Internships - Naveen Jindal School of Management

Student Name

Yuanjin Du

Degree

Accounting Flex

Company

Services of Hope

Courses Helped

ACCT 6330: INTERMEDIATE FINANCIAL ACCT I, ACCT 6331: COST ACCOUNTING, ACCT 6332: INTERMEDIATE FINANCIAL ACCT II, ACCT 6351: INDIVIDUAL TAXATION, ACCT 6352: CORPORATE TAXATION, ACCT 6388: ACCOUNTING COMMUNICATIONS

Story

This semester I continued my internship at Services of Hope Entities Inc. (SOH) as its Business Manager. SOH, founded 20 years ago in Dallas area, is a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt corporation. It strives to provide government policymakers and school district administrators with a replicable model for underperforming elementary school transformation. This position requires a broad range of responsibilities and duties and it takes both technical skills such as accounting, taxation, and research and soft skills such as communication and human relations to perform the role.

Tax season came along with this Spring and that’s where I started. I prepared W-2 forms and 1099-miscellaneous forms to those employee and non-employee workers respectively who served this organization last year. To ensure all mails can be received, I verified and updated all workers’ information before I generated these confidential forms.

Enforced by FUTA, employers must file form 941- Employer’s QUARTERLY Federal Tax Return. I scheduled the payment and filed form 941 in an accurate and timely manner. Additionally, I also processed the state unemployment tax to the Texas Workforce Commission. This year the IRS extended the deadlines to all taxpayers due to the covid-19 crisis, which offered us more time to prepare for the form 990-Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.

I learned how to fix bank reconciliation discrepancies and accounting errors in QuickBooks, which I found them quite technical and a bit of time-consuming. I could detect existing problems by running the trial balance after all closing entries but didn’t expect some missing entries and huge amount of uncategorized expenses. I spent two weeks identifying and correcting the errors by referencing to the Profit and Loss statement. I also run the expense summary and reclassed all uncategorized items into corresponding accounts to ensure the faithful representation and enhance reporting qualities.

In my daily work, I managed accounts payable, accounts receivable, invoice creation, ACH setup, donation letters, and accounting documents. etc. I assisted with opening a new business branch and shared ideas on bank proposal.

I researched on the payroll protection program sponsored by SBA and followed the strict rules to seek for a full forgiven. I reached out to agents from the two ideal platforms to market this organization through providing our profiles, mission, and financial transparency.

There are some takeaways from my experience:

1. Analytical and research skills are important to solve unseen problems in our work.

2.The earlier the problems identified, the better they can be solved.

3. It is always a good working habit to keep saving documents, emails, and other files as evidence to avoid the possible disputes and define responsibilities.

3.Technical skills ensure one’s competency but in combination with soft skills such as effective communication and human relations make you work comfortable and stand out.

Finally, I would like to say thank you to my great boss Daniel Prescott, Doris, Saadia, professor Goodrich, and program director Mary Guan for all the kind help they rendered.

#UTDMSACCT

What helped you to get this Internship?

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