Interim Senior Financial Accountant

Reference no:  St Albans 5224061& 5224062

Up to £35.90 per hour PAYE depending on experience

Basic DBS disclosure required for this role

The role is hybrid working, office attendance will sometimes be required.

The purpose of the role is to manage a team responsible for financial accounting, treasury management, payroll (client side), insurance, car leasing functions, completion of government returns, revenue accounts, and utilities coding. Be the lead officer for closing the accounts, VAT, and production of the collection fund.

Key Repressibilities:

• Manage the e-payments and cash management systems including bank reconciliations.
• Manage the year-end accounts process, ensuring the Council is compliant with IFRS, working with senior colleagues across the Council to develop a fully integrated process, and managing the day-to-day relationship with the Council’s external auditor. Responsible for the production of the Collection fund accounts.
• Lead on the interpretation and proper implementation of legislation, regulations, and accounting guidance as they affect the Council’s financial management, taxation, and accountancy arrangements. This will include the preparation and maintenance of all relevant guidance and procedure notes, making recommendations for improvements to senior managers as required
• Manage the Treasury Management function, assisting in the production of forward strategy and managing the day-to-day relationship with external Treasury Management Advisors;
• Produce the Treasury Management monitoring reports for Audit Committee and Council.
• Manage the Insurance and Car Leasing Officer. This will include managing the insurance broker contract, leading on risk matters for the Finance Section, leading on the Council’s car leasing policy and support the officer with arranging insurance policies for the Council.
• Responsible for the completion of Government and VAT returns, including the WGA
• Line manage a team of approximately 4 FTE staff, providing proactive and innovative advice on a diverse range of services including insurance, VAT, payroll (client side) and financial accounting (which provides the Council’s capital accounting service).
• To cooperate with the Senior Financial Accountant (Systems) on coding enquiries, production of the Statement of Accounts, and BACS processing.
• Deputise for the Finance Manager Systems and Control as required.
• Undertake other duties commensurate with the purpose and grade of the post as may be required from time to time.

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications:

1. Educated to degree or evidence of degree level ability of education through work experience and relevant experience of working in a financial services environment at a higher level.
2. Qualified member of a CCAB professional body, or part-qualified and studying towards full qualification.

Skills & Experience:

1. Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
2. Experience of supporting the closure of accounts process for a large multi-disciplinary organisation to enable the production of compliant Statutory Statement of Accounts by due deadlines without qualification.
3. Proven track record of producing good quality working papers to the satisfaction of external auditors.
4. Proactive approach to team management and development, ensuring that skills are developed throughout the team in order to provide cover for one another should the need arise.
5. Experience of Interpreting and presenting complex and varied information, compiling data, and preparing reports.
6. Experience of team management and development.
7. Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

Knowledge:

1. Up to date and working knowledge of relevant legislation, regulations, standards, and core disciplines of work area including IFRS and the Code of Practice on Local Government Accounts.
2. An understanding of treasury management.
3. Understanding of health and safety issues relevant to work area.
4. Knowledge and understanding of new approaches.
5. An understanding of insurance and car leasing.
6. An understanding of VAT specifically with regard to local government.

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.