The Bottom Line Aug 2022

The Bottom Line Your monthly download of all things Finance

August 2022

Hello from Andy Hamilton …

Apologies if you were hoping for your usual message from Annick this month – as she’s off enjoying her holidays, I’ve decided to pop in, say hello and introduce you to this month’s bulletin instead . And I must say it’s been great to be involved in this month’s edition. I had the pleasure of opening the recent Finance Intern Assessment Day at T2 – our business prides itself in being on the ground, working directly with communities and supporting progression and development, and these internships are testament to that. I’m delighted that LKQ Euro Car Parts will be supporting three successful candidates and look forward to them joining us from September.

I was really inspired by Sue’s upcycling projects on page 10 – it shows how our hobbies can be inexpensive and sustainable. During this time where the cost of living is increasing and inflation rates continue to rise , it’s never been more important to use the support available to you – such as our HapiBenefits app (as Anita mentions in her Deal of the Month on page 14 ) and our wellbeing services (which you can find out more about on page 12 ). I can’t wait to see Annick and Co pull on their hiking boots and undertake the Taff Trail on the 10 th August in aid of our charity partner, Ben. If you are able to donate , please do – Ben are an incredible charity at the very heart of the automotive industry.

Finally, I’ve been fortunate to get along to a couple of events recently – both in and outside of work. I really enjoyed taking my family to Silverstone for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix last month (pictured with my boys to the right). This month’s book recommendation emphasises the importance of building structure into your mornings to help set you on course for a productive day. I get up each morning and go for a run and that prepares me for the day – whether it’s an exercise class, some reading, or whatever you prefer, it’s important to start the day by doing something that leaves you feeling energised and focused.

And our recent karting days were a great opportunity to further strengthen our relationships with customers, and a chance for me to play the Stig in a competition against our finalists. If they beat my time, we committed to donating £1.000 to our charity partner Ben. As it was a good cause, I went easy on them, and am really proud to say we donated £20,000 in total! Big thanks to everyone involved.

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Contents

Head to The Bottom Line’s dedicated ECPedia page, where you can find the latest edition, as well as an archive of all the past ones.

Hello from Annick

1

What’s on

3

Dates for the diary

3

Upcoming 2023 budget deadlines

3

System updates

3

Finance for Ben

4

Internships

4

Scavenger hunt

5

People

7

Meet the team

7

New starters

8

Click HERE to view it now.

This month’s team highlights

9

Sustainability hack

10

Have a story or some ideas of your own you want to share? Share your stories and ideas… Click HERE to submit them to Jess Harris ready to be featured in the next bulletin!

Life hack

11

Wellbeing

12

Not feeling 100?

12

Book recommendation

12

Staying cool in the heat

12

In the news

13

Sean’s worldwide news round -up

13

Good to know

14

Robbie’s top tips

14

Anita’s deal of the month

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What’s on

10.08.22

The Taff Trail – contact Jess Harris or Matt Jones for further information

26.08.22 Finance T2 Day – Annick and the Finance department’s senior leaders will be working in T2 all day on the second floor – if you would like to attend, please less Jess Harris know as pizza will be provided for the team at 2pm 26.08.22 Bake for Ben – please let Jess Harris know if you’ll be taking part by 1st August

Dates for the diary…

14.09.22

Finance team curry – please let Jess Harris know if you are attending so the reservation can be made

06.11.22

Movember 5K & 10K – more details to follow nearer the time

09.12.22

Christmas Hampers – donations to charity

Key upcoming budget dates 01.08.22

2022 capex reforecast and re-prioritise of the 2023 capex budget

26.08.22

Sales budget by channel segment to be communicated to business / Finance team

06.09.22

System updates Systems and Audit Manager Robbie McPaul brings you everything you need to know about systems updates happening in the business! Finance team to submit 7+5 Forecast templates to FP&A and 1st draft Budget 2023 templates (including payroll models and bridges) Capex templates to be submitted to FP&A for consolidation Finance team to submit 8+4 Forecast and 2nd draft Budget 2023 templates to FP&A Finance Business Partners to arrange local budget reviews with functional heads and local Execs.

15.09.22

06.09.22 – 15.09.22

Planned System Downtime

13.08.2022 18:00 – 14.08.22 02:00

– UK Babbage Service Pack Installation

06.08.22 19:00 – 24:00

– ROI Babbage Service Pack Installation

New Babbage Service Pack Regression Testing – Progress Update UK Babbage testing commenced on Tuesday 12th July and will run through until Friday 5 th August. Progress has been good with no major issues identified and Saj has mentioned that the teams have been very helpful and accommodating in completing the testing. The intention is to have the Service Pack loaded to ROI live the weekend of the 6th August with UK being installed the following weekend (13th August).

