Trainee accountant jobs

Finance Officer

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to work for an organisation that makes a difference? 

A rare opportunity has arisen to join a small and vibrant finance team working with the Diocese in Oxford.  We are looking to recruit a brand-new position to contribute to the day to day running of the Diocese Board of Finance (ODBF) where your contribution will have a huge impact.

Position: Finance Officer - Operations

Location: Kidlington, Oxford/Hybrid

Hours: 37 hours per week

Salary: £36,475.31 - £39,281.10

Contract: Permanent

Closing Date: Sunday 5 October 2025 at midnight

Interview Date: Monday 20 October 2025, Oxford

The Role

In this role, you will support the Finance Manager in providing a proactive, efficient, and highly effective finance service across the Diocesan Board of Finance and Trust custodian company, as well as supporting the larger finance team who look after the Board of Education.

The role will be diverse, starting with managing the day-to-day functions but also assisting in all areas of the finance function, including bank reconciliations, VAT, forecasting and reporting.

You will play a key role within a Finance department totalling 9 staff, with input into the future running and design of how the department continues to move forward and grow.

About You

We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated accountant or trainee accountant (or a financially astute individual with relevant experience) to join the friendly team in the Finance function.  You will embrace the challenge that such a varied role brings. 

With proven experience in producing timely, high-quality and accurate financial information, your ‘can-do’ approach to work will inspire you to deliver excellent, meaningful financial reports that will have high impact for stakeholders. You will be flexible in your working style, have strong numerical proficiency, confident communication skills, and excellent organisational and monitoring abilities.  In return, there will be many opportunities for you to enhance your skill set, gain new experiences, and develop your career pathway within this important function.

You do not need to be a practising Christian or have a faith to work with us - around 50% of our staff are not practising Christians but are comfortable with the Christian ethos that underpins our work. However, all our staff do have a desire to make a difference.

Benefits and Rewards

ODBF continues to offer a range of rewards and benefits to its staff, including:

• Competitive salary
• Generous employer pension contribution of 12.5% into the auto-enrolment pension scheme, which includes a death-in-service benefit (5% employee contribution)
• Re-accreditation as a Living Wage employer
• Annual holiday entitlement starting at 25 days, excluding public holidays, rising each year by one day to a maximum of 30 days, pro-rata for part-time employees
• In addition to the statutory UK public holidays, the Diocese offers three privilege days to all employees, namely Maundy Thursday, Ascension Day, and Christmas Eve (or the closest working day, where this falls on a weekend)
• Flexible working patterns with the ability to do some work from home
• Sabbatical leave, after a qualifying period of service
• Access to wellbeing support via Employee Assistance Programme
• Enhanced family-friendly policies and a generous occupational sick pay provision
• Free parking and subsidised on-site café
• Electric car and cycle-to-work salary sacrifice schemes
• EV charging points on site
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme with Octopus Electric Dreams
• Cycle to Work scheme with Green Commute Initiative
• Contributions towards eye examinations and prescriptive lenses
• Access to low-interest rate financial services from Churches Mutual Credit Union
• An attractive modern working environment

The successful candidate must have the right to live and work in the United Kingdom.

If you would like to learn more about this opportunity before submitting your application, please feel free to contact the Director of Finance to discuss the role in further detail. Contact details are available once you start the process.

We want the organisations commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion for all to be reflected in the composition of staff. We are particularly keen to receive applications from candidates from communities currently underrepresented in the diocese.

You may have experience in other areas such as Finance, Finance Officer, Finance Assistant, Finance Administrator, Finance and Operations Officer, Finance and Operations Assistant, Accountant, Junior Accountant. #INDNFP

PLEASE NOTE: This role is being advertised by NFP People on behalf of the organisation.

