We are thrilled to highlight our Senior Accountant, Marina Beltrami. Read the full interview to learn more about Marina’s expertise, her passion for her work, and how she helps her clients thrive.
What is your hometown? I was born in Switzerland but was raised in Palo Alto, California.
What is your alma mater? I graduated in 2015 from California State University, Monterey Bay – Go Sea Otters!
What are your favorite things to do outside of the office? I live in Northern California and am lucky enough to be a short drive from the south fork of the American River, so my favorite outdoor activity is whitewater rafting. I run an inflatable kayak and consider myself a class 3 boater.
How has your background impacted your experience as a consultant? I have had the opportunity to work for several startups in various industries, giving me a broad foundation of knowledge and exposure to accounting strategies that can be useful in providing insight or suggestions for clients.
What’s a typical workday like for you? I typically start my day by reviewing emails and message requests, responding to the ones I can immediately solve, and then prioritizing my day based on deadlines and ad-hoc request sensitivity. I will communicate when people can expect work from me and then move forward with high priority tasks. Depending on the time of the month, I spend my day reconciling accounts, booking journal entries, updating internal reconciliations and processes, and responding to inquiries and requests as they come in.
What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? I consider myself lucky to be someone who enjoys solving puzzles, seeking efficiency, and helping others. I feel consulting offers an opportunity for me to get to do those things in new ways daily, and for that I am grateful.
What kind of work have you been doing? For the last year, I have primarily been helping a client with their compensation-related accounting tasks. This has included everything from biweekly payroll reconciliations to complex commissions and bonus accruals. I have worked on stock-based compensation and even worked to update and create new processes for how payroll data is reconciled and recorded from the client’s payroll system to their general ledger.
Where do you believe you deliver the most value to your client? I offer value in the broad spectrum of accounting practices and industries I have been exposed to and apply the applicable knowledge to solving client needs.
How do you organize environments with a lack of reporting infrastructure or inefficiency? I started my professional career in auditing and have a strong understanding of how to organize fragmented data. I excel at time management and communication, meaning I can take chaos, find clarity, and make a plan to obtain results. Understanding overall client goals and objectives, accounting requirements and best practices, and system processes provides me with the tools to lay a foundation and roadmap to reach overall objectives and create lasting processes for efficient accounting practices.
What’s your process like? Commonly, I am assigned a task that was previously being done by someone else and that I am now responsible for completing. I start by making sure I understand the objective of the task and its deadline (i.e. reconcile the account at the end of the month). I then review the preexisting process to see if there are any opportunities for improvements, such as updating manual calculations for formulas or functions in Excel. Once completed, I review the outcome and assess my results versus previous results. If they are consistent, I then analyze opportunities to improve or adjust the process for efficiency and accuracy and discuss with my team accordingly.