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Finance for Ben

Finance fundraiser: the Taff Trail

Between 10th-11th August, 7 of your colleagues in Finance are attempting to walk the Taff Trail, 55 miles through rugged Welsh countryside in support of Ben. As you probably aware, Finance don’t get let out much so just being outside is a challenge in itself, so attempting to walk 55 miles in 2 days is the charity event of the year so far! Annick, Mel, Jess, Matt, Rich, Paul and Anthony are setting off from Brecon and heading for Cardiff Bay. They have all found their walking boots and a lot of courage to battle the elements, taking all their kit with them - SAS style. Now it’s your turn to support, so please dig deep and back the team to raise funds for Ben . Click HERE for the JustGiving page.

10th - 12th August

Finance internships

Mel Lowe reveals all about our Finance internships…

If you didn’t already know, we have officially launched our first internship for LKQ Euro Car Parts within Finance for 2022! I have been working closely with Jess, Julia and Kate from the People team over the last couple of months to advertise, assess and recruit three enthusiastic University students to join our function and help them gain valuable experience to put towards their degrees. So what have we done so far and what’s still to come?

April May June July

Internships were advertised in local universities for six weeks Applications were reviewed – we received over 60! Selection of candidates invited to T2 for the Intern Assessment Day 12 candidates attended the Intern Assessment Day at T2. Three candidates were successful and offered positions in the team. Mapping out and finalising the detailed programme. Out three new interns will start with us on the 12th September. The Intern Assessment Day proved to be a huge success. We had Andy Hamilton come along to introduce the business and set the scene to the keen group of twelve candidates. There was a great get to know each other session, followed by some speed dating style interview questions and a tricky group challenge for them to get their teeth stuck into. Not only did the teams have to present their ideas on the challenge they’d been set to a stern looking panel (Sheilesh and Mike), but they were also tasked with seeing who could build the highest free-standing tower with just paper and tape. We have offered positions to three candidates from the day and to our delight they have all accepted. I am really excited for them to join us in September and hope you will join me in making sure their experience with us is a memorable one.

August September

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Team-building: scavenger hunt

Our recent scavenger hunt was a great success – thank you to all who joined us, we hope you had as much fun as we did! Here are some photographs we captured during the day …

Team 1 started on the booze nice and early – cheers to that!

Team 2 had a splashing time!

Team 3 were feeling the love and carried it with them all day…

Team 4 had a really wheely good time!

Continued on the next page…

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Continued from the previous page…

Team 7 made sure to catch up on their reading in between sight- seeing…

Team 8 have a great eye for photography – just check out that silhouette shot!

Team 9 were full of smiles as they scavenged!

Team 10 made sure the statues remembered them...

Team 14 sure know how to strike a good selfie pose!

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People

Meet the team

This month we met with Rachelle Savage, Project Manager, to find out all about her... Hi Rachelle! First of all, how about an introduction? Hi, I’m Rachelle and I’m originally near Bournemouth, via Portsmouth, London, Watford and now Atherstone, 10 minutes from T2.

Super! Can you tell us about your career history? I started off with a role in Customer Services post university, which was definitely not for me. I then spent five years in various roles in HR in Financial Services in London before I moved into Retail HR, and after a year was offered an internal move as an Operations Manager looking after Franchise Owned branches. Nearly four years later the 40k miles a year got a bit much and I made my move to LKQ Euro Car Parts and a new role as a Project Coordinator in February 2016. It didn’t feel like a new job – there were eight people from my previous workplace there, so I knew more people on my first day than I did on my trip into the office on my last day at my old job! Once here I moved from Project Coordinator to Junior Project Manager to Project Manager – the PMO was originally part of IT, initially only undertaking IT Projects, until we moved to Finance. Describe a typical day in the life of your role… Twice a week we start off with a Team Meeting. As Project Managers we don’t actually spend much time together so it’s good to hear what other people are up to, their successes and challenges and whether what they’re working on impacts our own projects. Unless we’re working on a huge project we generally work on multiple projects – I currently have four, so each day involves checking in on each project and, where appropriate, with all the people who are working on each project. We hold Steering Meetings monthly to update Senior Stakeholders, who get a special pack because they’re very important, and have weekly, or even daily at critical points, team and/ or supplier meetings. Time will also be spent on the fortnightly Highlight Reports through the week as updates come in. One of my first projects was the upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. We went through everything tech in the business and found some very old and crusty stuff hidden away. It was a huge spring clean and really brought LKQ Euro Car Parts’ tech up to date. Not bad for a first project! On a funnier point, back in the day when we worked with the IT team out of T1, one day there was a bit of a commotion by the windows that looked down onto the car park (if you haven’t been there, the building houses the branch downstairs and had IT upstairs and both floors of the building have windows all along). A colleague called my name and said someone was trying to break into my car. I went over, realised what was happening and opened the window. The windows are wider than a standard door and square so it was a very big window to open and called out “that’s my car, what are you doing?” The guy looked up, saw about 20 people looking down at him, ran off and was swiftly caught by security. So far so normal … However it turns out the guy was at T1 for an interview, through the agency we use for warehouse staff. So he’d given all his details, including his passport, had his interview and then decided on his way out to attempt to break into my car. Unsurprisingly he didn’t get the job! Tell us about a funny, memorable and/or proud work moment!