Role: | Finance & CRM Administrator
Reporting to: | Financial Controller, with a dotted line to the Directors/Fundraising team
Purpose of job: | To work with the Finance and Fundraising teams to provide excellent finance, CRM & other systems administration. This will support income generation, research, data capture and information security throughout the Museum. Responsibilities include maintaining financial records, managing and maintaining a CRM database of contacts, supporting other digital systems, and some general administrative duties including IT support.
Working pattern: | 35 hours per week, usually worked from 10 – 6pm. Flexible/hybrid working offered for up 40% of hours to be worked from home.
Contract: | Permanent
Salary: | £28,000-£30,000pa depending on experience

Who we are looking for
Are you fascinated by data with an excellent grasp on finance, IT and digital systems? Are you interested in the role financial, CRM & other digital systems play in how arts organisations and cultural projects are managed? Are you looking to take the next step in your arts finance, administration or fundraising career? 
The Foundling Museum is transforming how digital systems underpin the foundations of this small but mighty Museum and charity. The position of Finance & CRM Administrator sits at the heart of this continued transition, following the successful implementation and migration to Shopify, Xero & Beacon CRM which began in 2023. 
This new role is essential to the success of the Finance & Fundraising teams, in providing effective finance and CRM administration support. The Finance and CRM Administrator will support income generation activities including fundraising and venue hire, as well as playing a vital role in keeping the Museum’s accounting systems working effectively. 
This includes processing all types of financial transactions on Xero and maintaining records on Beacon. You will work as a key part of both teams supporting the Museum’s strategy through the provision of high quality financial & other data, and the maintenance of the underlying systems.
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly organised individual with strong financial skills, an attention to detail, and a flair for collaborative working and information management. You will be looking to expand your skillset and make a tangible impact on our work, through the effective use & development of the main systems underpining our financial strategy & income generation.

Key objectives
·         Supporting the Finance team with accurate & timely processing & reconciling of all types of Museum transactions & ledgers including sales, purchases, banking & cash.
·         Continue ongoing migration of supporter and customer data to Beacon CRM, working with all teams
·         Support all staff with SharePoint migration project ensuring effective record management
·         Continue seeking opportunities to improve the use of our digital systems to increase organisational efficiencies & income generation

Key responsibilities
Finance
·         Raise sales invoices
·         Process credit card transactions
·         Credit control & reconciliation of the sales ledger
·         Financial management of shop takings
·         Process bank & cash transactions
·         Bank reconciliations
·         Produce financial reports & other ad hoc duties as required by the Financial Controller
·         Gift Aid Claims support
·         Training in and promoting use of XERO to staff
CRM Administration
·         Maintain and update Beacon with all fundraising transactions including applications, prospects, & funding receipts 
·         Process donations, pledges and ticket payments from individuals, organisations, trusts and foundations

·         Day-to-day administration of the Museum’s Friends & other membership schemes

·         Maintain up-to-date and accurate records of contacts ensuring that strict confidentiality and GDPR legislation and guidance is adhered to

·         Monitor data quality by regularly creating and executing processes to cleanse and standardise data in the CRM

·         Lead on development of improving existing CRM systems within Beacon CRM 

·         Assist in data capture and gathering to support fundraising compliance & applications

·         Training in and promoting use of CRM to staff including building reports.
Admin support
·         Basic IT support working with outsourced IT contractors and the Operations team
·         Manage the ordering of office items
·         Facilitate the use, internal awareness and confidence with digital systems, creating and managing logins
·         Supporting the Director’s Office Project Manager with governance & meetings
Other
·         To perform any other tasks as reasonably requested by the Directors, Financial Controller and Fundraising team 

Person specification
Essential :
·         Excellent financial, administration & analytical skills
·         Experience of financial systems such as Xero, Sage or QuickBooks

•       Good understanding and experience of Excel

·         Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate effectively in writing, over the phone, and face-to-face with the Museum’s different stakeholders

·         Solid experience working with not-for-profit databases, such as Beacon CRM

·         The ability to also work independently and take initiative within a small team

·         Proven, excellent organisational skills, with close attention to detail, the ability to multi-task and prioritise responsibilities

·         Excellent IT skills including in depth knowledge of financial systems, CRM, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and other cloud based digital systems 

·         An enjoyment of and willingness to engage with a wide variety of people and organisations
Able to act with discretion and maintain professional confidentiality at all times

