Taking back control jobs in bracknell, bracknell forest

Hours: Full-time - 36hours per week

(Will also consider part-time - 28hours a week and flexible working requests)

Location: Fully remote with occasional travel within England

Role Summary

The Community Forest Trust (CFT) supports, enables and champions the work of England’s Community Forests, who are the leading woodland creation network in England. We provide a range of support services for the forests including finance functions, payroll and accountable body for funded projects.

We are seeking a detail-oriented and highly organised Finance and Operations Officer to join our team. You will be responsible for maintaining financial transactions, preparing reports, and ensuring compliance with the organisation’s financial policies and procedures. The ideal candidate will have experience in a finance role, competency with accounting software and a commitment to delivering accurate, high-quality work.

You will also provide support to the CFT Managing Director and team, including diary management, booking travel and accommodation, supporting project delivery and arranging meetings and events. You will possess strong organisational skills, with a focus on providing exceptional assistance to ensure the smooth operation of our daily activities. This role requires the ability to manage multiple tasks efficiently and communicate effectively with a range of stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Finance Work

• Check, process and record payments in accordance with agreed procedures, administer invoices and expenses claims received, ensuring they are forwarded for authorisation in a timely manner, correctly coded and posted on the finance system
• Prepare purchase invoices, add to the payment spreadsheet ready for weekly payment run processing
• Run the Weekly Credit Control cycle, ensuring invoices are raised and sent on time and monitoring aged debtors, chasing late payments as required
• Reconcile the credit cards and bank account and ensure the financial system is up to date
• Support the Finance manager in month end procedures
• Draft monthly, quarterly and annual management accounts and finance reports
• Support the preparation of grant claims, ensuring that adequate records are kept
• Assist with year-end audits
• Assist with payroll processing
• Respond and deal with finance queries received internally and externally

Operations Support

• Provide support to the CFT Managing Director and team, including diary management, booking travel and accommodation, taking and drafting minutes
• Provide support for planning and arranging meetings including the CFT Board, Forest Network and with key stakeholders, including agreeing dates, organising venues and catering, distribution of agendas and supporting papers
• Support the Forest Network including arranging ‘all-hands’ briefings and the annual conference
• Ensure CFT’s contacts list is kept up to date
• Provide ad-hoc admin support for CFT projects and programmes
• Manage social media accounts ensuring relevant message sharing and posting to increase engagement
• Manage and respond to general enquiries including via the website, telephone and e-mail

Person Specification

Essential:

• English and Maths GCSE A-C or equivalent
• Proven experience in bookkeeping/similar finance role, including following policies and procedures, processing invoices, supporting the preparation of financial reports, financial reconciliation
• Good working knowledge of key accountancy software such as Quick Books or SAGE
• Administration experience, including providing support for colleagues, arranging meetings/events
• High level of numeracy and financial literacy, comfortable working with budgets and spreadsheets and be able to input data accurately
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
• Strong organisational and time management skills
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to liaise with a range of stakeholders
• High attention to detail and accuracy
• Team worker, but also happy to work independently including self-managing remote working
• A ‘can-do’ attitude and uses their own initiative
• Problem solving skills
• Ability to work under pressure, prioritise and meet tight deadlines
• Flexibility with the ability to adapt to the needs of the charity

Desirable:

• Qualification in finance or accounting e.g. AAT
• Experience of using social media in a work context
• Knowledge of social media channels including LinkedIn, Facebook etc and skilled in using them

Other Information

We pride ourselves on being a supportive and dynamic workplace. We aim to support our team enjoy their work and achieve a good work-life balance.

The organisation’s holiday entitlement is 25 days a year (full-time) plus public holidays. We also operate a flexi-time and TOIL system.

CFT has an auto-enrolment pension. Employer contribution to pension is up to 8% match of the employee contribution.

CFT employs around 50 staff based in the Forests but has a small core team of 4, which works remotely and there is no office base. We meet once a quarter in-person and this post will occasionally need to attend in-person meetings and events, including the annual conference.

There is a 6-month probation period.

Recruitment Timetable

Deadline for applications: 12noon Friday 24th October 2025

Interview date: Thursday 6th November 2025

Please submit your CV, with a covering letter that is no more than 2 sides, evidencing how you meet the person specification by the deadline above.

Please note, any CVs submitted without a cover letter will not be accepted.

Due to limited team capacity, if you have not heard back from us by Tuesday 28th October, please assume that you have not been shortlisted for interview.

Thank you for your interest in working for the Community Forest Trust.

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applicants from all sections of the community.