Finance Officer (12-Month Contract, Potential for Permanent)
Are you an experienced professional with a background in the education or charity sector? If so, this exciting new opportunity could be perfect for you!
Our client is offering a fantastic opportunity for a Finance Officer to join their team on an initial 12-month contract, with the potential for a permanent position. You'll be working in a wonderful environment, with excellent benefits that reflect the value placed on this role.
In this dynamic and varied role, you will bring your strong accounting background and exceptional communication skills to manage a range of finance-related tasks. Your responsibilities will include overseeing invoicing and ensuring fees are collected efficiently, while acting as the friendly point of contact for parents regarding fees and for staff when managing budgets for school trips.
As an essential part of a close-knit team, your contribution will be crucial to ensuring smooth financial operations. If you have broad finance transactional experience and are looking to make an impact in a supportive, collaborative environment, we'd love to hear from you.
Main Duties:
- Assist the Head of Finance in the production of monthly management accounts and schedules.
- Liaise with the statutory auditors.
- Preparation, distribution and ongoing support of monthly budget reports for budget holders.
- Administration and maintenance of billing ledger.
- Reconciliation of pupil information.
- Issue termly bills and ensure payments are received on a timely basis.
- Provide the COO with weekly reports on outstanding fees and act as a lead in the collection of outstanding fees.
- Investigate and reply to parent queries on a timely basis.
- Prepare fees in advance calculations as requested and issue information to parents.
- Maintain the fees in advance register.
- Work in partnership with Admissions team, providing them with details of deposits and scholarship payments received.
- Maintain deposit spreadsheet and reconcile iSAMS and iFinance deposit figures.
- Reconciliation of balance sheet control accounts, including debtors and creditors ledgers, parental deposits, House charity collections and payroll / tax balances.
- Preparation of quarterly VAT returns in the event that VAT becomes chargeable on school fees.
- Maintain spreadsheets for bursaries, scholarships & other fee remissions.
- Monthly reconciliation of investment income, card machine takings, and direct debit donation income.
- Maintain and update the Fixed Asset Register.
- Update the trip income and expenditure spreadsheet monthly, including posting of income and expenditure from Evolve and Caxton, to enable accurate review of trip balances and where appropriate arrange for refunds to parents via billing.
- Ensure compliance with anti-bribery and corruption legislation, money laundering regulations, and associated KYC and sanctions lists.
Qualifications and Knowledge:
- Qualified by experience or an accounting qualification (ACA.ACCA,CIMA,CIPFA or equivalent)
- High level knowledge and use of Microsoft Office, Management Information Systems.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Skills Required:
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Team player, ability to collaborate with individuals and teams across all areas of the school
- Ability to develop and maintain relationships with both parents and staff
- Experience of working in a charity/school/not for profit accounting statutory function
- A high degree of personal integrity; trustworthy and reliable, being able to deal with confidential information on a routine basis in a totally discrete manner