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Job Description

Title of the post: Assistant Financial Accountant

(Fixed-term, full-time Maternity cover appointment)

Department: Finance

Reports to: Financial Accountant

Key Responsibilities Include:

To assist the Financial Accountant to maintain and develop the university’s financial systems specifically the general ledger, sales ledgers, purchase ledger, asset ledger and all peripheral finance systems.

Accurately account for the university Group capital additions, including the calculation of depreciation, capital works in progress, unrecoverable VAT and capital grants/donations.

Assist with the preparation and submission of the VAT return for the university and its subsidiary companies, with continuous review of transactions to ensure the university is maximising its ability to recover VAT.

Assist with the preparation maintenance of the university Group cash-flow forecasts.

Main Activities and Responsibilities:

Capital Accounting

Review in month transactions to capital works in progress to ensure additions are correctly posted, liaising with the purchase ledger team to correct any documents at source which have been coded incorrectly. Calculate and post non-recoverable VAT.

Prepare and maintain monthly schedules for asset disposals, part exchanges and write offs, prepare individual files to support such disposals for review by external auditors. Prepare the asset note for the statutory accounts ensuring all transactions are reconciled to the Trial Balance.

Operate and maintain the capital asset register, ensuring that this is kept up to date and ensure all additions and disposals are correctly recorded in fixed asset register and reconciles with the finance system ledger. Ensure that the ledger and fixed asset register are reconciled on the monthly basis, assist with the annual insurance valuations for the university’s assets.

Liaise on a monthly basis with the Reporting Team to accurately ascertain capital works in progress projects which are complete, making necessary transfers to the live asset register and ledger.

Assisting the Financial Accountant with VAT issues relating to the development of the university Estate; including preparing documents for consultants to optimise VAT recovery.

Conduct year end fixed asset verifications. Where possible involving academic and support departments to ensure the fixed asset register is updated accordingly. Report capital for the purposes of the year end statutory accounts.

Be involved with setting up all capital grant/donation schemes; ensure all necessary documents are held on file to support the correct accounting of capital grant release. On a monthly basis correctly account for the release of grants to the income statement, maintain annual forecasts for each scheme capital grant release, and maintain forecasts for use in annual outturn forecasts and strategic plans.

Review any operating transactions which should have been capitalised and depreciated in line with the university accounting policies. Liaise with the purchase ledger team to ensure such transactions are re-coded at source to ensure VAT is accounted for appropriately. Advise the Head of Financial Reporting of any issues which made need to be addressed with Budget Managers.

Treasury and Controls

On a monthly basis, post loan repayments to the general ledger, create and maintain loan schedules ensuring all loan schedules reconcile to the general ledger. Maintain schedules in a suitable format for use with the annual financial statements.

Set-up new nominals and accounts for new loans which have been introduced, update loan schedules as appropriate.

Manage inter-company loan balances between the university and its subsidiary companies ensuring any new loan movements have been reflected in any interest calculations. Issue requests for interest and principal re-payments from the subsidiary companies as they fall due.

Assist the Financial Accountant to maintain the group cash-flow. Review prepared schedules from the Sales and Purchase Ledger teams to ascertain expected cash collections and cash requirements; keep historical records to identify trends which can be used for future years; continuous monitoring of necessary cash related KPI’s. Update the daily cashflow forecast with the actual transactions for each day ensuring both the statement and the cashflow forecast reconcile.

Carry out necessary due-diligence for key suppliers/contractors for review by the Financial Accountant and/or the Director of Finance.

Review control reports for the storage of electronic data, liaise with colleagues to ensure missing documents are appropriately authorised, scanned and attached to Dream documents.

Reconcile all university bank accounts on a daily basis, and at financial period ends to provide a bank reconciliation report for sign-off by the Financial Accountant

General Ledger

Manage monthly balance sheet reconciliations for the general ledger including; payroll, asset and VAT accounts, ensure that financial controls are consistently maintained. Set up formal balance sheet controls for review and sign off. Assist with the implementation of automated reconciliation systems and processes to replace manual reconciliation methods.

Monthly reconciliation of all general ledger control accounts, ensuring any reporting requirements have been met. Investigate and correct any unadjusted balances.

Manage KX control accounts for all bed night income which is in progress; ensure all sales transactions have been exported from the KX conference system and work with the Conference team to resolve any unreconciled balances.

To review the university trial balance on a daily basis, investigating reasons which have caused an in-balance; including the review of transactions across divisions where inaccurate postings have occurred.

Assist the Financial Accountant to prepare and submit the university Group VAT return investigating any discrepancies which arise as a result of mis-coded transactions. Continuously review and liaise with the Reporting team to evaluate opportunities to maximise VAT recovery by ensuring transactions are coded appropriately.
On a monthly basis correctly allocate HEFCE grant remittances to the general ledger ensuring all schedules are maintained and any variances are identified and reported to the Financial Accountant. Adjust revisions to the monthly payment schedule which arise should be reflected in the university cash-flow forecast.

