The Front Page
Senior Accountant · Aspiring CA(SA)
Senior Accountant · Aspiring CA(SA)

Where numbers
meet judgment.

I turn financial complexity into clarity teams can act on — accurate books, honest numbers, and the judgment to know what they mean. Senior accountant on the road to CA(SA), quietly obsessed with getting it right.

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Latest thinking Field Notes

Short lessons and reflections on the craft, ported from LinkedIn into one calm place to read.

This year, counted The Annual

A yearly review of the work, the numbers, and the lessons — my professional wrapped.

The record Full CV

Roles, results, systems, and qualifications — the detailed version, kept up to date.

About

The accountant behind the numbers.

I help businesses trust their own books — turning messy ledgers, late closes, and audit anxiety into numbers that are accurate, on time, and actually understood.

PortraitA relaxed,
editorial photo
works best here

For the last six years I've worked in the guts of financial reporting — the reconciliations, the month-end closes, the audit files — where a business either gets numbers it can trust, or numbers it merely hopes are right. My path has run through SAICA articles and in-house finance into a senior role, all while completing the CA(SA) qualification.

I care about the meaning as much as the maths. Clean books aren't the goal; clear decisions are. The best part of my job is turning a tangled ledger into a plain story a team can act on — and doing it with the integrity the profession is built on.

These days I write publicly about the craft, mentor trainee accountants through their articles, and keep a yearly record of what I'm learning on the road to CA(SA) — some of which lives here as Field Notes and The Annual.

Based in
Johannesburg, ZA
Working since
2018
Focus
Financial reporting & control
Also does
Mentoring · Writing
Belief 01

Accuracy is respect.

People make real decisions on these numbers. Getting them right the first time is the least they deserve.

Belief 02

The number is a sentence.

A figure without context is noise. My job is to say what it means, plainly, to people who don't live in a spreadsheet.

Belief 03

Judgment over rules.

Standards tell you what's allowed; judgment tells you what's right. The CA path is really a judgment path.

Placeholder copy — swap in Thato's real bio, location, and dates.
Selected Work

A few sets of books, made clearer.

Engagements in financial reporting, controls, and systems. Each opens to the problem, the fix, and what changed for the team.

Case study cover
Financial reporting·Retail2025

Cut the month-end close from ten days to four

Rebuilt the close process and reconciliations for a growing retailer, freeing the team for analysis over admin.

Read the story →
Case study cover
Audit readiness·Non-profit2024

Cleared a two-year audit backlog

Reconstructed records and reconciliations for an NGO and guided them to a clean audit opinion.

Read the story →
Case study cover
Systems·Manufacturing2024

Led finance through an ERP migration

Mapped the chart of accounts, moved historical data cleanly, and trained the team on the new system.

Read the story →
Case study cover
Reporting·SaaS2023

Built a board pack execs actually read

Turned raw ledgers into a one-page monthly story of the business — cash, margin, and what to watch.

Read the story →
Placeholder engagements — replace with Thato's real projects & results.
Field NotesFrom LinkedIn

Thinking out loud, in public.

The posts that started conversations — collected from LinkedIn and given room to breathe. New notes appear here automatically.

T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 2d

A reconciliation isn't finished when it balances. It's finished when you understand why it balances. #accounting #reconciliations

♥ 428💬 37On LinkedIn ↗
T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 1w

Studying for board exams after a full day of month-end is humbling. But nobody who's a CA(SA) got there on a good night's sleep. Keep going.

♥ 1,204💬 88On LinkedIn ↗
T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 2w

The best accountants I know aren't the fastest in Excel. They're the ones who stop and ask: does this actually make sense? #accounting

♥ 690💬 51On LinkedIn ↗
T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 3w

Trainee accountants: articles feel like grunt work until the whole picture clicks. Stay curious through the tedious parts — that's where the judgment gets built.

♥ 2,010💬 143On LinkedIn ↗
T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 1mo

The best reporting pack I built this year fit on one page. Executives don't want your whole ledger — they want the story it tells.

♥ 556💬 29On LinkedIn ↗
T
ThatoSenior Accountant · 1mo

Controls aren't bureaucracy. They're how you sleep at night. Boring, quiet, and worth every minute. #audit #controls

♥ 874💬 46On LinkedIn ↗
Placeholder posts — these can be pulled in from LinkedIn (manually or via a feed) in the real build.
The ReelIn production

What I'm learning, in motion.

Short videos — plain-English explainers, reflections, and lessons from the road to CA(SA). Building this out over the coming months.

In production

The first films are being made.

This is where Thato's video reflections will live — a running, human record of the ideas she's working through. Here's what's planned first.

Series · Explainer

IFRS 15, in plain English

Series · Notebook

What articles actually taught me

Series · The Annual

2025, in ninety seconds

Empty-state design for a tab with no content yet — ready to fill as videos are made.
The AnnualA professional wrapped

The year, counted and remembered.

Once a year I look back at everything — the work, the numbers, the lessons — and turn it into one page. Think Spotify Wrapped, for a career.

2025

Thato's year in numbers
Sharper. Steadier. Closer.
12
Month-ends closed
4d
New close cycle, from 10
48
Field notes published
1
Board exam passed
What I kept working on
  1. 1Financial reporting & IFRS30%
  2. 2Reconciliations & controls24%
  3. 3Studying for CA(SA)19%
  4. 4Process improvement15%
  5. 5Mentoring trainees12%
Most resonant note
"Stay curious through the tedious parts — that's where the judgment gets built."
2,010 reactions · 143 comments · March 2025
One lesson to carry forward

Trust is built one clean reconciliation at a time. The numbers that mattered most this year were the quiet ones I got right without anyone noticing.

A designed template — each year Thato drops in new numbers and can export it as an image, video, or slide.
Curriculum VitaeUpdated 2025

The detailed record.

Senior accountant with six years across financial reporting, reconciliations, and audit, currently completing the CA(SA) qualification. I own the numbers end-to-end — from ledger to board pack — and I care that they're both accurate and understood.

Comfortable leading month-end close, tightening controls, supporting external audits, and mentoring trainee accountants. SAICA-trained, IFRS-fluent, and happiest when a tangled set of books becomes a clear one.

Experience2018 — Present
2023 — Present
Meridian Group
Johannesburg · In-house

Senior Accountant

  • Own month-end close, reconciliations, and IFRS reporting for the group.
  • Rebuilt the close process, cutting it from ten days to four.
  • Mentor two trainee accountants through their SAICA articles.
2021 — 2023
Northwind Co.
Johannesburg · In-house

Accountant

  • Managed the general ledger, VAT and income tax submissions, and monthly reporting.
  • Supported external audits with clean, well-referenced audit files.
2018 — 2021
Harbour & Co.
Audit firm · Articles

Trainee Accountant — SAICA Articles

  • Completed a three-year SAICA training contract across audit and accounting engagements.
  • Worked across retail, non-profit, and manufacturing clients.
Core skills
IFRS financial reportingExpert
Reconciliations & controlsExpert
Month-end close & reportingAdvanced
Audit support & assuranceAdvanced
ERP & systems (SAP / Sage)Advanced
Placeholder CV — real roles, dates, qualifications & skills go here. Designed to also print / export as PDF.
Contact

Let's make the numbers make sense.

Whether it's a reporting clean-up, a tighter close, or a chat about the road to CA(SA) — if it's about finance, I'd love to hear from you.

Emailhello@thato.co LinkedIn/in/thato NewsletterField Notes, monthly
Demo form — not wired up yet. Real build connects to email or a form service.