Assistant Financial Accountant Jobs in Cherwell, Oxfordshire
Closing date: 6th May
Please ensure you apply with your CV and a supporting statement on why you believe you would be the most suitable individual for this position.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
Are you a part qualified Accountant looking to use your skills and accounting knowledge to help address the biggest health issue in the UK today?
We are looking for an Assistant Financial Accountant to join our friendly Finance team as we continue to build our team of passionate people that rise to any challenge. We are looking for someone who would love to be part our success, as we progress our Finance transformation journey and strengthen the Financial Accounting function for the Society.
In this role, you will be involved in key processes that underpin the sound management of both the financial accounting function and the transactional accounting teams.
Key responsibilities of the role include:
- Playing a key role in the delivery of the month end process, including preparation and posting of certain journals.
- Preparing accurate and transparent balance sheet reconciliations.
- Assisting with deliverables for the statutory accounts and year end audit.
- Liaise and collaborate with Finance Business Partners and Financial Accounting and Transactional teams to ensure that financial policies and procedures are understood and robustly managed.
- Assist with the preparation of other external reporting.
- Participating in ad-hoc finance projects.
- Suggesting and actioning improvement to current processes when recognised.
Alzheimer's Society have recently been named on the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023. We have achieved excellent scores for workplace happiness, pride, and job satisfaction and we're incredibly proud of this achievement.
About you
- Part qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with prior experience in a financial accounting role.
- Experience of working with ERP finance systems. Knowledge of Unit 4 (Agresso) Finance System (desirable)
- Experience in management accountant.
- Knowledge of financial accounting standards and a good understanding of financial policies, processes and controls
- Can-do attitude with an ability to prioritise work and meet deadlines.
- Resilient individual with a desire to deliver process improvements.
- Flexible and driven to provide outstanding support to your team and wider colleagues.
Person Specification
- Excellent and professional communication skills, both verbal and written.
- Excellent IT skills and extensive experience/knowledge on using Microsoft packages, particularly Excel.
- Work collaboratively and be able to prioritise your workload effectively.
- Strong analytical and interpretation skills.
- Excellent organisational skills and great attention to detail.
- Advocate for Alzheimer’s Society, demonstrating passion and resilience to make a difference.
- Be a self-starter and incredibly motivated.
About Alzheimer's Society
At Alzheimer's Society, we believe passionately that life doesn't end when dementia begins. We are here for anyone affected by dementia, and we do everything we can to keep people with dementia connected to their lives and the people who matter most.
Everything we do is shaped by people affected by dementia. Their knowledge and experience are critical to bringing about real-world solutions. From choosing the most promising research through to telling their stories to raise awareness; they are the heart of this organisation.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as the applications come in. Don’t miss your opportunity, apply now!
About Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN)
Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) works to reduce undernutrition globally. We enhance the effectiveness of nutrition policy and programming by improving knowledge, stimulating learning and building evidence. We are passionate about being network-driven, independent and evidence-based.
Our vision is that every individual caught up in a nutritional emergency, or suffering from malnutrition anywhere in the world, gets the most effective help possible.
We undertake knowledge management, research and advocacy to support national governments, civil society, UN agencies, donors and academic organisations, and communities of practitioners. Through our work and collaborations, we support agencies and individuals to implement evidence-based nutrition programming, predominantly in low- and middle-income countries and in fragile and conflict-affected states.
ENN is governed by a Board of Trustees and has its head office in Oxfordshire, UK. ENN is financially supported by foundations and trusts, bilateral donors, international non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies. For more information about ENN see our website.
What we do
Our Strategy aims to enhance the effectiveness of nutrition policy and programming by improving knowledge, stimulating learning, building evidence and providing support and encouragement to practitioners and decision-makers involved in nutrition and related interventions.
ENN’s portfolio includes projects specialising in Infant Feeding in Emergencies, Wasting and Stunting, Adolescent Nutrition and Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI), as well as our highly regarded international publication, Field Exchange (FEX).
At present our annual turnover is around £1.6m (c.$2.1m) with much of our funding coming from government (institutional) donor grants including USG (BHA) and the Government of Ireland, and charitable foundations (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Waterloo Foundation), and other sources including support from UN agencies and INGOs. ENN receives income in multiple currencies and has spending commitments in both GBP and other currencies. ENN’s accounts are prepared in GBP and filed in the UK with both the Charity Commission and with Companies House in accordance with UK charity requirements.
As a registered charity, ENN has no liability for corporation tax and ENN is not registered for UK VAT.
ENN’s financial year runs from 01/01 – 31/12 and we operate an iplicit accounts management system. Annually, ENN issues a report on activities and outcomes and audited financial statements. These documents are publicly available on our website under annual reports and accounts.
Our People
ENN’s team is made up of a range of technical experts in nutrition, with decades of collective experience, and a small, experienced operational team. ENN is highly committed to diversity and inclusion, to enabling and promoting flexible working for our staff, and to supporting continued professional development.
We are proud that in our 2022 Employee Engagement Survey over 95 percent of our staff said they enjoy their work and that ENN is a flexible employer.
The Role
This is an exciting opportunity to join the ENN team as our Management Accountant - Grants. The role provides the opportunity to work across the spectrum of ENN’s projects, as part of the operations team. You will be based in our headquarters in Oxfordshire and will work closely with ENN’s Finance Manager and Projects Team.
