For Senior Accounts Officer, Kristina Bennett, the care she provides happens behind the scenes. But, her work is vital in ensuring our clients’ and staff are cared for.
What is your role at Community Gateway?
I’m the Senior Accounts Officer within the Finance Team and have worked here for just over four years.
What does a Senior Accounts Officer do?
In my role, I deal mainly with other staff members. I make sure that they get paid correctly and on time (Payroll). I ensure that our Accounts Payable and Receivable are running correctly and also oversee the NDIS claims to make sure that our clients don’t have any interruptions to their service.
Have you always been a numbers person?
Yes! I think I’ve been that way since school. I’ve always liked Maths because you get either a right or a wrong answer, there’s no in between.
I imagine that there would be a lot of grey areas in our line of work. Does that make it tricky?
Oh, definitely. But that just shows the importance of always learning. With NDIS especially, there are always changes coming in that we need to stay on top of. The award rates and payroll are always changing too, so we have to constantly up-skill and expand our knowledge to keep the Organisation moving for our clients and staff.
Where did you work before CG?
I worked for the MCCI – Multicultural Communities Council of Illawarra. I don’t think it was an accident that I ended up at another Community Organisation. I’ve worked for big accounting firms in the past and it’s just not for me. I prefer working with a community-based Organisation and having the opportunity to help people.
How do you think our Accounts and Finance teams impact our clients?
The work we do deals with funding across the board, NDIS, CHSP, Home Care Packages. If we fell apart, staff wouldn’t get paid and access to services would halt.
What do you love most about your job?
Oh goodness, definitely the team I work with. We work really well together and support each other as much as possible, I think that’s a really rare thing to find so I’m very lucky.
Do you have any hidden talents?
Yes, actually – the Finance team is very multilingual! Between the 8 of us, we speak English, Italian, Chinese and Macedonian. It comes in handy at times when dealing with clients and allows us to be much more inclusive, especially working in such a culturally diverse community.
For more information about Community Gateway's Services, please call our friendly are team on 1300 657 473.