OFFICE MANAGER – BOSS

Empowering and Encouraging Women in Finance: an interview with Antoniya Beyriyska of ask-the-boss.co.uk

Antoniya Beyriyska

Antoniya is the office manager at BOSS and the director of fun of the accounting practice…

Yes, you heard right, we have fun working here! I look after my colleagues and the office and make sure we don’t run out of milk for tea and highlighters.

My job involves financial communications with clients, bookkeeping and document digitising, workload management, graphic design, website updates and SEO, social media marketing, ordering supplies and IT equipment, organising team events and plenty of ad-hoc tasks.

This year I worked on the development and design of our new website ask-the-boss.co.uk and I am very pleased with the outcome and the feedback.

How did you get into this? Did you train straight out of school/Uni or was it a more roundabout journey?

After graduating from BA Design course I joined the exciting industry of sporting events and sponsorship where I got to work closely with our Finance Director and my current boss Heather Darnell. She was a crucial part of our team and a great person to work with. I got to learn so much from her, about how great Excel is (she can literally think in excel), how to do bookkeeping and filing (so glad we are paperless practice now) and what an important part of any business the back office is, i.e. the financial side. It is amazing to know how businesses are being created and grow and develop. My degree studies had a little to do with finance but I am really glad I work for ask-the-boss now with such an amazing team of professionals in such a cool environment.

Can you explain what a typical day for you might be?

My typical day starts with making everyone a drink and collecting post, we do receive quite a lot of post. Then it can be very different- I prioritise my tasks for the day and very often I would have to respond to requests for support on particular client’s work that needs to be done. I take all incoming calls and distribute messages to colleagues. The franking machine is my best friend- I take care of our post too. My motto is ‘always happy to help’ and I stick to that.

What’s your experience from a women’s point of view. Would you say it is a good job for a woman?

I love my job- it teaches me a lot on daily basis as well as gives me the freedom of creativity and experimenting different ideas. We embrace technology and we love trying out new ways of work and improvement, also our clients have really exciting businesses and products that I get to know about. Finance is not as scary as I thought it would be, it is very important to know you have good mentoring and the support of your colleagues. I’m never afraid to ask questions and seek for help when I need. I feel confident and respected for the job I do and really lucky to be part of a great team of professionals.

What would your advice be to someone thinking of entering this profession?

Go for it, you have to see it to believe it.

What’s your best financial advice for any woman?

Don’t splash your cash on “stuff”.