On the surface, running a translation company is simple: a group of translators take a document, translate the words and produce a final text in the target language. However, there are many other tasks and responsibilities which ensure a small translation company like ours runs smoothly. With help from the Priory team, here’s a look into a day in the life at Priory Translations.
Every day starts with admin – checking for any new emails and responding to them, and going over to-do lists. For our project manager, this continues throughout the day, whether it’s acknowledging new assignments, returning completed projects and providing quotations for clients or booking in projects, allocating work and preparing files for translation behind the scenes.
When we receive translation requests, they are allocated to a member of our in-house team or outsourced to our freelance translators. Once a new translation is assigned, the translator will consult any previous similar assignments and conduct research into the subject matter and terminology before starting to translate the documents, usually using a CAT tool such as MemoQ. Alongside translation, our translators also carry out in-house reviews of all assignments. This involves a complete check of the translated document against the original source text to ensure any errors are ironed out. Translators often liaise with each other to solve any outstanding queries before a translation is finalised and ready to return to the client. Once the project is finished, they will review any terminology lists drawn up when completing the assignment and enter them into the translation software so that terminology is up-to-date and consistent between translations.
As well as translation, our translators also undertake editing and proofreading assignments, where a document, often written by an author who is using English as an additional language, is reviewed to make it ready for publication. Clients often provide instructions and style guides, which are applied to the document, and we have our own in-house editing procedures to ensure documents are both clear and correct.
The project manager and head of accounts are also in charge of preparing and sending sales invoices for completed assignments, monitoring sales receipts, ensuring invoices are recorded and paid and creating snapshots of company finances. These help us to monitor the performance of the business and to make key decisions during our directors and team meetings.
Finally, as well as these daily responsibilities, there are a host of other tasks such as sorting out IT problems, reaching out to potential new clients and keeping our business practices, policies and procedures compliant with laws and regulations, that fall to our managing director and business development manager. These two members of the team are also lucky enough to attend business and marketing events to gain a better insight into current trends and developments whilst forming new connections and eating too many biscuits.