Recruitment Sheet
Job Title: Administrator / Bookkeeper / Clerk to the Board
Base: Rylands Care Farm, Boyshill Drove, Holnest, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 5PS
Organisation: Future Roots is an award-winning social enterprise that addresses disadvantage and promotes wellbeing by building the resilience of vulnerable people. We inspire people to make positive choices in their lives and reach their full potential - however challenging their situation may appear at the time - by encouraging them to experience Dorset’s farms and rural landscapes at key transitions in their lives. Our key target groups are the hardest to reach young people between the ages of 8 and 25 years, (may include social emotional and behavioural problems or various degrees of learning difficulty) and also adults and older people with poor mental, physical health or learning difficulties. We have two sites – Rylands near Sherborne and Whitfield near Dorchester.
Responsible to: Julie Plumley, Director
Key Contacts: Office Administrator
Accountant (External)
Head of Finance Sub-Committee (Board member)
Other contacts: Participants, Workers and Volunteers
Participants’ carers, parents, spouses and external organisations (eg referring agencies such as schools, mental health teams etc).
Responsible for: No line management responsibilities.
Work pattern: By arrangement - A minimum of 10 hours a week in the office Monday to Friday plus overtime. A flexible work pattern is available however once the pattern is agreed, it will require absolute reliability.
Purpose of the position:
1. Deliver accurate and timely book keeping for payroll, invoicing and payments, and doing monthly bank reconciliations.
2. Supporting the smooth running of the organisation by maintaining good records and using these to co-ordinate the maintenance and renewal of contracts, accreditations, certificates and policy documents.
The Role
1. Deliver accurate and timely book keeping for payroll, invoicing and payments, and doing monthly bank reconciliations.
· Invoicing, debtors, payments
· Recording and coding of donations, grants, bids and payments
· Bank reconciliation
· Timesheets and payroll administration (the Accountant processes payroll)
· Management accounts for the board meeting and ad hoc additional reports.
2. Supporting the smooth running of the organisation by maintaining good records and using these to co-ordinate the maintenance and renewal of contracts, accreditations, certificates, attendance statistics, grants and bids, databases and policy documents.
This is developing and keeping a rota of checks and updates that need doing. The job is to identify and co-ordinate the updates in a timely and friendly manner; eg identifying the need, telling the person responsible, chasing if necessary and then keeping the information on file and updating the relevant database. NB it is not taking on responsibility for the content of updates but it checking things are getting done and compiling information into reports where necessary.
3. Clerk to the Board – work closely with the Chair of the Board and the Director to produce timely and thoughtful papers and minutes for the quarterly evening and annual half day meetings.
4. Ad hoc administrative support – such as, but not limited to:
· Phone work – taking messages, chase late taxis etc
· Event support – helping with marketing and fundraising eg updating the contact database, sending out thank you letters, researching information for bids, making drinks and serving refreshments
· General help and ad-hoc duties– i.e. eg doing a bit of an emergency clean up, helping a worker if there is an incident, printing forms or photos for sessions etc
· Providing cover for the Office Administrator as necessary during holidays or sickness.
The role will include working as part of a team to maintain a stable, happy and caring environment that puts the health, safety and welfare of our participants first but also considers our own and fellow workers’ safety. Everyone is expected to take responsibility for flagging any health and safety or safeguarding concerns – guidance on this is provided in staff hand book.
General: Everyone at Future Roots is expected to work as part of a team and contribute to the best of their ability, there will be times when activity might be extended beyond the remit of their regular role. These expectations will always be reasonable given the skills and experience of the person. Permanent changes are reflected in updated role descriptions.
The Main Duties and Responsibilities
1. Work effectively as part of a team in a small growing organisation that operates in a challenging environment and contribute towards the running of a well organised, hygienic and safe site.
2. Be a reliable work colleague – communicate what is needed in good time and in a helpful manner.
3. Proactively contribute to the continuous improvement of the smooth running of the office and the organisation in an appropriate way.
4. Deliver what is expected in terms of gathering, processing, sharing and storing information for finance and record keeping and be proactive in helping others, especially with office based work.
5. Adhere to Future Roots policies and demonstrate good judgement when considering how to act and whether it would be in the best interests of participants, colleagues and the organisation as a whole. This includes signing up to having read and understood the staff handbook and policies identified therein.
6. To update training as required, attend supervision and team meetings out of general work hours.
7. Represent Future Roots in a positive, warm and professional manner at all times.
Person Specification
· Motivated by the goals and ambitions of Future Roots and share our passion for our participants’ needs and their progress.
· Comfortable being friendly and also professional and able to respond in a calm and measured way even when a level of high emotion is expressed. Have an understanding that comments made by our participants are not personal and respond appropriately.
· Willingness to receive additional training especially around health and safety, data protection and safeguarding as suggested and share learning across Future Roots appropriately.
· Proven track record of excellent timekeeping and reliability.
· Proven track record in doing administration and bookkeeping for other small growing or changing organisations with very varied invoicing.
· Demonstrate strong personal management and ability to self-check work with excellent attention to detail.
· Demonstrate clear, professional written communication skills, ideally including experience of having taken minutes and/or preparing reports for management, and a warm, succinct phone and face to face style.
· Preferred style of work will be methodical, rigorous and meticulous.
· Competent with MS word and excellent with MS Excel – so creating spreadsheets that involved vlookups, pivot tables, simple macros etc wouldn’t be daunting. Comfortable writing brief emails or completing a word template to accompany month end reports etc.
· Sage knowledge and experience essential or evidence that have in depth knowledge of several other similar packages and will be able to self-teach quickly.
· Not for profit or charity a definite advantage but not a pre-requisite.
Contract information
Hours To be agreed.
A standard full working day is 9-5.30, including 30mins break.
Rate £8-£10 per hour based on skills & experience
Duration: Start as soon as possible.
Yearly contract subject to an 8 week probationary period. Contracts are renewed annually subject to funding each April.
Holidays To be calculated depending on hours agreed but will be based on 20 days of holiday plus 8 days of bank holiday pro rata’d down and is based on a full time week being 40 hours.
Selection Process
Please e-mail application which will include a completed Application Form to . Ideally all applications will be submitted by end of day Monday 20th March 2017 although we will try to accommodate late applications if required.
The initial stage will include a 30 minute interview and a brief tour of the farm. The second stage will be a more in-depth interview with Julie Plumley, founder of Future Roots and probably two others. For the successful applicant, a job offer will follow and the relevant employment checks will be made.
If you have any questions or queries regarding this role, please contact quoting Reference RR/Admin 01 and we will respond as soon as possible.
Additional Recruitment Information
The successful applicant will be required to supply two recent written references and complete Disclosure and Barring Service screening. As this role is working with vulnerable people and their personal and sensitive data this role is exempt from elements of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore both spent and unspent convictions will need to be disclosed. Any job offer made will be subject to suitable references.