Senior Finance Officer – AR

Carrington Blake Recruitment; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A recruitment agency in the UK is seeking a Senior Finance Officer to provide accountancy support within a public sector environment. The role involves budget preparation, financial reporting, and liaising with budget managers. Candidates should have knowledge of accounting practices, experience with financial systems like SAP, and strong Excel skills. This is a full-time position located in Greater London.

Qualifications

• Experience of providing financial support and advice to non-finance managers.
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of key duties/accountabilities.
• Ability to initiate and maintain good working relationships.

Responsibilities

• Undertake budget preparation and monitoring.
• Provide financial support to budget managers.
• Prepare accurate financial reports and analyses.
• Assist with year-end accounts and audits.

Skills

Up to date knowledge of accounting practices

Experience in using computerised financial systems

Good level of numeric / arithmetic skills

Good level of Microsoft Excel skills

Ability to work in a team

Good oral and written skills

Customer-focused skills

Education

CCAB part qualified or AAT qualified

Tools

SAP

Microsoft Office

Job description

Role Overview

Senior Finance Officer – Pay Grade G9 – Directorate Resources & Commercial – Division Finance & Assurance – Reports to Service Accountant.

Role Purpose

To provide accountancy support and advice as appropriate to the section worked in.

Job Context (Key outputs of team / role)

• Undertake budget preparation, budget monitoring and closure of accounts work.
• Provide a range of professional financial support, advice and information to budget managers and more senior members of the Finance Division.
• Complete financial and statistical returns and grant claims.
• Operate appropriate financial systems and administration for specific services areas.
• Lead and/or participate in improvement projects or matrix management projects as directed as part of the Division’s transformation and improvement agenda.

Generic Duties

• Demonstrate a commitment to the Council’s Equal Opportunities Policy and its implementation.
• Ensure compliance with the Council’s health and safety policy and promote a positive health and safety culture.
• Promote and participate in the Council’s individual performance appraisal and development initiatives.
• Ensure compliance with the Council’s information security policies and maintain confidentiality.
• Communicate at ease with customers and provide advice in accurate spoken English when customer-facing.

Values, Behaviours and Equalities

We want our colleagues to live our values. These values describe what we stand for and how we do things at Harrow whilst inspiring, challenging and guiding us towards the delivery of our organisational ambitions and goals. Our three values are: Be Courageous, Do It Together and Make It Happen. These values will also help us achieve our equalities vision of being a proud, fair & cohesive Harrow, a great place to live, work & visit.

Main Duties / Accountabilities

1. Work on budget preparation for revenue and capital budgets including modelling, calculation of fees and charges, forecasting of the salaries budget, input into capital business cases, calculation of annual Support Service Charges, and consolidation of financial information.
2. Meet with Budget Managers and work on the production of timely and accurate monthly budget monitoring reports for revenue and capital budgets.
3. Prepare forecasts and projections, including corporate cash flow projections and available cash balances and forecasts of housing dwelling rent income and void losses.
4. Undertake monthly balance sheet monitoring including debt levels, an overview of debtors and the overall debt position, including provisions for bad debt.
5. Analyse expenditure and unit costs providing advice on the conclusions reached.
   • Undertake unit costing for Housing Repairs, scrutinise repair costs generally including cyclical repairs and calculate the disrepair provision on a monthly basis.
   • Undertake regular reviews of costs charged to capital works to ensure they meet the appropriate definitions of capital expenditure.
   • Provide cost floor calculations for the Housing Right To Buy process.
6. Extract data from the Council’s financial system, manipulate and assemble it for inclusion in management information reports.
7. Assist with drafting reports/commentaries for reports as directed including reports to service managers and management teams, Treasury Management Group and Cabinet.
8. Work on year-end accounts, dealing with accruals, preparing and processing year end entries, preparing working papers and notes to the Statement of Accounts or schedules for the external auditors.
9. Provide/coordinate financial training to budget managers and others as directed and in line with the Division’s Training Programme.
10. Prepare accurate and timely completion of CIPFA, Government and other finance or statistical returns within the required deadlines.
11. Complete grant claims within the required deadlines.
12. Implement and review working papers and Procedure Notes for the activities and responsibilities undertaken and peer review procedure notes of other team members.
13. Follow up, investigate and help resolve any queries from budget managers.
14. Participate in improvement projects or matrix management projects as directed, as part of the Directorates transformation and improvement agenda.
15. Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Selection Criteria – Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• a) Up to date relevant knowledge of accounting practices preferably in the public sector.
• b) Working knowledge of using computerised financial systems, ideally SAP and Microsoft Office products.
• c) Must have a clear understanding of the diverse nature of Harrow’s communities and Harrow’s workforce, and the implications for service delivery.
• d) Demonstrable and proven knowledge and experience of managing or performing some of the key duties/accountabilities related to this post.
• e) Experience of using computerised financial systems, ideally SAP and Microsoft Office products.
• f) Experience of working in and supporting colleagues in a team environment.
• g) Experience of providing financial support and advice to non-finance managers.
• h) Good level of numeric / arithmetic skills.
• i) Good level of Microsoft Excel skills, familiar with Vlookup & Pivot tables.
• j) Advanced ability to extract relevant financial data from a General Ledger financial system.
• k) The ability to initiate and maintain good working relationships with others, even in difficult and challenging situations.
• l) Ability to work in a team and to provide support and cover to other team members.
• m) Good oral and written skills.
• n) A commitment to quality of service and continuous improvement of self and of team.
• o) Customer focused skills.

Qualifications

CCAB part qualified (or equivalent) or AAT qualified or qualified through significant experience.

Other Requirements

NONE