Upskilling my "office manager" role - advice

[sweetpeaorchestra]

I currently work as admin support in financial services. Prior to this I had an 'office manager' role in the business I run with DH.

My current role is inflexible/full time commute. DH is taking on a new FT job soon, so I will be returning to support the business/do more childcare than I've been able.

I would ideally like to get another admin role in future, preferably hybrid and part-time. The business doesn't require full time attention.
When I look at other PT Office Manager roles however, I'm not sure I fully have the experience.

For example we use Xero software but my role is limited to updating our bank feed on Xero, sending our accountants invoices. I co-ordinate payroll, as in I total the staff hours and weekend bonuses, but handover to the accountants again for the rest.
I have done cash-flow forecasting and business funding applications. Also onboarding for staff, contracts etc but I feel very HR inexperienced.

Is it worth doing an AAT 2 level 2 course and speaking to our accountants to see if I can take over our book keeping to get experience?

Similarly in my current role, I do PA-type duties (travel/meeting booking and prep for managers, some outlook calendar organisation) but don't feel I am quite qualified to get PA work (no C-suite complex diary management for eg.)

Just seeing what best to focus on to make myself a useful Office manager/PA to someone!

I am not able to advise about the ATT but you say you are doing payroll and also feel inexperienced at HR.

This maybe too low level and not aimed at being a PA, both the CIPD and CIPP run qualifications that start at foundation level. They are shortish, up to a year, and both would give you the basics plus as a member you would get access to their online library of advice, guidance, model policies etc.

https://www.cipd.org/uk/learning/qualifications/foundation/foundation-certificate-in-people-practice/
https://www.cipp.org.uk/training-and-education/study.html

Both would give you a broad knowledge that can be useful as a PA to know when you/ your manager are being fobbed off by HR/Payroll but also how to influence a C-Suite when they may need to listen to HR/Payroll.

@Harassedevictee thanks so much for this. It didn’t occur to me to look into CIPD qualifications.
Possibly as I thought it would not be useful without working in an HR department.

But as we have up to 12 staff members at any given time, it would certainly be useful to develop our HR processes and that could give me experience.

As you can tell I’m a bit unfocused at the moment but this seems a great idea - thanks for taking the time to suggest

Also I would add one area I’m interested in is Learning & Development (was in education prior to all this business admin) so exploring HR qualifications may be a good way to go.

I absolutely agree that a CIPD qualification would be a great step in the right direction. You might consider a Level 5 HR course.

Honestly HR qualifications are ideal for anyone managing people. You can go straight to the higher qualifications if you feel it is more appropriate.

I manage the back office stuff at our company. This is a snapshot of what I do.
I take care of the invoicing, both payable and receivable, credit control, reconcile bank statements and do the VAT returns. Pay bills. The accountant takes care of the end-of-year accounts. I run payroll, I take care of all the preboarding admin, staying on top of employment law - with the help of an employment lawyer when needed. Took over the management and design of the website...moving to a more accessible platform, do a bit of the marketing on Mailchimp, timesheet approval, Cyber security certification and ongoing compliance, IT Admin, purchasing software and hardware. Financial planning money management/cash flow and investment decisions. Recruitment admin and first stage interview. Assist in business planning. We have a PA who does the diary and events management - but I approve all the venue decisions. Used to do travel booking but we got a app to cover that and leave it to the team.
Everything I do has been self-taught from talking to experienced and qualified people, books, information online and on Youtube. I pretty much turn my hand to anything and if I can't do it myself I find the person or the company that can.
Edited to say when I started this I looked at doing CIPD and accountancy qualifications but they were too specialised and time-consuming - I needed to be more of a generalist.

thanks @MaxineandPaul that’s so helpful. And really encouraging you’re self taught.

With VAT for example, bar organising the invoices I leave this to the accountants.
It might be worth a chat with them to see what I could do more of (and save the business money too).

I will use your list and look into the HR side to develop things more.

Ideally once I’ve improved everything I want the admin side to not take up too much time- mainly as I need an income from another source.
Our turnover is around 500k a year but we’re barely breaking even at the minute, sales are down and costs up obviously (had a few profitable years but it’s been tough since 2022.)

Anyway appreciate the inspiration there’s a lot more I could do :)

I work on average 20 hours a week - sometimes a lot more if I'm in the middle of a project or something I haven't done before. VAT returns are pretty easy - you just need to know the correct VAT codes, if you get something wrong on a previous submission there's the functionality to correct it for the next one - although you can't do this too often before HMRC gets a bit annoyed. Set up payment to leave the main account automatically. I'm sure there will be a Youtube video on it.