The Financial Accountant will work within the European finance team of the Collinson Group. They will work as an integral part of the finance team responsible for a range of entities across the Assistance, Insurance Intermediary and Central Service business areas. They will work with the Financial Reporting Manager/Senior Financial Accountant taking ownership for the monthly management accounts, supporting the production of the statutory accounts and act as a key point of contact during the audit process.
The Financial Accountant will be responsible for managing the production of the monthly management accounts and for reviewing the accuracy of the results, support the completion of tax submissions, ownership for the balance sheet reconciliations, cashflow forecasts and line management of the Assistant Financial Accountants. They will also support any process/ system changes within the team, ensure the onboarding process for new clients is set up and accounted for correctly as well as ensure a strong and effective control environment exists with a specific emphasis on improving month end close and accounting.
Key Responsibilities
The key accountabilities of the Financial Accountant will encompass:
- Support the senior managers within the team to establish and maintain high quality and timely management accounts.
- Review of period related P&L trend analysis and analytical reviews for their entity/entities to ensure Group and the business have a good insight into key movements and the financial performance of each entity, highlighting any exceptions to management.
- Maintain the period related balance sheet reconciliation process, ensuring that all aged items are managed and cleared in a timely manner, working with other parts of the business as necessary.
- Maintain a period related balance sheet reconciliation schedule for each entity detailing the balances with supporting evidence, to be reviewed at quarterly BSR meetings (Balance Sheet Review) with the Financial Reporting Manager.
- Ownership of the inter-company position of all entities under Europe, ensuring this is reconciled monthly to agree with the other group entities.
- To work with the Commercial Finance Business Partners to ensure all accruals, prepayments and ad hoc journals are processed with a high level of accuracy and understanding for reporting within the management accounts and provide support on the variance to budget analysis.
- Support the Finance Operations team to ensure all transactions processed are accurate and complete and recorded in a timely manner.
- Support the Financial Reporting Manager on all audits (including but not limited to, internal, 3rd party or year-end), reviewing the year end Group Statutory packs with supporting evidence for balances as required as well as assist with managing audit requests ensuring the evidence for audit samples is sufficient to support the sample requests and performing the walkthroughs with explanations for postings and processes.
- Manage the completion of VAT, Corporation Tax, CASS and any 3rd party reporting as required.
- Preparation of periodic Board packs and other senior level reporting.
- Manage the delivery of the cashflow forecast for their entity/entities.
- Assist with continuous embedding and delivery of the Finance Transformation project.
- Ensure robust controls are in place and look to enhance where possible.
Keeping abreast of accounting developments to ensure that the impact of changes are understood. - Ensuring all process documents are regularly reviewed and updated.
- Line management of the Assistant Financial Accountants.
- Strive to deliver process improvements, delivering ‘best’ in class processes.
Knowledge, skills and experience required
The ideal candidate for this vacancy will meet the following criteria:
- Qualified Accountant (ACCA, CIMA, ACA or Equivalent) or qualified by experience.
- Good knowledge of SAP/Maconomy/Access Dimensions accounting systems preferable.
- High personal levels of motivation and delivery orientated focus.
- Able to work well under pressure · A proactive, forward-looking and challenging mindset.
- Detail focused with strong organisation and planning skills
- Ability to interact with and develop working relationships internally and externally to achieve best outcomes for the business and customer.
- Experience of leading high performing teams.
- Ability to encourage, train and develop the Assistant Financial Accountants.
- Knowledge and experience of best practice within industry to consistently improve delivery within department.