Meet The Team: Dawn Price

Here at NCASS, there’s a passionate team working behind the scenes every day to make sure members get the most out of their membership – and we thought it was about time you got to know them!

Meet Dawn, our Accounts Assistant, who has been part of the NCASS team for four years. Before joining the team, she spent seven years working with NCASS as a contractor through James, Stanley & Co Accountants. With 30 years of experience working in accountancy practice, as well as six years with Lloyds Bank, Dawn brings a wealth of financial knowledge and experience to the team.

Can you tell us more about your role at NCASS and how you support our members?

My role is to enter sales & purchases onto our account’s software and reconcile these monthly to enable accurate figures are available for the other members of the finance team, account managers and directors. It’s quite an involved process as we have 6,250 plus members.

Members often require copy invoices; explanations of payments allocations and any refunds if they have overpaid for training etc

What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about your role?

That I have some involvement in the fixes that are put through by the IT team. I question why certain things have happened and then it gets looked into. A bug maybe found and then fixes are made to ensure it doesn’t happen again and to improve the member experience.

What’s your favourite part of being part of the NCASS team?

I love how friendly everyone is and it’s a good team to be a part of as everyone helps each other. Also as a member of the team that feels appreciated and enjoy the events that we all get invited to as part of the company’s thank you to all the staff which we always try to make happen at an NCASS members business.

What have you learned about independent hospitality businesses as part of your role?

I have learnt that it’s not an easy option running your own business, it’s blooming hard work. There are so many things you have to take into account – rules, regulations, laws, standards, licencing, stock control / purchasing, budgeting, employment, accounting, marketing & PR and that’s before you’ve even started with the knowing how to cook and what the customers want to keep them happy and coming back for more.

So, I am also proud of the work the NCASS team does to ensure that members have all the tools to help make their lives a little easier when running their own business as it is very full on.

If you could swap jobs with anyone in the company for a day, who would it be and why?

I can think of lots of reasons I wouldn’t want to swap with anyone but not reasons as to why I would. I have helped out the Admin team now & again to cover holiday etc and have enjoyed the change of role printing the training certificates, laminating & posting. It’s good to follow process through from seeing the purchase come through to the actual sending off the certificates when training complete.

What’s your go-to comfort food?

I’m a bit of a sweet tooth so a cup of tea & a slice of cake, although I have enjoyed the variety of foods from around the world that the members bring to various events and have tried, Greek, Mexican, Jamaican & Thai

What would you name your food truck or hospitality business?

Dawn’s Delights – selling all things cake / sweet with staples such as lemon drizzle, Victoria sponge, scones, tray bakes, chocolate crunch & brownies

What’ s a fun fact about you?

I joined Got2Sing Choir in January this year and am enjoying it more than I thought I would. I even went along to a ‘sing out’ which they did in Solihull Theatre Square for the Choir Festival.  The best part about it is that you don’t have to be able to sing that well (which I can’t) as you can hide in the crowd of good voices and it just brings a sense of well-being & makes you feel happy singing out loud. When we go along to events and it’s been recorded we actually don’t sound too bad!!!