Service Charge Accountant

MSV Housing Group; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A housing association in Manchester is seeking a Service Charge Accountant to ensure accurate setting and management of rents and service charges. This role requires a part qualified accountant or someone with extensive experience in the service charge team, focusing on regulatory compliance, financial reporting, and collaboration with teams to enhance service charges. The position offers various benefits including flexible working, generous holiday allowance, and health support services.

Benefits

33 days holiday per year plus bank holidays

Company pension scheme with up to 10% matched contributions

Health cash plan for everyday health treatments

Enhanced sick pay

Employee assistance programme

Qualifications

• Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements for rents and service charges.
• Producing monthly management accounts and audited year-end accounts.
• Leading on external audit queries and maintaining financial controls.

Responsibilities

• Set and monitor service charges in compliance with regulations.
• Collaborate with teams to provide guidance on compliance.
• Implement process improvements in financial and housing systems.

Skills

Regulatory Compliance

Financial Management

Data Analysis

Collaboration

Education

Part Qualified accountant (ACA / ACCA / CIMA / CIPFA)

Experience in finance team

Job description

The Vacancy

Hours of work: 35 hours per week
Closing date: 2nd January 2026
Interviews: 7th January 2026

At MSV Housing we're committed to making sure our customers have good quality safe homes and our Service Charge Accountant is key to making this happen.

Reporting to our Finance Business Partner, you will provide support by ensuring accurate rent and service charge setting, monitoring, and financial reporting in compliance with regulatory requirements. You will maintain robust audit trails, deliver transparent cost recovery, and provide timely financial information to stakeholders. In addition, we are looking for candidates that have a passion to advocate on behalf of people and communities.

What will our Service Charge Accountant do:

• Regulatory Compliance & Accuracy: Ensure rents and service charges are set, managed, and monitored in line with statutory and regulatory requirements, maintaining transparency and accuracy.
• Financial Management & Reporting: Record and validate service charge income and expenditure, produce monthly management accounts, and prepare audited year‑end accounts and annual statements.
• Audit & Controls: Lead on external audit queries, maintain robust financial controls, and complete monthly balance sheet reconciliations to ensure data integrity.
• Collaboration & Technical Support: Work with internal teams and development colleagues to set service charges for new schemes, provide guidance on compliance, and support customer consultations.
• Systems & Process Improvement: Maintain accurate data across financial and housing systems, implement process improvements, and ensure timely updates to charges and reconciliations.

What we are looking for:

• Part Qualified accountant (ACA / ACCA / CIMA / CIPFA) or extensive experience working within a service charge team.
• Experience of working within a finance team in a complex organisation.
• Experience of social housing rents and service charges.
• Robust knowledge of the legislation for the calculation and implementation of service charges.
• Sound understanding of financial controls & processes.
• Ability to analyse large complex data sets to produce reports and deliver information to a range of audiences.

Benefits

• Flexibility on where you work with home working kit provided.
• 33 days holiday per year plus bank holidays, and a holiday buy scheme.
• Company pension scheme with up to 10% matched contributions.
• Company funded access to a health cash plan, where you can claim back costs of everyday health treatments such as optical, dental and much more.
• Enhanced sick pay with up to 3 months full pay and 3 months half pay.
• Health and Wellbeing Support including an employee assistance programme, free counselling, mental health first aiders and numerous wellbeing initiatives.
• Life assurance subject to being a member of our company pension scheme.
• Learning and development to support you to develop the skills you need to fulfil your role and progress in your career.
• Commitment to Equality and Inclusion with employee network groups covering anti‑racism, LGBTQ+, disability and long‑term health conditions, carers, and menopause.

MSV are committed to Equality and Inclusion; all applications are scored against the essential criteria of the role; however, we encourage candidates to submit an anonymised CV if they can do so.

MSV are also committed to supporting you to balance work and life, including with any caring or parental responsibilities you might have, and have a range of flexible working options and wellbeing support available to all colleagues to facilitate this.

For more information about the role please visit our careers page where you will find a candidate pack and apply for the role. https://www.msvhousing.co.uk/careers/job-vacancies/

If you wish to discuss the roles informally, please contact Julie Arkinstall, Service Charge Project Lead on 0161 841 8320.

Interviews are scheduled to take on 7th January 2026; however interviews may be carried out throughout the recruitment process and the role closed if a suitable candidate is found. Therefore, we strongly recommend candidates to apply early.

We're passionate about inclusion and we'd love to hear from people from diverse backgrounds for this role.

If you are not sure whether you meet our requirements for this role, but want to apply, go ahead. We will decide whether or not you are what we are looking for.

The Company

We own and manage almost 9,000 homes across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire and pride ourselves on being a housing association that retains our original values and missions and continues to deliver a range of housing solutions to the most vulnerable in society. For MSV our main priority has, and always will be, to deliver and build on the services we provide as a social values organisation. We embrace equality and inclusion and are genuinely focussed on people. We want better life chances for our people, we work with customers to strengthen our business and we want to see fewer homeless people and people in poverty.

Our Benefits

As well as a competitive salary, attractive pension, and holiday entitlement, there are many other reasons to work for MSV! Our colleagues are important to us, that's why we offer a full programme of training, flexible working, and health & wellbeing support.

Health & Wellbeing benefits

• Sick pay scheme: Up to three months full pay and three months half pay after one year's service.
• Eye test: MSV will pay for eye examinations and contribute towards prescription lenses/frames or contact lenses for staff using VDU equipment.
• Support helpline: Free 24hr / 7days a week telephone support. Face‑to‑face counselling can be made available too in some cases.
• Training in Health & Safety.
• Mental Health first aiders & Mental Health Awareness training.
• Cycle to Work scheme.

Our Culture

The MSV Way.

Equality & Diversity

Equality & Diversity.