A board year as Treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance – Lotte Schipperheijn

My name is Lotte Schipperheijn, I’m 20 years old, and this year I am the treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance. I started studying Business Economics in 2019 and actually started at Asset at about the same time. After doing committees for two years and already seeing a lot of board life, I finally decided to take the plunge. In this article I want to take you through my experiences in my year so far. 

As treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance, a lot of responsibility falls on you right at the start of your year. The budget preparation, which you do at the beginning of your year, is already one of the most important things of your year, since you base all your expenses and revenues on it. You do this together with your predecessor, who can outline the expectations better. Even though you do it together, it is still your budget and you are ultimately responsible. It’s super cool to be able to give your own interpretation of this.

In your first few weeks and months, the actual accounting of the association will also really be your biggest focus. Figuring out the accounting program Twinfield and getting to know the accounts takes a while for every treasurer, and so it did for me. Fortunately, this went quite well for me and I was soon declared the expert in Basecone, the program in which we process invoices. 

So when the time finally came for my first kascontrole commissie”, or KasCo, I had a lot of work to do. My KasCo consists of the three previous treasurers. They check my accounts every quarter and help me with any accounting problems I encounter. The KasCo’s are a great guide for me as treasurer; every quarter you work towards this. This is also one of the most fun things as treasurer as far as I’m concerned. Everything you have been working on during the past quarter comes together here and what a relief it is every time when everything is in order and you can wrap everything up again.

“This is one of the hardest things to pass on to your successor, so it is really up to you to find your own way in this.”

Six months in, I have got the hang of accounting and it has become much less of a part of my daily work. In addition to your function-specific tasks, you are also assigned some general board tasks and committees. In my opinion you get the most fun committees as Treasurer! Normally, the CityTrip committee, the Activities committee and the Investment Night committee are under my coordination. It’s super fun to take a seat on a committee in a different way for a change. The coordination of a committee requires that you dare to give things away and that you can set boundaries in your tasks, but also intervene when it is really necessary. This is one of the hardest things to pass on to your successor, so it is really up to you to find your own way in this. You really learn a lot about yourself from this, but also about working with other people.

With the changeover in the winter, there were of course more tasks that had to be picked up than usual. For Nina, Lotte and I, this was a kind of new beginning. You are suddenly the seniors of the board and now you can’t fall back on anyone else. You’re the person who’s been working for six months and therefore should know everything. As it turned out, I knew most things! With this switch, a large part of the realization came to me about what I had learned in recent times. I notice in myself that during discussions in the Faculty Wide Organs (FWO) and the board meetings I can form and convey my opinion better, because I now have a much better understanding of what it is really about. 

You can already tell that it is fun to pass on to the new board members, what A&F stands for and how we have been trying to portray all along. I am already looking forward to handing over my baton to the new treasurer and teaching him/her the finest tricks of the trade. I hope to give my successor just as enjoyable and instructive a year as I have had. The big task for me is of course to train my successor as the master of Basecone.

That is ultimately the reason for me to do a board year. Learning as much as possible, combined with as much fun as possible. In an informal atmosphere full of students, there is room for some nonsense and jokes, but miraculously, there is also much to learn. This is not only about the association, but especially about your own working methods and your own way of communicating. Looking back, a year on the board has really been the best choice for me and an experience never to forget!

Does this appeal to you and do you want to know more about my experience? Or do you have any other practical questions about a year on the board? Feel free to contact me or drop by room E1.07!