the company, from branches to our Austrian plant. If figures from our system are different from branches’ report, the responsible was contacted to correct booking. One of the most significant task was to make eliminations of account payables of our plant with account receivables of our branches. If changes appeared, I made pivot table with reconciliations, contacted responsible person to make transaction, which will lead to the balance in liabilities. When we received reports from all accounting departments, I helped to make mapping for some branches. As all account names and numbers are different in different countries, I had to map them with our common numbers to make a proper consolidated report.

Regarding my soft skills, I got to know many helpful and educative people.  All the employees treated me very warmly and, if it was necessary, answered to all my questions and helped me to solve different problems and misunderstandings. The team was not multinational, however, there was personnel of different age and positions. That is why, I learned how to work with people of different ages with different experience and views on life. I participated in group meetings and discussions, accepted criticism and offered my thoughts in a proper and understandable way. So, I can say for sure that I increased my networking and communication skills as a team player.

I can say for sure, that I have gained unforgettable real-life experience. I felt a strong responsibility for what I am doing, its outcome and became a result-oriented person. Thus, I wish everyone to find the internship that will be not only useful for the future, but also inspire you and help to find yourself!