Financial controller - BCS, Swindon

We are now recruiting for a Financial Controller to join our Finance team, in a permanent capacity, working full-time at our Swindon offices located on key transport links in the town centre.

Responsible for the timely and accurate preparation of monthly management accounts for BCS L&D (£20m+ revenue). Manage the monthly reconciliation of key balance sheet accounts, including preparation of monthly schedules.

Partner with the L&D business in creating budgets and forecasts, providing analysis, and working with other areas of the business to provide support and advice on decision making.

Responsible for first line support to the business on management account queries and financial performance.

Responsible for the management of the core Group financial operations, including cashbook, sales, and purchase ledger, to ensure efficiencies and effectiveness of finance processes are maintained and improved, as necessary.

Responsible for ensuring all bank accounts are reconciled monthly, and bank balances are monitored and reported on weekly. Act as first point of contact for bank related queries, including providing online banking administration support for the wider finance team.

Management of the cashbooks for BCS and its subsidiaries, including the accurate recording and investigation of all sources of income and expenditure through the cashbook. Responsible for the regular reconciliation of all cash receipts to the nominal ledger and membership system.

Sri Lanka cashbook
Assist with the preparation of the annual financial statements.

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Preparation of monthly management accounts for BCS L&D:

• Preparation and posting of nominal ledger journals.
• Preparation of management accounts and reports in liaison with the Director of Finance.
• Preparation of month end schedules to support the management accounts.
• Monthly reconciliation of key balance sheet accounts.
• Undertake planning for the financial year end in liaison with the Director of Finance.
• Liaison with external auditors for the financial year end

Support the L&D business as Finance Business Partner:

• Develop strong working relationships across the business, including monthly review meetings.
• Provide full support in interpreting and explaining financial performance within the business.
• Advise on key business planning assumptions, including providing strategic insights on financial trends and operational performance.
• Provide ad-hoc analysis for insight of specific issues in the business.
• Provide a point of contact for the business to answer and resolve management account queries.
• Work with the Business Intelligence Team to provide financial information for inclusion in the Group reporting pack and any sub analysis required.

Liaise with senior managers of the business to develop budgets and forecasts:

• Co-ordinate the budgeting process across BCS L&D.
• Work with the business units to develop robust methods for budgeting and forecasting.
• Advise the business on revenue/spending patterns and trends to aid accurate phasing of the budget.
• Responsible for uploading and reconciling the budget data in our budgeting and reporting software.

Support the business units with revenue and gross profit analysis:

• Develop processes for monitoring revenue, cost of sales and gross profit by product to gain an understanding of product profitability.
• Consider the implications of low margin products and understand the importance of non-financial measures when reviewing product strategies.

Responsible for the monthly analysis of key areas of expenditure:

• Preparation of analysis of key areas of expenditure highlighting significant variances to budget where appropriate.

Responsible for the management of the core financial statements:

• Effective management of the sales and purchase ledger functions.
• Assist in resolving queries raised by the credit control and purchase ledger teams.
• Work collaboratively with the finance team to ensure all processes are documented and reviewed for improvement opportunities.
• Responsible for the management of credit control, ensuring procedures are in place to minimise the financial risk to the Group.
• Work with the purchase ledger team to identify and resolve any debit balances on the aged creditor reports.
• Responsible for the timely closure of the sales and purchase ledgers.

Management of the cashbooks for BCS and its subsidiaries.

• Ensure the cashbook and cashflow reports are prepared within the finance system in a timely manner.
• Manage the reconciliation of the cashbooks to the bank account and nominal ledger.
• Ensure month end and year end journals for cashbook transactions are prepared and posted in accordance with deadlines.
• Administrator for all online bank accounts, ensuring access levels and controls are in place and regularly reviewed.
• Work with the purchase ledger team to identify and resolve any debit balances on the aged creditor reports.
• Responsible for the timely closure of the sales and purchase ledgers.

Responsible for the regular reconciliation of cash receipts to the membership systems:

• Identify any differences between cash received and member records.
• Work with the Membership Subscriptions Analyst to resolve differences and take corrective action.
• Reconcile monthly cash control accounts.
• Ensure income from credit card and PayPal transactions are reconciled monthly, in liaison with the Cashbook Controller.

Responsible for the review of unallocated cash balances:

• Review monthly the unallocated cash balances on all sales ledgers with the Senior Credit Controller.
• Take corrective action to allocate/refund cash and ensure customer records are kept up to date.
• Ensure the income suspense accounts are reconciled monthly and action plans produced to resolve outstanding queries.

Approve and send the monthly examiners tax payroll, and ensure the relevant journals are posted each month.

• Review monthly the unallocated cash balances on all sales ledgers with the Senior Credit Controller.
• Take corrective action to allocate/refund cash and ensure customer records are kept up to date.
• Ensure the income suspense accounts are reconciled monthly and action plans produced to resolve outstanding queries.

Develop team to provide high class financial support across the business:

• Manage, coach, and develop staff.
• Ensure training needs are identified and a suitable plan put in place to meet those needs.
• Flexibility is required of all job holders to adjust responsibilities as required from time to time by their Line Manager/Divisional Director.
• All staff will live BCS’ values and support our purpose
• Continually looking at ways to make improvements to systems, processes, and procedures.
• The content and reporting lines detailed in this job description may be reviewed and changed from time to time to reflect organisational requirements.

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Education and qualifications

• Qualified CIMA/ACCA/ACA.

Experience

• Demonstrable and relevant experience of Finance Business
• Partnering or Management Accounting in a comparable organisation
• Significant broad commercial and administrative experience
• Significant experience of leading and managing a finance team.

Competencies and skills

• Sound financial expertise
• Ability to lead and manage a small team
• Ability to work with and influence people at all levels and with non-finance
• Computer literate with experience of operating computerised accounting systems
• Customer focused attitude
• Ability to work concurrently on a wide range of duties
• Self-motivated and ability to work under pressure and to strict monthly deadlines
• Verbal, written and numeric skills
• Strong ability in prioritising workloads of self and others.

Knowledge

• Good knowledge and experience of financial accounting in the charity/commercial sector.

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BCS is dedicated to providing training and development to help all staff realise their potential, and also offer a generous benefit package.

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT are committed to promoting equality at every opportunity as an employer. This statement and our policies are designed to ensure our recruitment and employment practices and procedures actively promote equality of opportunity and value diversity.

All applicants must be eligible to work in the UK upon application.

PLEASE NOTE: This vacancy may be removed before any listed closing date once a sufficient amount of applications have been received.

In the event that we receive a high number of applications for this vacancy, we may be unable to provide an individual response to every candidate, therefore if you haven’t heard back from us within 4 weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful on this occasion.

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