CertainTeed
This summer I interned with CertainTeed Corporation as a Financial Analyst Intern in the Canadian Insulation Department. During the summer I took overview for the departments Senior Financial Analyst while she was on maternity leave. One of my main responsibilities was to create and analyze a monthly sales variance report on excel. I had to assemble figures on sales, volumes, and prices at the product class level; compare sales,volumes, and prices to the past month, year to date, and prior year; then use this information to calculate the price, volume, and mix sales variances. Another one of my responsibilities was constructing a profit and loss forecast each month. I would have to collaborate with the VP of Sales and four Regional Sales Managers to forecast the month’s volumes, prices and sales for each product class. From there I worked with the Director of Finance and my manager to forecast cost of goods sold and selling, general and administrative expenses. I then would take all of this information and compile it into an excel spread sheet that was used by upper level management to see a forecast of the months sales, contribution margin, gross profit contribution, operating profit and net income.
Highlight
The highlight of my internship was the side project given to me by my manager. Early in the internship he gave me six months worth of our departments cell phone bills and told me to show him something. In my free time throughout the whole summer I would go back to this project, making spreadsheets that broke the information down by month, and created a pivot table to sort through the data. I also set up a meeting with the employee that was in charge of the whole companies cell phone bills and asked what areas I should focus on. After months of working on this project I was able to find about $10,000 that had been wasted so far this year because of improper distribution of our plans minutes and texts to employees and other charges that were wasting money. I compiled this information and projected that if we implemented the changes I was suggesting, we would save around $10,000 for the rest of the year. I handed in my report to the department controller on my last day, and the last time I checked in with my manager the department controller was working on implementing the changes I suggested in my report.