Since September 2019, shortly after the new firm of auditors had been in, the 'talking' began.
It came as a surprise to me that unlike the previous year, the audit took a very different form.
2017/2018 there were a team of auditors and one result, if not one I anticipated, was that the lead on the team, ruffled Boss_Jaro's feathers. Boss_Jaro doesn't like or appreciate their feathers being ruffled. For what most would see as them doing their job--collating copy documents, asking questions and checking/analysing the information before, after a week of intense activity, returning to base and e-mailing more questions and, finally, the report. Nett result is that just as Boss_Jaro said they would, they weren't kept on for the 2018/2019 audit.
During that week, unlike myself, Boss's_Pet doesn't give them original documents--conveniently, documents 'aren't available to them' or Boss_Jaro instructs that "leave that to me, I'll handle them" so that they didn't get all of the information they asked for--transfers of money in the wrong place have a legend created and spreadsheets are created to explain the holes. The spreadsheets--so beloved and used as replacement for actual entry of the data on to the accounting software system.
One main aim of the 'spreadsheets' is to prevent Mesa and Jago from being able to know the exact financial position of the Sterling bank account, as they have a tendency to "dip-in" whether or not the funds are available; without the actual bank account balance the spreadsheets can be, (read 'are') used to falsely show the available sums for payments.
Everyday is a battle to keep up with the 'ever-changing' spreadsheets as Boss_Jaro removes payments promised to creditors, deletes the line or overwrites it, they change the values or other payment details and even entering duplicate payments--all designed to prevent the true bank account balance figure from emerging. So starts the Tale of the Three Spreadsheets.
Spreadsheet One--this is the 'copy' of the spreadsheet that was finally released to me to use to update the creditors constantly enquiring about overdue, chased payment. Before the release of it to me, it was a question of constantly asking "such and such is asking if they're going to be receiving the payment you promised/a payment?" and waiting for Boss_Jaro to deign to provide an answer. My asking a question, business related, work-related, of Boss_Jaro was a problem--they'd rather I didn't. Oh yes they wanted me to handle all the troublesome and problematic calls and get berated for doing the job--after all, this is why Boss's_Pet had opted to handle the much easier, sales ledger side of the accounts--they just thought they were too grand to actually give me any information to help handle the creditors and, heaven forbid, we should actually pay them. Not to worry, at least Mesa and their assorted family members got paid their assorted payments--car lease payments to avoid going through the proper channels for a brother, their wife's solicitor practice for 'services rendered' and Jago's billing hours invoices added to some of Mesa's 'service invoices'. What was also strange were the large sums of money paid to cover debts arising from other of their company's, serviced from the Lippl bank account for unfathomable, unaccountable reasons.
As it was a struggle to get basic information for the processing of creditor information to keep them up to date, all and any questions or queries regarding the strange payment and transfers practices were met with me being rounded on by Boss_Jaro--"don't you worry about those, you just get on with your own work". Boss's_Pet was happy to snipe, gossip and back-stab about Mesa and his "sticky fingers when Boss_Jaro was out of earshot, but towed the party line when they were together in the office: what was unknown at the time was the depth of Boss's_Pet's duplicity as behind my back they were feeding Boss_Jaro's insecurity about the questions I had regarding the financials and that the company could not meet their liabilities and were trading insolvently. For Boss's_Pet and Her_Madge, "as long as we get paid, we don't care" or "he's been doing the same for years" and Mesa's "has sticky fingers".
So on Spreadsheet One all the payments including the creditors were labouriously input Boss_Jaro--I tried to help them improve it but two of Boss_Jaro's qualities towards me being 'if they didn't think of it then it's not happening' and 'they know everything and everything they know is best'. One stops trying with those so unwilling but for the sake of the creditors and the purchasing department I worked with it; reconciling it one day only to find lines had been deleted, moved or changed and having to alter the purchase ledger to marry the two only for it to take ages and it all changed again the next day or as Boss_Jaro was won to do, within the next ten minutes.