Continued on the next page…

I once tried to buy a football club … It didn’t end well!

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Continued from the previous page…

Tell us what you’re most looking forward to this year! I’m working on the Zendesk Pilot Project which will really change how we manage contacts with customer and staff. It will be really interesting to see how things pan out and the resulting decision around whether future projects will roll out the system to more, or maybe all, departments.

Tell us something fun about finance! I know nothing about Finance (thank god for Phil Norton!) but I have a couple of interesting points about the LKQ Euro Car Parts PMO. In 2016 the business’ PMO consisted of just three people, including myself who had never worked in Projects before. We’ve had three Heads of PMO, Gareth White (who is now the European IT Infrastructure Director), Gerith Rees (who is the Director for IT Portfolio Management) and now Jeremy who was previously a PM like the rest of us. Looking at other job titles, Jeremy will probably go on to be Emperor of the Universe! And finally, tell us something interesting about you… This year I bought a house so horrible that the only way to fix it is to knock it down and start again, so that’s what I’ll be doing for the next 18 months. I also have a dog called Neil.

New starters

Chloe Evans is joining us a Commercial Reporting Analyst! Chloe started with the business in 2018 with Workshop Solutions and left due to having her son. She enjoys going on adventures and in her spare time, Chloe enjoys watching boxing and stand-up comedians, and she also loves when plans have food/drinking involved.

Lucy Murray is a new starter in National Accounts!

Suzie Pass joined us in June as a Tax Manager!

Lucy started in Credit Control back in February in a temp role – she hit the ground running instantly on what is a challenging ledger – we love the energy and enthusiasm Lucy brings to the team daily, we soon converted Lucy onto a permanent contract

With previous experience at PwC and 3.5 years at the UK’s largest independent

construction materials group, Suzie is familiar with many of the tax issues arising in LKQ Euro Car Parts and already making a positive contribution to the tax processes.

from the 1st of July. Lucy is an upcoming star with plenty more to give I am excited to see what the next 6 months brings.

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This month’s team highlights

June’s Rising Star: Chelsey Rolls

Senior Accounts Payable Analyst

This month’s rising star is Chelsey Rolls – she has really stepped up from her role and performed over and above her responsibilities and really supported her manager and team. Why Chelsey was nominated… • CRM queries have gone down massively • Hardly any account on stop • Improvements can be seen to stakeholders’ engagement • The relationship with LKQI has improved • Chelsey has been motivating and sharing successes without fail with the entire team • She is a great team leader with impressive dedication! Well done Chelsey, and thank you for all your hard work!

Don’t forget to nominate the standout members of your team each month! Senior leaders in Finance will pick one star each month, plus a quarterly superstar. Send your nominations to jessica.harris@eurocarparts.com.

Mover: Chris O’Mara

Chris O’Mara tells all about his new adventure with the business!

I’m excited to be moving into my next challenge in LKQ Euro Car Parts as the Margin Accountant Manager in the UK Management Accounts team. The role involves me overseeing all the P&L movements within the indirect COS GLs, keeping on top of all the various stock provisions and all the as of yet unknown movements in the margin. For the past two years I’ve been the FBP

for ROI but this new role will see me moving back into getting deeper into the numbers and systems whilst covering audit queries both externally and internally, as well as overseeing the completion of many of the SOx controls. Unlike many of us, I don’t mind an auditor as I still remember my apprenticeship with KPMG and the pain of having to ask simple questions to experienced accountants after looking cross eyed at a spreadsheet which made absolutely no sense to me! Outside of work, anyone that’s been on a Teams call with me will know that I like to go jogging and try to do a few events a year to boost my medal collection. I also like most sports – my team is Celtic and I have an annual pilgrimage to Cheltenham for the festival every March. My picture actually shows the alternative view of my office – the ambition to watch the 100 bucket list films is ongoing! This will be my third role within LKQ Euro Car Parts/Andrew Page and I’m moving into some big shoes as Hannah moves onwards and upwards. The last pair of shoes I moved into belonged to an M Lowe… I wonder whatever happened to her?