·         Appreciation of and support for the aims, values and ethos of The Foundling Museum
Desirable:
·         An interest in and engagement with the work and ethos of the Museum

·         An interest in and engagement with the arts, heritage and/or music

·         Experience of working in a finance or fundraising environment

Benefits

• 25 days annual leave per year (pro rata) + bank holidays (pro rata)+ Birthday leave + Volunteering leave
• You will be eligible to join a group contributory pension scheme (3 months after your start date)
• Discount from the Foundling Museum Shop and local partner businesses
• Access to season ticket , rental deposit and cycle to work scheme loans (3 months from your start date)
• Free and discounted access to partner museums and galleries
• Free access to our fully funded Employee Assistance Programme for wellbeing – WISDOM
• Training support from our on line learning platform

Interview timetable:
Closing date: 5pm 1 Oct 2025
First interview date: 7 and 8 Oct  2025 (NB interview will include a job related task)
Second interview date for shortlisted candidates: 13 or 14 Oct 2025

How to apply:
 To apply please follow the link to our application portal where you will be asked to upload a completed copy of our standard application form. 
On this application form you need to provide: 

• Your contact details 
• Details of relevant achievements in recent posts, as well as any relevant education and professional qualifications that are appropriate to the post 
• What makes you a good fit for the role, for example, giving evidence of your ability to match the criteria outlined in the Person Specification 
• An explanation of  why you wish to work for us 
• Details of your notice period and names of 2 referees, together with the capacity in which they have known you, and an indication of when in the process they can be contacted (please note we will not contact your referees without your express permission) 

 PLEASE NOTE: the application portal will request a CV. This is not necessary and can be ignored. Where it requests a CV please only upload the completed application form, and the optional Equal Opportunities form (if you wish to submit one).

Please get in touch with us details found on our website if you have any access requirements, for example if you would prefer to send your application via video.

Please note that any offer of employment will be subject to receipt of satisfactory references and  proof of right to work in the UK and also may be subject to a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check. 
 
Please also note that this job description will not form part of your contract or your terms and conditions of employment. Duties and requirements of the role may vary from time to time in accordance with the needs of Foundling Museum, its strategy and the directions from its Director.

 About the Foundling Museum:
A seaman, a composer and a painter, and the moving story of the charity they started 270 years ago. The Foundling Museum is a recipe of art and care, which still looks after kids today. Coram, Handel, Hogarth, what’s not to love? Grayson Perry CBE, Foundling Museum Trustee
The Foundling Museum explores compelling stories of love, loss and care through art, music, writing and emotive objects.
 The Museum is the UK’s only arts and heritage institution dedicated to the public understanding of lived experiences of care.  Inspired by three great 18th-century activists - campaigner Thomas Coram, artist William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel - our mission is to inspire change and transform lives through the power of the arts. We believe in creative action that brings past and present together, to stimulate imaginations and enrich lives. 
 The Foundling is also the birthplace of creative philanthropy – combining art and fundraising to publicly support lived experiences of care. At the Foundling, the term ‘care’ refers to children’s social care, including foster care, adoption, kinship care, local authority care and children’s homes. Central to our work is well-being through exhibitions, events, collections, research and arts programmes with care leavers, looked-after children, and early years (birth to five years old).  
 Examples of our work include:  

• Art projects which explore how our historic story of care still resonates today by addressing stigma and supporting mental health. We do this by working in a connected way, establishing collaborations with local health and community partners. 
• ‘Tracing Our Tales’, our flagship training programme for care-experienced young people which was named Learning Programme of the Year at the 2022 Museums and Heritage Awards. Supported by our Learning Team, trainees learn art or creative writing skills in weekly sessions led by dynamic artists and poets, to build a creative portfolio.  
• Exhibitions, collections and displays, ranging from tiny, touching identifying tokens left by mothers with their babies, to composer George Frideric Handel’s will. Around the Museum, you’ll find works of art by contemporary artists like Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, Tracey Emin and Michael Craig-Martin, as well as 18th-century artists William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds. 

For an overview of our charitable activities, and relationships with funders, please view the Foundling Museum Annual Report 2024/2025 on this link.