What you missed at the credit circuit training branch event
To kick off the new academic year, Sheffield & District Branch hosted a Credit Circuit Training evening at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Thankfully, Lycra was not needed for these sessions, but what was lined up for the participants?
Upon arrival, members and guests made their way to the registration desk to sign in and be issued with a group number, before networking in the café with other credit professionals over refreshments and relaxing after a busy day in the office.
Branch Vice Chair, Paula Uttley, opened the meeting with a blast on the whistle, welcomed everyone and gave a briefing on how the Circuit Training would proceed - Members and guests were to first start in the seminar room matching their group number. Behind Door No. 1 would be Carl Jones of MD Law, Partner and Solicitor Advocate who would help us to navigate the court processes. Behind Door No. 2 would be Darren Myers, a Manager at PWC who would guide us through financial analysis and behind Door No.3 would be members of the Economic Crime Unit of South Yorkshire Police with whom we would discuss cyber fraud trends. At the end of the first session, the whistle would signal a change of rooms and then again until all training stations had been visited.
Carl Jones took us through examples demonstrating both bad and good attempts to escalate outstanding debts from initial letters before action to commencing court proceedings, also highlighting the issues to ensure are captured and the necessity to provide absolute clarity in the claims and to ensure compliance with legal entity v individual claims. One particular bad example on a claim form raised quite a titter from our group, I’m sure that a lot of credit managers patience wears thin from time to time – well done Carl, very funny. I’m sure that the defendant was guilty!
Darren Myers talked us through some accounts of companies that ultimately entered into insolvency proceedings. We started with a simple balance sheet of one company and then moved onto an annual report and financial statements of another. We discussed the data which is sometimes not so obvious in the financial accounts and how to interpret audit qualifications, inter group balances and additional notes to the accounts.
South Yorkshire Police, although unavoidably unable to provide the cyber escape game, focused on the different types of fraud including social engineering highlighting that humans are always the weakness in a security system. The importance of reporting and the known under reporting of Cyber Crime. We were made to think about the information that we put into the public domain about ourselves, and we covered the common types of fraud such as impersonation fraud and the interception of emails. Lots of personal experiences were shared within the groups.
The round table, smaller workshop format in each room promoted a more informal environment with much discussion and sharing of experiences. Lots of questions were asked of our expert trainers with some attendees complaining that the sessions were not long enough!
Many thanks to Carl Jones of MD Law, Darren Myers of PwC, South Yorkshire Police, EIS and all attending members and guests for making the evening a great success.