Royalty Audit Assistant (12-month FTC)

Bertelsmann-Jobs; Great Bentley; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 31,000; Full time

Job summary

Penguin Random House UK in Frating, Essex, is seeking a Royalty Audit Assistant to join the Royalties team. If you enjoy data analysis, investigating discrepancies and driving accuracy in financial reporting, this role offers hands-on exposure to royalty data and cross-team collaboration across internal and external stakeholders.

You will review third-party royalty reporting, support audits, and help recover income from overseas tax deductions.

Qualifications

• Good numerical and analytical skills with high accuracy.
• Good Excel skills and ability to reconcile large datasets.
• Experience with financial, royalty or other transactional data.
• Ability to identify discrepancies and anomalies and document findings.
• Strong written and verbal communication with stakeholders.
• Curious, questioning approach and seek guidance when needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead recovery of excess tax deducted from German sublicensees via documentation and refunds.
• Assist analysis and recovery of tax deducted on Ventures income from overseas sub-agents.
• Support royalty audits by analyzing and reconciling third-party licensee data.
• Analyse high-value author and brand royalty statements to support risk-based planning.
• Perform quality assurance on cash and royalty statements; escalate errors.
• Track improvements from royalty audits and follow up on actions.

Skills

Numerical skills

Excel skills

Data analysis

Discrepancy detection

Communication

Curiosity

Tools

Excel

Job description

• LegalEntity: The Random House Group Limited
• Compensation: up to GBP 28,500 - yearly

Job Description

We have an exciting opportunity for a Royalty Audit Assistant to join our Royalties team in Frating, Essex. If you enjoy working with data, investigating discrepancies and using analysis to get to the bottom of financial information, this could be a great opportunity to develop your experience in a supportive team.

The Role

Supporting the Royalty Audit Analyst, you’ll review third-party royalty reporting, undertake audit and quality assurance activities, and analyse and reconcile data to help identify potential discrepancies. Your analysis will help inform audit planning and investigations, while you’ll also take ownership of recovering income arising from overseas tax deductions, liaising with both internal colleagues and external stakeholders.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the recovery of excess tax deducted from German sublicensees, including obtaining appropriate documentation from third parties and completing refund applications through overseas tax portals.
• Support the analysis and recovery of tax deducted on Ventures income from overseas sub-agents, liaising with internal and external stakeholders as required.
• Support royalty audits through the analysis and reconciliation of data provided by third‑party licensees, including recalculating royalty figures and comparing sales data to royalty statements.
• Analyse selected high‑value author and brand royalty statements, identifying anomalies and providing analysis to support the Royalty Audit Analyst's risk‑based audit planning.
• Undertake quality assurance checks on cash and royalty statements processed within the system, identifying and escalating errors or anomalies to the Royalty Audit Analyst.
• Track and monitor agreed improvements arising from royalty audit reviews, following up actions and escalating outstanding items where appropriate.

What you’ll bring

• Good numerical and analytical skills, with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Good Excel skills and confidence working with and reconciling large datasets.
• Experience of working with financial, royalty or other transactional data.
• Ability to identify discrepancies and anomalies and clearly document findings.
• Good written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to liaise effectively with internal and external stakeholders.
• Takes a curious and questioning approach, investigating differences and seeking guidance where appropriate.

Preferred criteria

• Experience of royalty calculations or royalty‑based contracts would be desirable but is not essential.

The salary for this opportunity will be £28,500, plus bonus and benefits.

AI

Here at Penguin, we believe in the power of authenticity and human creativity. When you apply for a position, we want to encourage you to showcase your unique voice. Throughout our recruitment process, please share your own thoughts, experiences, and skills. This helps us get a true sense of who you are and what you might bring to our team.

We celebrate creativity and diverse perspectives, so please be yourself! While we recognise AI tools can be helpful, we recommend using them thoughtfully to ensure your responses reflect you.

Disability Confident

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview.

We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing [e-mail] . Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable with, for us to support your request.

While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect that you will work from our office in Frating, Essex, at least one day per week.

Additional Information

Disclosure requirements pertaining to the collection of your personal data

Responsible for processing the information provided in your application is the company specified in the job advertisement, with its registered office as indicated. The company processes your data for the purpose of establishing an employment relationship on the basis of Art. 6 (1) b GDPR / Section 26 (1) sentence 1 BDSG.

The retention period for your data is determined by the statutory time limits applicable in the respective country, beginning upon completion of the recruitment process. You can find these here .

You can contact the company’s Data Protection Officer at the above-mentioned postal address.

Further information on data protection and your rights can be found here .