BACK OFFICE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Most Important Frequently Asked Back Office Interview Questions

Question 1. What Is A Back Office?

Answer :
The back office of a company is that part of the business which houses employees taking care of administrative and support tasks. These employees do not need to come directly in contact with the customers but are the ones who form the back bone of the company and help in running the show smoothly.
For e.g. In a finance or banking company, professionals taking care of managing and settling the accounts, clearing the payments, updating the accounts records, running the IT infrastructure, data entry, human resources are the back office employees.
The back office does not generate the revenue for the company but without its support the front office revenue generation team can't complete the deal.

Question 2. What Is The Difference Between Front Office And Back Office?

Answer :
Front office is the team of people who come in direct contact with the customers. For e.g. the sales people, the customer support employees. These are the people who generate the revenue.
Back Office people are the people who do not come in direct contact with the customers. They work from back stage but when a sales person gets a deal, they are the ones to execute it and take it to consummation.
The two offices need to work hand in hand for the business to run smoothly.

Question 3. What Are The Skills Required To Work In A Back Office?

Answer :
The skills required by Back Office personnel depend a lot on the role. But, since this team is the one working with the data and communicating the information with the front office people, they need to be technically good and possess excellent communication skills both oral and written. They have to be really good at coordinating with the front office team.
They should also know the business processes well to execute them effectively.

Question 4. Payroll Has Been Processed, But A Deduction Is Missing - How Is This Fixed?

Answer :
If the check is still in hand, void the check through Paycheck > Actions > Void. When selecting the void, ensure that “generate original pay units” is selected. This will bring that employee back into Time Entry so time can be reentered and information can be rerun through Payroll. Before re-running Time Entry and Payroll, set up that deduction and rerun that employee’s Payroll (Time Entry first, then Payroll).

Question 5. Why Do Companies Set Up Their Back Offices In Slightly Remote Regions?

Answer :
Cost is usually the reason for the companies to set up their back offices remotely.

Question 6. Is It Only Some Of The Back Office Activities That The Companies Outsource?

Answer :
The type of activities that a company outsources varies from business to business. If there's a particular activity in the back office that is important but not the core business of the company, they would consider outsourcing it. Similarly, some companies can even outsource some of their front office activities.
For Example: the initial process of Passport processing in India is outsourced because that is information collection. However, the back office is maintained by government because that is information verification which needs more control.

Question 7. How Is A Message Included On Paychecks In A Certain Batch?

Answer :
In the Payroll section, when creating a batch, a message can be entered in the New Payroll Batch window's Message text box
To enter a message for one employee, run that employee's check in a separate batch with a message in that Payroll Batch window's Message text box.
For an existing batch that is still active, choose Edit Batch from the Actions menu and enter a message in the Edit Payroll Batch window.

Question 8. How Can Paychecks Be Dated For A Specific Day?

Answer :
When creating a payroll batch via Back Office Menu > Payroll > New Batch set the date in the Check Date field to the date desired.

Question 9. How Is A Transaction Removed From A Billing Batch?

Answer :
As long as the batch has not been processed, all transactions can be viewed with the shortcut button View Transactions. Use the "X" (remove) button to remove a transaction.
When selecting transactions, a specific group can be opened by clicking the “plus” button. Deselect transactions that should not be included.

Question 10. How Is The Bank Changed In A Payroll Batch That Has Already Been Created?

Answer :
If the batch is still open, navigate to Main Menu Back Office > Payroll > Actions > Edit Batch then edit the value in the Bank field.

Question 11. What Is A Batch And What Does It Do?

Answer :
A Batch is a method of grouping that allows a user to designate a smaller section of a larger group as a singular unit for processing.
Batches appear in three main sections of Avionté:
- Time Entry
- Payroll
- Billing
Each of these sections use batching to move transactions from one end of the process to the next. However, in each of these cases they operate on a different scope.
For Time Entry it is common to create a batch of selected transactions. A user can choose whatever grouping they want from the available transactions, but will only be allowed to modify the chosen transaction with that batch.
For Payroll, a user could still do it by transactions, but it is more common to do them by Employee, or assignment. In this case, the user could be using transactions that were in differing time entry batches before. An example being a user wanting to pay an employee that has worked on two seperate assignments, or at a company for an extended period in one go.
And in Billing the scope is even wider, and a user can process all of the transactions done in that month, or by a group of customers, or even all unprocessed transactions that have passed through Payroll.