The information I was giving to the creditors was often called in to question:where is the payment you said was made "as it isn't showing in our bank". It would transpire that due to insufficient funds and a wish to top up the bank account new creditors were created as so avoiding those pesky 'chasing overdues' creditors to enable the manufacturing arm of the business to 'raise an invoice--ensuring it's allocated to the 'factoring' side of the business enabling the opening up of sum of money, 90% of the invoice value, to be drawn down the following morning. Quite a few of these 'factoring accounts' doing the 'hokey-cokey' depending on who and what Boss_Jaro and Mesa wanted manipulating. Needless to say they kept this away from the auditors17/18 and as for auditors18/19 well we shall see.
Boss's_Pet and
Set in to the background of this is the fact that Boss_Jaro, Boss's_Pet and Her_Madge were constantly finding ways and words to bully me and make my life hell [in Jan19 I had to say to Boss_Jaro I was going to resign as I couldn't do right for doing wrong judging by their attitudes and actions only for them to dissuade me saying they were sorry for the upset and could we start again (restart number three within eight months and for the same reasons each tim)]. Controlling the information in the manner they were, with my constantly having to check the creditor payments that they marked down on Spreadsheet One had actually happened or not, Boss_Jaro blew up and said I was to stop asking questions and only post on to the purchase ledger those creditor payments marked "as reconciled through the bank account". The imposition of Spreadsheet number Two. Rather than only input on to the spreadsheet those payments that Boss_Jaro was going to 'actually make, now we have two reconciliations necessary to maintain the false position of creditor and other payments.
Spreadsheet Two would have those marked as actually appearing on the bank statement--these would be input on to the creditor accounts and reconciled. Within the same spreadsheet there was whole other list of payments marked and to be reconciled. Only problems were that as with Spreadsheet One Boss_Jaro updated the spreadsheet with more hocus pocus, now you see me now you don't payment types and reconciling the purchase ledger to the spreadsheet was a headache. Added to which, often I couldn't access it; Boss_Jaro would have it open and locked on their computer and I'd be stuck for ages whilst they were in interminable meetings or chewing the cud with their 'friends' (a pleasure they graciously gifted to themselves and to which I was always prevented from doing).
What is undeniable is that neither Spreadsheet One nor Spreadsheet Two worked for the creditors; they still didn't get paid when they asked with terms of business being blown out of the water as 60days overdue quickly became 90days overdue, 120days overdue and way beyond even those terms. Given that what was written on the spreadsheet was as virtual as the programme 'paper' it was typed on and wasn't worth a jot, the creditors increasingly frequently rang, wrote or e-mailed their demands for payments all of which I dutifuly noted and, as I was told I had to, passed on to Boss_Boss_Jaro (through whom all information must pass). That was the only level of involvement I was allowed in payments; I was not allowed to be involved in deciding who was to be paid--that was for Boss_Boss_Jaro and Boss's_Pet and I was especially not allowed access to the online banking (even though Boss's_Pet made a point of paying people twice or diverting payments to another bank account to that expected). So I recorded and passed over the details of those chasing creditors and informed of any that were looking for recourse through legal channels as I was instructed and that'd make Boss_Boss_Jaro happy right? Wrong. So wrong.
Boss's_Pet, standing over me, across the desk and raising their voice wants to know why and how information regarding creditors chasing is being handled. Have I written it down, have I passed it Boss_Boss_Jaro, Is it in the book they themselves used to write it in? Have I passed it today? have I passed it weekly? On and on go stopping short of actually shouting but screeching nonetheless. I did it exactly the way you did Boss's_Pet I say, so what is the problem?
Have you spoken with Boss_Boss_Jaro, Boss's Pet queries, to work out who will be paid?
"I don't get asked to be involved in the payments process do I? That's something you and Boss_Boss_Jaro deal with between you isn't it?" This is just the excuse Boss_Boss_Jaro needs and starts the interrogation all over again when they return from whatever meeting they'd disappeared off to.