About You
Bringing your experience of third sector accounting to ENN, you will be able to communicate well with both finance and non-finance stakeholders. You will be comfortable supporting complex projects, tailoring financial management information and reports to enable decision making and assuring donor compliance and reporting requirements are met consistently.
Terms and Conditions
- Hours of work: Part time, 60% of full-time hours (22.5 hours per week – pattern to be agreed)
- Type of contract: Permanent
- Location: This is an office-based position at ENN’s Head Office in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, OX5. Some hybrid working may also be offered. Currently our Operations Teamwork from the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and we require this role to be in the office on these days.
- Benefits: Contribution to Dental, Life cover, Employee Assistance Programme, Wellbeing contribution
- Holidays: 25 days plus UK bank holidays increasing by one day p.a. after two complete years of service to a maximum of 27 days p.a. (pro rata)
- Paid office closure days between Christmas and New Year
- Pension: Auto-Enrolment to ENN scheme with a generous Employer contribution of 5%
- Salary: Circa. £41,000 per annum (full-time equivalent), depending on experience.
- Applicants must be entitled to work in the UK at the time of application and must indicate this in their application
Key responsibilities
Grant compliance and reporting
- Financial compliance of grant spend in line with donor agreements ensuring no disallowable costs and that all allowable costs are reflected in the accounts correctly.
- Provide back up for grant financial reporting in the format required by donors for the projects team to review, collate and submit with the full donor reporting pack.
- Raise sales invoice to the donor with all back up attached and provide acknowledgement of funds letters upon receipt of cash in the bank.
- Work closely with the Finance Assistant and Projects team to ensure invoices are correctly coded to the right donor and project and complete month end reconciliations
- Input budget and quarterly reforecasts into the finance system (iplicit) and track grant performance against budgets on a regular basis providing variance analysis.
- Review and assimilate grant financial information for the Finance Manager and/or Project team as required which ultimately will be used as input in management reporting for various stakeholders (Technical budget holders, Management Team and Trustees).
- Support the organisation’s income generation ambitions, through the provision of advice, guidance and assistance, and in assisting with funding bids and budgeting and undertaking new funder/partner financial viability assessments as required.
- Maintain and update donor restricted fund balances/movements for year-end statutory reporting.
- Maintain project financial files and records for statutory audit and donor audit purposes.
Management accounting
- Prepare monthly income deferrals and income accruals and maintain month end trial balance reconciliations for management accounts.
- Capture any committed project costs to accrue.
- Apportion any interest earned from grant cash in the bank in line with donor contract terms.
- Work collaboratively with the Finance Manager on cash flow forecasting with regards to expected donor payments.
- As required by finance or the projects team, and working with iplicit, write reports in the finance system that would provide insightful and useful management information. For example, for grant monitoring and evaluation, trend analysis and assessing KPI’s etc
- Support the Finance Manager in capacity building and providing financial training to finance and non-finance staff.
- Provide ad hoc support to the Finance Manager with regards to specific financial projects, as required.
- Bank signatory for creditor payments in line with ENN’s Delegation of Authority Policy.
- Provide cover for the Finance Manager when necessary.
Reporting line
- Reports to the Finance Manager
Person Specification
Essential requirements
- Professional accountancy qualification (e.g. AAT, ACA, ACCA, CIMA, would consider part qualified or qualified by experience)
- Experience of charity-specific accounting and grant reporting requirements
- Experience working with grant funded projects and ability to navigate and communicate compliance requirements
- Experience in developing, monitoring, and reporting against budgets
- Able to present and visualise data in different ways for different audiences
- Ability to manage a diverse and busy workload, prioritising effectively, and able to work both autonomously and as a member of a dispersed and diverse team
- Flexibility and willingness to take on new areas of work and responsibilities
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, works well with other team members and business partners (both internal and external), including those without a specific financial background.
- Adept at identifying efficiencies and best practice to strengthen ways of working to benefit ENN finance and projects teams
- Motivated, takes initiative, innovates and delivers to deadlines. A self-starter, able to diagnose situations and constraints, comfortable when to progress independently and when to escalate
- Excellent attention to detail
- Proficient user of Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and commercial financial software
- Good cross-cultural awareness
- Ability to demonstrate discretion and diplomacy
- Fluent in English
Desirable
- Experience of using iplicit accounting software
- Specific experience in dealing with institutional donors would be an advantage
- Experience in managing income and expenditure in multiple currencies
- Experience of evaluations: analysing, collating, reconciling and reviewing data related to grant and programme effectiveness
- Experience in developing funding opportunities with a variety of donors
- Data security and GDPR awareness
Eligibility to work
Must be entitled to work in the UK at the time of application. No relocation package is offered for this role.
Application Process
Please submit a Cover Letter (no more than 1 page) and CV no later than Monday 6th May 2024. Early applications are advised as we reserve the right to conclude the process before the closing date if a suitable candidate is identified. Please include your preferred working hours and pattern details in your application.
ENN is committed to diversity and inclusion, and to building a culture where every staff member and volunteer is recognised and valued as an individual. We actively encourage applications from a broad range of experiences and backgrounds.
Emergency Nutrition Network works to reduce undernutrition globally.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.