Want to feature in one of our team spotlights? Get in touch!

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Sustainability hack: gardening with Arleigh

This sustainability hack is brought to you by Sue Hall from our Arleigh team, who has done a fantastic job upcycling and repurposing one of our old pallets and an old boat for her garden…

One person’s trash is another’s treasure… Sue Hall has proven that old items really can be brought back to life! Just look at what she did with an old LKQ Euro Car Parts pallet – with a quick splash of paint, it’s now being used as a beautiful wall planter! And green-fingered Sue likes to do her gardening with sustainability and creativity in mind – just check out her boat project below!

The inspiration behind Sue’s boat project In 2021, Sue went on holiday to Dorset and in the town she was staying, there was a boat filled with flowers by the town’s name sign.

Getting the project started Sue loved the boat and immediately set about tracking down a “doer upper” so she could make something similar for her own garden at home. Tom (from our PB branch)’s dad works at a boat yard, who was happy to help. By October 2021, an old boat had been located and was on its way to Sue’s house. From rags to riches Sue began the renovation in the Spring of 2022. The May Bank holiday was dedicated to sanding the old boat down and painting her in a lovely blue hue. By June 2022, the boat had been filled with 600 litres of compost and 73 geraniums. Saucy Sue unveiled! The boat has pride of place in Sue’s garden with spotlights and fairy lights, and it sports its new name … The Saucy Sue! Saucy Sue herself waters the plants everyday with 20 litres of water.

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Life hack: tax made simple

This life hack is brought to you by Vicky Holder …

National Insurance contributions threshold reminder National Insurance contributions are a tax paid by employees on their earnings and by employers on the earnings of those they employ. On 6th April 2022 the rates of NICs increased by 1.25% (health and social care levy) and was paid on earnings above £9,880. On 6th July 2022 the class 1 NICs primary threshold increased by nearly £3,000 to £12,570, bringing the threshold into alignment with the income tax personal allowance. This aimed to soften the impact of the 1.25% health and social care levy and will have greatest impact for individuals earning less than £35,000 although most employees will benefit by approx. £30 more net pay from July onwards. The future of tax rates The surviving Conservative Party leadership candidates continue to focus on tax and spending priorities, with the former chancellor seemingly alone in ruling out tax cuts until public finances improve. A number of contenders suggest further savings from government departmental budgets to fund tax cuts including: abandoning the rise in corporation tax from April 2023, reductions in the basic rate of income tax, and removing VAT from energy bills. One of the certainties in life may be paying tax, you just can’t be sure how much.

Fun with the news

Paul Stirk shares his round-up of everything weird and wonderful in the world right now… It’s getting hot in here!

The UK recorded the hottest day EVER at 40.2°C on Tuesday 19th July 2022 in London Heathrow – when will the next hottest day be and how hot could it be? You get what yo u pay for… BMW are set to charge £15 a month as a new subscription based service for using heated seats already installed in their cars. Bye BoJo! A change of leadership in our UK government is coming as Boris Johnson resigns … Who do you think should be next in the hot seat and what changes should/will they implement? A sticky situation to be in… An 18 year-old (who was part of a trio) avoids getting stuck in jail over a heist to steal £30,000 worth of chewing gum from a lorry on the M5. A feast for thousands! Just in case you missed it, the world’s largest Jaffa Cake was made by the Great British Bake Off winner. It was the equivalent of 6,557 regular Jaffa Cakes and measured 175cm in diameter. The baker used 160 eggs, 8kg of dark chocolate and 15kg of orange jelly to make it.

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Wellbeing

Wellbeing

Not feeling 100%? Please reach out and talk to someone if you are struggling and be there for others if they need your support. If you want confidential advice or support you can always head to our Employee Assistance Programme on HapiBenefits or reach out to our charity partners, Ben (UK based) and Pieta (ROI). We also have qualified Mental Health First Aiders throughout the organisation - click HERE for our dedicated Wellbeing ECPedia page for all the information.

Reading list recommendations for August, brought to you by Jess Harris …

Wellbeing hack: Staying cool in the heat

This month’s book is The 5am Club by Robin Sharma. I actually read this book on holiday last month and found it such a great read. The structure it gives you to set up your day is brilliant. I have to confess I’m not a morning person but by adding these tips into your day it gives you so much more energy and focus.

This month’s wellbeing tips are brought to you by Paul Stirk…

It’s important to look after yourself during the hot weather, so I’ve gathered some tips to help you do just that (fingers crossed the sunshine continues!)