Regularly I'm interrupted by telephone calls from Deble; this person's calling for payment". From the tone and manner anyone would think that Deble thought that the debts were mine and I was the person withholding payment--a fact which I pass on several times to Boss's_Pet and it'd be a losing bet for me if they hadn't told Boss_Boss_Jaro about this long after the conversation where Boss's_Pet agreed with me that the company was trading insolvently. Everyone knows that Boss's_Pet is rather more judicious in raising the spectre of their own, oft-repeated tales of years of the "sticky fingers" and "no money" to Boss_Boss_Jaro. Boss's_Pet just likes to peddle and stand back and let everyone else get flak for something divulged about the history--for just listening to Boss's_Pet's grumblings--a time when the person getting flak wasn't even there. Makes their mantra "I'm nice me" seem rather contrary.
This led to the following exchange
me to Boss_Jaro "such and such wants to know when they can expect payment?"
Boss_Jaro to me "you need to look on the spreadsheet. Have you looked on the spreadsheet? Is it on the spreadsheet?"
me to Boss_Jaro "Yes. Yes."
Boss_Jaro to me "Well then!"
me to Boss_Jaro "It is not reconciled through the bank."
BBoss_Jaro to me "So? What's your problem?"
me to Boss_Jaro "It is not reconciled through the bank and you said "if it isn't marked as reconciled,it hasn't been paid and not to post it?"
Wither and die I thought I would from the look Boss_Jaro gave me.
Forgotten in the enmity directed towards me is the fact that the debts are not mine; nor is the spreadsheet of my making but needless to say the further hostile actions directed towards me means that now there is a Spreadsheet Three scenario. It seems there's an answer to the hourly issue of creditors clamouring for payment--to pay them--that'd be the day. Apparently, the fault for the creditors clamouring for their payments is the way I am processing the payments to the purchase ledger and not removing them from the list of chasing creditors. Now I have to do three reconciliations and present a false picture to the creditors for, once the 'supposed payment' appears on the spreadsheet, even if it is not paid & reconciled, I have to remove the chasers related to that creditor from the list (as though paid) and tell the creditors the payment has been made. Misrepresentation by any other name.
It is against this kind of atmosphere and backdrop that the auditors_1718 disappear and in their place arrives auditors_1819. Except it's one man; one very junior man. A solitary, junior man whose sum total of work comprises of asking for fifteen sales ledger invoices and fifteen purchase ledger invoices and proceeding to spend the rest of their time either daytime sleeping in their hotel purportedly sick or mute and sat in an office surfing and playing games on the internet.
At the end of their time at Lippl they'd neither asked questions of anyone, queried the invoices, looked at the ledgers or engaged those undertaking the financial processes in any way, shape or form. Boss's_Pet only remarked it was unusual when I tried to draw them on this but Boss_Jaro and Boss's_Pet were neither concerned nor unduly worried about this 'volte-face' to the audit process. September 2019, October 2019 and on, my flagging this was dismissed--pretty much anything I said or did was dismissed--and they carried on sniping at me and making my life difficult.
Come February 2020, when discovering InPiquet, Mesa and Boss_Jaro's had hidden the Covid-19 issue from other Lippl's employees, another nugget came to light. The auditor_1819 is a company owned by a long-standing business associate and fellow company director to Mesa.
An audit (photocopies of invoices being taken is what their actions claim to be 'an audit') took place by a company where the directors of those companies had an 'improper relationship' for the purposes of regulatory practices and scrutiny for the purpose of ... .... ...(fill in the blanks). Well it's hardly to uncover the numerous and seemingly odd practices of multiple mortgages, antecedent payments and Mesa payments prioritised over HMRC and creditor payments at a time when Lippl are unable to meet their liabilities.
So they had to do something to keep a lid on it and the lid they chose was not to put their financial affairs in order and come clean--the lid was to make me redundant after I rejected a payment with a 'gagging order attached'. It's worth remembering that under two years service "they could have made up any excuse to get rid" of you as prophetised by the Unite union rep.
Perhaps it was wrapped as a 'redundancy' for sweetening purposes.
What's peculiar is that when I mentioned I'd blown the whistle on the Covid-19 and the audit, Mesa's words last written words to me were that they would certainly "look into" the queries I raised on the audit. Peculiar, considering they and Boss_Jaro sacked the auditors_1718 and engaged their business associate, they direct what goes on within Lippl and what is said there. Controlling the 'information' that comes out of Lippl is their main aim and with a tame auditor, their message to the public domain can be anything they want. Time to emulate Snowden.
'***'
