Financial Accountant

Page Personnel are delighted to represent our client looking for a Financial Accountant to join their team in Bournemouth. The position will report to the Head of Finance who has responsibility for all accounting functions in support of the organisation and its subsidiaries, the academic faculties and professional services. In turn the post holder is responsible for managing two staff within the financial accounting team.

Client Details

Due to an employee leaving, my client is looking for a Financial Accountant based in Bournemouth. My client is poised to take advantage of the increasing marketisation of the Higher Education sector which affords it with the opportunity to grow its student numbers in line with its new Strategic Plan.

Description

As a Financial Accountant, the role will require:

• To lead and manage the financial accounting activities and be responsible for financial returns including the statutory accounts and VAT returns.
  
• To independently provide specialist financial accounting support and advice based on considerable depth of knowledge, skills, experience and expertise.
  
• To oversee and manage work of the financial accounting team, incorporating payroll, project/control accounts and nominal ledger, providing coaching and support as required.
  

KEY DELIVERABLES:

Specialist:

• To research, collate, organise and edit financial accounting material for inclusion in Finance reports, handbooks, website and other publications.
  
• To perform detailed analysis and manipulation of financial accounting information or data, highlighting and prioritising issues for further action and to support management decision-making.
  
• To independently provide detailed information and advice, including coaching and instruction as appropriate, to senior colleagues, staff, students and others, based on considerable depth of financial accounting knowledge, skills, experience and expertise; this may include leading policy development in the specialist area.
  

Customer / Teamwork:

• To deliver a high level of customer service to internal or external clients using own initiative and specialist knowledge and experience.
  
• To contribute to the work of the Finance & Procurement team in support of the achievement of team deliverables, coordinating and supervising work as appropriate.
  
• To review customer satisfaction to ensure that service is delivered to internal or external clients to the standard of quality identified by service objectives, identifying future improvements to maximise effectiveness.
  

Planning & Organisation:

• To oversee and retain an overview of all related financial accounting activities, ensuring procedures are followed and section objectives are met.
  
• To develop, construct, refine or adapt financial accounting processes to ensure they are fit for purpose, compliant and adhere to best practice.
  
• To implement improvements to financial accounting service/efficiencies/working practices/methods/processes taking account of customer feedback, changes to policy, strategy or external environment.
  

Resource Planning:

• To take responsibility for ensuring that all relevant financial accounting information and documentation is maintained, ensuring systems, websites, reports, documents are updated as required.
  
• To take delegated responsibility for budgets following established procedures.
  
• To contribute information about future resources requirements to inform the resource and budget planning process; this may include holding overall responsibility for resource management within a specialist area.
  

Profile

To be successful in this application, you should have:

• Part-qualified CIMA/ACCA/ACA.
• Degree level qualification or equivalent qualification or experience.
• Awareness of key challenges within the Higher Education sector.
• Understand requirement to comply with the strict governance arrangements that are present in the sector.
• Demonstration of specialist knowledge required for job eg a good understanding of VAT, accounting standards, reporting requirements and keeping abreast of development to inform colleagues.
• Excellent MS Office skills - word, excel, outlook and as appropriate for the post.
• Excellent problem solving & analytical skills.
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, ability to work with internal and external auditors and responds to HMRC and ONS queries by way of example.
• Strong supervisory/line management skills.

Job Offer

If successful, the candidate should expect to receive:

• Salary between £36,000 and £41,700.
• Very competitive benefits package.