Interim - Senior Management Accountant

Interim Senior Management Accountant – Grants

Hertfordshire | £300–£400 per day | 6 months | 3 days onsite | ASAP

We are working with a well-established £50m+ charitable and grant-funded organisation to recruit an experienced Interim Senior Management Accountant – Grants for an initial six-month assignment.

Reporting to the Finance Director, this is a senior, hands-on role combining management accounting, complex grant and project finance, business partnering and financial analysis.

A key part of the brief is finding someone who is naturally curious and questioning. They want someone who will interrogate the numbers, investigate anomalies, understand what is driving performance and come forward with solutions rather than simply reporting what has happened.

Key responsibilities

• Take senior oversight of a portfolio of complex, high-value grants and funded projects, ensuring robust financial management throughout the funding lifecycle.
• Work closely with project leads and senior stakeholders, providing financial advice, challenge and insight.
• Lead on management accounts, budgeting, forecasting, variance and trend analysis.
• Ensure restricted and grant-funded income and expenditure is accurately accounted for, allocated and reported.
• Produce and review financial reports and returns for major institutional and public funding bodies, ensuring compliance with individual funding requirements.
• Monitor project cash flow, income recovery, billing schedules and financial risks.
• Investigate variances and anomalies, getting underneath the numbers to understand the underlying issues.
• Identify financial risks and opportunities and develop practical solutions with stakeholders.
• Support improvements to financial processes, controls, systems and management information.
• Provide guidance and support to other members of the finance team and help strengthen financial understanding across the organisation.

What we are looking for

• Qualified accountant – ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent.
• Strong charity, research, education or similarly grant-funded/not-for-profit experience.
• Ideally experience within a £20m+ organisation with a reasonably complex funding structure.
• Significant experience managing restricted grants and project-based funding.
• Understanding of the requirements associated with major institutional, government or research funding streams, including cost allocation, compliance and funder reporting.
• Strong management accounting, budgeting and forecasting experience.
• Excellent Excel, analytical and financial modelling skills.
• Confident business partner who can work effectively with senior stakeholders and non-finance project leads.
• Curious, analytical and willing to challenge – someone who questions their findings rather than taking information at face value.
• Solutions-focused and proactive, with the confidence to identify an issue, investigate it and recommend a way forward.
• Able to operate autonomously and quickly get up to speed within a complex organisation.

Contract: 6 months
Rate: £300–£400 per day
Location:  Hertfordshire – 3 days per week onsite
Start: ASAP