Financial Accounts Assistant

East London NHS Foundation Trust; London; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent healthcare organization in London seeks an Assistant Financial Accountant to support financial services and contribute to the mission of improving lives. Responsibilities include managing reconciliations and processing payments in accordance with Trust policies. Candidates should possess strong financial background, organizational skills, and effective communication abilities. Join a dynamic team dedicated to excellence in healthcare.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Relocation support of up to £10,000

Qualifications

• Experience working in a financial environment.
• Experience of working to tight deadlines.
• Highly numerate with good technical skills.

Responsibilities

• Assist in timely completion of Control Account reconciliations.
• Process manual salary payments and expenses claims.
• Prepare bank reconciliations for Trust’s bank accounts.

Skills

Financial environment experience

Ability to prioritize workload

Communication skills

Numeracy and technical skills

Organizational skills

Education

5 GCSEs including Maths and English

NVQ Level 4 standard

Tools

Computerized accounting systems

Spreadsheets

Job description

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

The Assistant Financial Accountant will be responsible for supporting the Senior Financial Accountant to provide a high quality and comprehensive Financial Accounting service.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will: -

• Assist in the timely and accurate completion of Control Account reconciliations.
• Ensure employee salary deductions are made in a timely and accurate manner.
• Process manual payments in accordance with the Trust's policies and procedures.
• Act as relief cashier for the Trust's inpatient sites when needed.
• Provide support as required for the ELFT Charity

They will contribute to the achievement of the overall objectives of the Finance Department and deputise for the Senior Financial Accountant where appropriate.

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To process all manual salary payments, manual Accounts Payable payments, manual cheques and patient's monies payments, ensuring that the necessary paperwork is obtained and payments are in accordance with the Trust's policies and procedures.
• To complete monthly control account reconciliations as delegated to them by the Senior Financial Accountant.
• To liaise with appropriate third parties (including Payroll, HR and SBS) to clear outstanding reconciling items in a timely manner.
• To assist in the preparation of monthly bank reconciliations for the Trust's bank accounts, ensuring reconciling items are cleared promptly and outstanding items are reviewed regularly and written back where necessary.
• To prepare regular summaries of the pensions received from DWP in the patient's monies account and send to the appropriate cashier/welfare officer.
• To assist the Senior Financial Accountant in ensuring that any money held by the Trust on behalf of patients is managed correctly by ensuring that monthly reconciliations are completed.
• To act as the relief cashier for the Trust's inpatient sites when needed.
• To monitor and process petty cash claims for sub-floats where there is no access to an on-site cashier.
• To provide regular analysis of petty cash expenditure.
• To assist in the administration of the Trust Purchase Card expenditure database and provide regular analysis reports.
• To assist in the recovery of all monies owed to the Trust by the staff loans, leases, and salary sacrifice schemes.
• To process expenses claims for non-substantive staff e.g. students & honorary staff.
• To assist the Senior Financial Accountant in the management of the Trust's lease cars including the processing of invoices and recovery of debts owed by employees in relation to lease cars.
• To assist the Senior Financial Accountant in the monthly recharges of consolidated invoices such as stationery, taxis, hotels and travel.
• To assist with the Agreement of Balances exercise, particularly in relation to creditors.

To ensure that at all times there is a valid audit trail for any entries made to the financial ledger.

Person specification

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience working in a financial environment
• Experience of working to tight deadlines
• Experience in managing and prioritising a busy workload

Desirable criteria

• Experience of computerised accounting systems
• Experience in the NHS

Education

Essential criteria

• 5 GCSEs including Maths and English or equivalent qualification
• Educated to NVQ Level 4 standard

Desirable criteria

• Studying towards Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) Technician Level

Knowledge & skills

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of accounting procedures (reconciliation and balances)
• Highly numerate with good technical skills
• Competency in spreadsheet skills
• Ability to learn quickly and capable of working on their own initiative with minimum supervision
• To communicate effectively with all levels of staff both written and oral
• Ability to prepare clear and accurate information
• Good organisation skills
• Ability to analyse, investigate and resolve queries and discrepancies

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of the general ledger

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don't stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated 'Outstanding' by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated 'Outstanding' again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ's Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don't waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• Financial Accounts Assistant (PDF, 312.6KB)
• ELFT at a glance (PDF, 151.0KB)
• Staff Benefits (PDF, 7.1MB)
• ELFT Strategy (PDF, 153.5KB)
• Trust Demographic Information (PDF, 1.5MB)