Behind the Tap Spotlight: Accounting Manager Katrina Banks

Meet Accounting Manager Katrina Banks. Katrina works in CCWA’s Finance Department where she manages the day-to-day and annual functions of the General Accounting Group.  This includes the general ledger accountants, capital asset accountants, and the payroll accountant.  “As a group we are responsible for preparing the data that eventually becomes our public facing financial reports,” she says.

CCWA’s Accounting Manager Katrina Banks

Katrina’s main responsibility is to ensure that CCWA maintains financial security through the overseeing, analyzing and computation of financial reports, information prepared for journal entries, general ledger related subsidiary ledgers, financial statement reports and various government filings. She is also responsible for coordinating with CCWA’s audit team for our mandatory annual audit.  She acts as the liaison to answer all questions the audit team may have pertaining to CCWA financial information.

Katrina has worked for CCWA a little over five years but has been in Managerial Accounting for well over 25 years. She has watched the field change, innovate, and expand.  One of the reasons she loves this field is because it has afforded her the opportunity to work in many different industries.  “Every company needs accountants, and the work of an accountant is typically the same in each company,” she adds. “The beauty is that you get to learn a lot about many different industries.”  This field has given her the opportunity to work in Banking, Home/Commercial Security, Federal Government, Manufacturing, Automobile Financing, Construction, and the Court Reporting Industry to name a few.

“I love what I do, and I am particularly blessed to be able to do it here at CCWA,” she says. “We have a great group of knowledgeable, dedicated, dependable and efficient team members in the Finance Department. We have put a lot of work into functioning as a team that supports the CCWA mission and each other.  It is a true joy to work with such wonderful and talented people.” Katrina also enjoys teaching others the “why” behind the seemingly endless Finance guidelines.  “I love learning about the mission of the other departments and meeting co-workers with responsibilities that differ greatly from my day-to-day responsibilities,” she adds.

Every week seems to bring on new challenges, questions, and opportunities for improvement. “Our business is very fluid (no pun intended) and Finance has to stay on top of the many changes to ensure our financial statements accurately reflect CCWA’s position.”  Her biggest challenge is developing processes that streamline their workload while working within the framework of the various systems.

As a manager in a “back-office” support role, the pandemic forced them to go to a hybrid work schedule.  At the onset of the pandemic, they were forced to work entirely from home. “This change greatly impacted our workflow and forced us to become innovative in how we communicated with one another, how our work flowed throughout the department and how we interacted with the other CCWA teams. We have now found that we are even more productive in this new normal.” #waterprofessional