Moscow Circus and Budapest Trotting Track

With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe was suddenly open to Western Investment. Like many American companies, Delaware North Companies (DNC) decided to take advantage of the newly opened markets. It won contracts to operate Food and Beverage concessions at the Moscow Circus and the Budapest Trotting Track.

I was asked to travel to Moscow and then Budapest to establish DNC’s accounting systems in these venues and train the local management in utilizing Delaware North’s inventory control systems.

Invoices were paid from a local bank account, but the invoices had to be entered on an Accounts Payable input form that was sent weekly with copies of the invoices, via DHL, to the Corporate offices in Buffalo, New York, where they were keyed into the General Ledger system. I set up this process when I was in Moscow for the opening and later in Budapest, Hungary. I trained the Office Manager at each location to list the invoices on the Accounts Payable input form as she received them so it would not be overwhelming at the end of the week.

I set up the different concession menu items on the DNC Concessions Software and showed the Office Manager how to set up new items as needed, and how to enter purchases when the product was received. At the end of the inventory period, I showed the Assistant Manager how to count the inventory systematically, left to right, top to bottom, to ensure everything was counted and to list the counts on the count sheet. When the Office Manager received the count sheets, I showed her how to enter the counts, and print the reports. I also showed management how to use the reports to identify product cost problems and resolve them.

The venues needed to complete a Sales Input Form each day, summarizing the day’s Food, Beer, and Retail sales and balancing sales to cash received. I showed the Office Manager how to summarize the sales from the stand sheets completed by each concession stand. At the end of the week, the Office Manager inserted the Sales Input forms into the DHL package to be sent to Corporate so sales could be recorded in the General Ledger.

I put cash controls in place where the Assistant General Manager issued a cash bank to each Concession Stand Supervisor who signed for the bank at the beginning of the shift. At the end of the day, the banks were removed from the concession funds turned in to the cash room, and the banks were returned to the operating fund. The remaining cash was counted and a deposit made up. Once a week the General Manager counted the operating fund, completed a count sheet, and reconciled the count to the General Ledger balance.

When I left Moscow and Budapest, both venues were fully functioning, cash and inventory controls were in place, and local management knew what Corporate expected from them. They had the tools to detect problems and take corrective action to solve them.

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