Senior Accountant
- Recruiter
- Michael Page
- Location
- West Yorkshire, Leeds
- Salary
- £35000 - £40000 per annum
- Posted
- 07 Jul 2017
- Closes
- 07 Aug 2017
- Ref
- 13838407/001
- Contact
- Lucy Rider
- Job role
- Financial accountant
- Sector
- Public sector
- Contract type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time
An innovative public sector organisation based in Leeds are looking for a Senior Accountant to focus on their Accounts Payable function and add value with process improvement.
Client Details
An innovative public sector organisation based in Leeds.
Description
This Senior Accountant role is a key member of the Finance team. The team you will be a part of manages the processing and reconciliation of all financial transactions (Order to Cash (O2C), Purchase to Pay (P2P) and Accounting to Reporting (A2R)), and leads on cash management, statutory accounting and internal and external financial audits. It also provides monthly reporting, and supports Finance Partnering. As Senior Accountant you use your accountancy skills to act as the central point of contact and control on all (P2P) related matters, ensuring robust payment controls are in place and adhered to, and ensuring payments are made in line with better payment practice targets. You will work closely with Finance Business Partners to ensure that accruals, prepayments and expenditure forecasts are accurately maintained, build strong working relationships with key business areas and work directly with major suppliers to ensure smooth processes that deliver complete and timely invoice documentation. Responsibilities cover ownership of all current creditor balances, production of the VAT return, the preparation of working papers to support the annual statutory accounts, and liaison with internal and external auditors, and include:
- Building relationships and negotiating with internal and external stakeholders.
- Providing expert advice on processes and procedures for their area of responsibility.
- Ensure the delivery of the month end close and reporting processes for the organisation.
- Demonstrates compliance with agreed methodology, standards, policies and procedures.
- Manage key technical financial systems and processes eg. Accounts Payable, VAT Return
- Recommend improvements and changes to the financial governance and control environment.
- Provide advice on the financial terms and conditions for validating payments.
- Manage the planning, co-ordination and production of in-year financial reporting including year-end accruals and prepayments.
- Support the production and maintenance of financial procedures for P2P system.
- Promote proper use of financial systems across the organisation and provide support and training to staff at all levels.
- Line manage junior staff reporting to this post and provide leadership.
Profile
You will be a qualified accountant ( ACA / CIMA / ACCA / CIPFA ) and possess the following skills and experience.
- Experience of effective team management.
- Demonstrable experience of building highly effective collaborative relationships with a wide range of senior professionals.
- Advanced credible communicator, with the ability to use a variety of communication tools to convey, negotiate and challenge complex information to a large range of internal and external audiences often at senior management/Director level.
- Experience of generating and interpreting financial information to help the organisation to understand itself more fully and provides advice on technical and finance issues.
- Experience of assisting with the implementation of internal and external audit requirements.
- Experience of developing custom outputs to analyse and present information in a new format (e.g. using databases or spreadsheets) - suitable for accounting purposes and/or for non-finance users.
- Ability to perform data manipulation using Excel including visual presentation.
- Proven ability to maintain the integrity of underlying granular information to provide targeted, concise information.
- Experience in assisting with the preparation of the annual accounts, working with key stakeholders, including internal and external audit.
- Demonstrable experience of adapting processes and procedures and embracing changes required to meet current and future service requirements.
- Proven ability and experience of checking progress against targets, reporting as necessary and taking action to resolve exceptions.
- Experience in applying rigour to the financials, production of concise, informative and user-friendly financial reports to the standard required by a range of stakeholders.
- Proven ability to develop and maintain a robust reporting environment; to ensure that complex financial data is controlled and a "single source of truth" reporting environment is maintained and available for all reporting requirements.
- Ability to develop finance processes, procedures and systems in order to improve business efficiency and to meet stakeholder, accounting standards and internal requirements.
- Ability to monitor and report on performance against service agreements/contracts identifying variances and working with stakeholders to ensure efficient delivery.
Job Offer
c.£35,000 - 40,000 with a focus around flexible working and family friendly benefits.
27 days annual leave increasing with service
An excellent contributory pension scheme.
You will benefit from a real commitment to your personal and professional development with a dedicated career manager as well as your line manager to support your development and progression.