Click HERE to buy from Amazon

• Keep well hydrated during these hot spells and drink cold water regularly, even if you don’t feel thirsty • Try and create some air flow in your working space (invest in a fan, or open a door or window, etc…) • Where possible place a damp/wet small towel around the back of your neck to help reduce your body temperature • Do not exercise in extreme hot temperatures – this puts more stress/strain on your body and can be dangerous • Think about booking some time/meetings in T2. Not only does this get you away from the same four walls at home, but it’s great to meet people that you haven't seen for a while… Plus, our head offices have air con (heaven sent!)

If you have already read it, then we would love to hear from you. If you haven’t yet, we recommend grabbing

yourself a copy! If you manage to take some

photos of you taking some time out to read, we’d also love to see them to feature in next month’s edition of The Bottom Line.

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In the news

Here's a glance at what's going on around the world right now, brought to you by our Head of Financial Planning and Analysis, Sean Geens

Unfortunately, the news over the past couple of weeks paints a worsening picture for the UK and global economy.

This month’s economic update …

• In term of economic updates, the story remains relatively unchanged. Inflation continues to rise to 9.4% in the 12 months to June 2022, driven by fuel and food prices. According to The Bank of England, inflation could reach as high as 11% this year • Protestors in the UK blocked roads and motorways in July in protest at the high cost of road fuels (albeit pump prices are starting to come down at the time of writing) • New car registrations were down 24% in June vs last year, and for the first half of 2022 saw a 11.9% decline • US carmaker General Motors said that supply chain disruptions have forced it to leave 95,000 unfinished vehicles in storage in the second quarter.

And in Motoring news …

If like me you played way too much Gran Turismo on your PlayStation or gazed at Max Power and Fast Car magazines, you might recognise the blue car shown below as a rare 1999 Subaru Impreza 22B.

Well, you’d be wrong! This is actually a brand new car, a 2022 ProDrive P25. It’s engineered by the same UK company that made the Subaru Impreza World Rally Cars and can be described as a “restomod” . It combines the exterior look of the infamous Impreza with brand new technology underneath. The price is a cool £552,000 including taxes!

Another car brand you may not be familiar with is MrMurty. Their Spéirling model (Irish for thunderstorm) recently broke the hill climb record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Watch the videos on YouTube for yourself, but this car is something else. It uses fans to suck the car to the ground, creating two

tonnes of instant downforce (even when the car is standing still). It goes from zero to 60mph in less than 1.5 seconds and the manufacturers think they can squeeze more out of the batteries and motors. I forgot to mention, it’s 100% battery electric powered. Bearing in mind previous record holders of the hill climb were race cars, you could jump back in this car and drive it home (provided you have any charge left in battery) as the production model will be road legal. The price is still TBC!

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Good to know

Top tips

Your tip of the month is from Robbie McPaul, our expert in all things Internal Systems and Business Improvement! Robbie’s Top Tip!

This month, I’m sharing how to use the quick concatenate function (or, as it is to you and me, joining cells together) using text, characters and/or numbers!

The Excel formula uses the & character as follows:

The formula could look like = 1st cell&2nd cell&3rd cell

For example:

In this case, the formula C66&D66&E66&F66 becomes thiscouldbeuseful.

To add spaces in between the cell content, you can add &““& in between each cell. The formula would then look like C66&””&D66&””&E66&””&F66 and become this could be useful. Similarly, you can add any text/character/number in between cell using the above approach. An example would be for a dash, where the formula would look like C66&” - ”&D66&” - ”&E66&” - ”&F66 which then becomes this-could-be-useful. This option can be used to create unique line entries in large data sets that have multiple repeating data fields – such as customer or supplier account numbers, or branch names/numbers, etc…

Deal of the month

Anita Shoubridge is back with another bargain and this time, it’s on us! I recently received a prompt my eye test was due and it reminded me about our fantastic company policy on the reimbursement of eye tests and contribution available towards glasses. It is more important than ever to take advantage of all our company benefits given the continuing rise in the cost of living. If you use display screen equipment (computers to you and me) as part of your role, then you are entitled to have a full eyesight test by an optometrist or doctor, including a vision test and an eye examination which you can apply for reimbursement through our expenses system. Should you then need glasses for display screen equipment work then the company will also contribute to the cost of these. You can claim under the policy an annual eye test allowance of up £85 (inclusive of VAT) to cover the eye test and as a contribution to the glasses. As any regular reader of deal of the month will know I am a big fan of HapiBenefits! So do check out the discounts from Vision Express available through the scheme.

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