Finance System

Manage the monthly closedown on each reporting period, closing and opening reporting periods in a timely fashion ensuring user level restrictions have been appropriately applied to both transaction posting periods and VAT periods. Update the management report parameters to ensure end-user reports are accurately reported for both current and reporting periods.

Assist the Financial Accountant with the annual system close down following the sign-off of the annual accounts by the board. Ensure all general ledger account balances are checked and reserves are accurate following the close down procedure.

Manage the monthly system audit; manually correct any errors which have been identified through the audit report. Manage the data integrity of the Financial System; initiating data cleanse exercises to improve data entry processes and controls.

Reconcile transactions which have been posted into the Finance System via the SiTS and KX interface’s, highlighting any discrepancies to the Financial Accountant.

General Duties:

Assist members of the finance transaction teams during peak workloads, sickness and annual leave.

To be a member of Finance team and expected to promote and recommend methods and processes to adhere to the university Financial Regulations.

Ensure that all queries and requests are responded to timely and appropriately and provide information, advice and assistance to staff as required.

To contribute to discussions at Finance team meetings and at other departmental meetings by invitation.

Undertake general duties required of all Finance staff, including involvement in enrolment, and re-enrolment of students.

To undertake other duties as required by the Financial Accountant

PERSON SPECIFICATION

MOA = Method of assessment

Application Form (AF) Interview (I)

ESSENTIAL / MOA
Education/Qualifications / Foundation level accounting qualification, with one of the professional accounting bodies eg ACCA or CIMA, or to be studying for this. AAT qualified or finalist, or relevant previous experience. / AF, I
Experience / Accountancy including bank reconciliations / AF, I
Experience of using financial systems. / AF, I
Accounting experience in an organisation with multiple cost centres / AF, I
Experience of using Microsoft Office Suite, e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook. / AF, I
Aptitudes and Skills / An aptitude for figures / I
Confident and diplomatic communicator. / I
Organisational skills with the ability to prioritise own workload. / I
DESIRABLE / MOA
Experience / Financial accounting including balance sheet control account reconciliations, and sales ledger experience / AF, I
Aptitudes and Skills / Enjoys applying logical approach to resolving queries / AF, I
Enquiring mind set and a desire to question the current practice. / AF, I

Conditions of Service

The national recommendations which have arisen from the negotiations between UCEA and the unions recognised at national level, the Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES), directly affect the terms and conditions insofar as they have been adopted by the Board of Governors.

Salary / The commencing salary will be within the range £20,198- £22,029per annum. The point of entry will be dependent upon relevant qualifications and experience. Salaries are paid monthly, in arrears, by credit transfer.
Contract Term / This is a full-time, fixed-term appointment to provide maternity leave cover. The duration of the contract is expected to be for a maximum of 12 months.
Hours of Work / The routine working week is 37 hours over Monday to Friday, inclusive. There may be an occasional requirement for overtime working and time off in lieu will be allowed for hours worked in excess of 37 per week.
Holidays / The annual holiday entitlement is 20 working days, plus Bank Holidays and 3 University closure days. The holiday year runs from 1 April to 31 March and in the holiday year in which the employment commences or terminates the holiday entitlement will accrue on a pro-rata basis for each complete week of service. The timing of holidays is subject to the agreement of the Line Manager.
Sick Leave / During periods of certified sickness the post-holder will be eligible to receive sick pay in accordance with the University Sick Pay Policy. The payment of sick pay is subject to compliance with the University rules for the notification and verification of sickness absence, details of which will be provided to the successful applicant upon commencement of employment.
Pension / The post-holder will be entitled to join the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), subject to its terms and conditions from time to time in force. The LGPS is a final salary scheme and is contracted out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS). Full details of the Scheme will be provided to the successful applicant upon commencement of employment.
Exclusivity of Service / You are required to devote your full-time attention and abilities to your duties during working hours and to act in the best interests of the University at all times. Accordingly, you must not, without written consent of the University, undertake employment or engagement including external consultancy, which might interfere with the performance of your duties or conflict with the interests of the University.
It follows that, regardless of whether you are employed on a full-time or part-time contract, you are required to notify your line manager of any employment or engagement which you intend to undertake whilst in the employment of the University (including any such employment or engagement which commenced before your employment under this contract). Your line manager will then notify you within 10 working days whether such employment or engagement is prohibited.

References

Candidates should ensure that they provide full details of the name and postal address of their referees. Please include e-mail addresses and telephone numbers wherever possible.

Referees should include your present, or most recent, employer. References will normally be taken up immediately in respect of candidates shortlisted for interview. If you do not wish any reference to be taken up at this stage, please enter an ‘X’ in the relevant box provided on the application form.

Application Procedure:

All applications should be completed and submitted using the Harper Adams e-Recruitment programme at

to arrive no later than Tuesday 22 September 2015

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