A Culture of Teamwork

A year and a half ago, Annet van de Graaf traded her job at a listed shipping company for a position at Vertraco. She had a very specific reason: the culture of teamwork.

In terms of specific tasks, Annet admits, her work at Vertraco does not differ much from what she was already doing. “But for me, that wasn’t the most important thing”. More important is a good atmosphere at work – and she found it at Vertraco, already from the first interview. Rather than a strict hierarchy with an authoritarian boss, she found a culture of teamwork. “That immediately appealed to me.” 

Ever since, Annet is responsible for accounting within Vertraco. Booking invoices, transferring payments to suppliers, and processing incoming payments - as soon as a task has to do with invoices and payments, she’s on it. The latter can really be quite a challenge sometimes. Sometimes, she receives payments from Suriname without a description from a private person. “Good luck trying to find out which invoices belong to who. It is a nice puzzle.”

New system

Currently, Annet is also involved in improving the accounting process. Currently, the documentation department works with different software than her, but soon both will switch to a new system. Many benefits await: whereas she enters a lot of information by hand, several processes will be automated. “For example, this will allow me to quickly connect payments and assignments.”

“You could think ‘things are going well, so why would you?’, but it remains important keep improving.” 

With all this new time, Annet will be able to dedicate more work to writing the reports, that she writes once a month for managers Jan and Berry. This means that she will be able to analyze processes much better: “You could think ‘things are going well, so why would you?’, but it remains important keep improving.” 

Warm bath

Together with the managers and the financial adviser from Vertom, Annet aims to have the new system ready to go in January 2021. It is another proof that the work at Vertraco suits her. “I really enjoy finetuning the process – looking for ways to do something better.” Added up to the great ambiance in the office, it seems like Annet found her perfect place to work. “It has felt like a warm bath from day one. These days, I go to work with a smile on my face.”