Financial Accountant

Job description

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Provide operational support to the Senior Financial Accountant - Technical Accounts in the delivery of all statutory / NHS accounts and monthly returns (including Provider Financial Returns (PFR's), Statutory Accounts and detailed working papers) which represent a true and fair view of the Trust position and meet financial timescales and legal requirements.

Assist in the comprehensive production of all necessary detailed working papers for the monthly / annual accounts.

Maintain the integrity of the trial balance (TB), properly coding transactions to ensure that production of the key reports and statements can be derived from the General Ledger with minimal manual intervention.

Work with Financial Management and Transactional Services colleagues to ensure the Trust has identified and properly accounted for provisions (bad debt, redundancies etc) and has reported any 'Special Payments' correctly.

Advise colleagues on the appropriate treatment of contentious or unusual transactions (eg, accruals, vs provision, vs contingent liability).

Maintain proper logs of the details and outcome of decisions or investigations and make the appropriate disclosures relating to IR35 transactions (including in the annual report).

Follow the agreed timetable relating to Trust control accounts and suspense accounts, ensuring that all procedures are followed in a timely manner.

Obtain monthly statistics using business intelligence, formulating trends or tables of information in the agreed format for inclusion in reports to Senior Management.

Capture all necessary information to update the losses and special payments register and produce the losses and special payments quarterly report for the Audit Committee and auditors, ensuring that all losses and special payments have been made in accordance with national guidance, current policies, reporting trends and anomalies appropriately.

Review the completion of Trust SOFP control accounts (internal or SBS produced), ensuring reconciliations are completed and reviewed on time by responsible officers, in the prescribed Trust format and provide evidence / report any issues to the Financial Accountant - Technical Accounts.

Review monthly VAT returns and transactions completed by SBS/internally, reporting to Financial Management and other colleagues any anomalies impacting on the monthly position, that might necessitate a correction, working with colleagues to transact any such correction.

Monitor the 'goods received not invoiced' (GRNI) position of the Trust and transact on a timely basis any manual adjustment to the monthly automated accrual journal, in line with current policy and ensure full transparency with colleagues.

Calculate finance expenditure including interest (bank / leases).

Ensure any learning from the prior year is incorporated into the work of the current year to ensure mistakes are not repeated and a culture of continuous improvement is instilled into the team.

Identify weaknesses in the national chart of accounts impacting on the Trust's ability to report accurately / effectively and recommend changes or internal workarounds as necessary (e.g. the setting up of analysis codes to enrich the information stored in the GL).

Report any workarounds to the Senior Financial Accountant - Technical Accounts and advise on potential solutions.

Input to the annual accounts and audit as required, responding to audit queries as directed by the Senior Financial Accountants.

Correctly comply with new or updated accounting standards as adopted by the NHS and adapt existing processes as necessary, ensuring that information is devolved as widely as necessary, acting as a focal point for subsequent queries. Periodically review and lead the development, review and implementation of financial accounting procedures, policies and control frameworks.

Lead the management and technical accounting treatment of Trust lease arrangements, including, maintaining the Trust's lease register, ensuring new leases are added, existing leases are updated, expired leases are removed and that balances and inflationary increases etc are updated periodically.

Performance management and development of the Financial Accounting Officer - Technical Accounting.

Lead the Financial Accounts automation strategy, identifying opportunities for AI and robotic process automation and provide guidance and management to the Financial Accounting Officer - AI Robotics

Undertake performance reviews, appraisals and regular 1:1 meetings.

Comply with Trust values and behaviours within the Department.

Suggest and adapt to new ways of working, leading on the direction of travel relating to the automation of processes (artificial intelligence / robotic process automation) in Finance to improve productivity, accuracy and timeliness.

Ensure compliance with Corporate Governance (financial controls), Standing Orders, Standing Financial Instructions and other standards, working with colleagues across the Finance function and in the wider Trust to promote good governance practice and the highest standards of business conduct.

Input into the content of Trust policies.

Any other duties as determined appropriate by the Senior Financial Accountant - Technical Accounts and provision of cross-cover for the Financial Accountant - Group Accounting and Cash.

Person specification

Training & Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Professional CCAB Accountancy qualification finalist or equivalent.
• Theoretical knowledge of accounting systems.
• Knowledge of accounting and reporting standards (including IFRS).
• Committed to instigating and maintaining own Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and encouraging / enabling that of others.
• Significant experience of technical financial accounting within a large complex organisation.

Desirable criteria

• Fully Qualified Professional CCAB Accountancy qualification or equivalent.
• Knowledge of NHS finance policies.

Experience

Essential criteria

• NHS finance experience
• Experience of advising finance and non-finance managers on financial matters, providing detailed advice and guidance.
• Staff management and leadership experience.
• Adherence to complex rules relating to financial standards, policies or national guidance.
• Advanced level of understanding of Microsoft Excel, including the use of advanced functionality.
• Interpreting IFRS and NHS accounting guidance.
• Managing complex accounting issues and providing authoritative advice.
• Leading component parts of statutory accounts preparation.
• Developing accounting policies and procedures.
• In-depth specialist knowledge of financial and accounting procedures, financial aspects of NHS legislation and NHS finance policies.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in an NHS Provider Finance function.
• Leading financial accounting teams.
• Working knowledge of Oracle general ledger systems.
• Implementing accounting policy changes across organisations.
• Involvement in systems development / implementation.
• Completion of monthly Provider Financial Returns (PFR).
• NHS 'PFR' / 'TAC' Statutory Accounts forms completion.
• Leading digital transformation, including Robotic Automated Processes (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency.

Communication and Relationship Skills

Essential criteria

• Strong interpersonal skills, proven ability to develop and sustain productive relationships with team members, colleagues and other managers.
• Provide and present highly complex sensitive information.
• Communicate effectively at all levels, both orally and in writing, recognising the differing needs of the audience, and respond appropriately with tact & diplomacy over contentious issues.
• Develop and present financial information to non-finance professionals and convey financial concepts clearly and persuasively.
• Resolve complex financial queries including confidential, legal and other sensitive issues involving the relevant colleagues where necessary.
• Feed-back, train and deal with performance issues for staff.
• Encourage a customer-focused business-like approach considering the effect of actions on other stakeholders.
• Invite full participation and encourage staff to offer ideas.
• Negotiate service issues with internal stakeholders or external counterparties.
• Discuss complex financial queries with staff, suppliers and other stakeholders (eg. reasons for delays in payment and other sensitive / contentious issues).

Analytical and Judgement Skills

Essential criteria

• Make judgements involving complex facts or situations, requiring the analysis, interpretation and evaluation of a range of options.
• Analyse complex problems specifically relating to technical accounting, including improving the accuracy of stock takes, provisions accounting and Resource Department Expenditure Limits (RDEL) returns, and providing judgement on potential IR35 situations.

Planning and Organisation Skills

Essential criteria

• Plan and organise a broad range of complex activities or programmes, requiring the formulation & adjustment of plans or strategies.
• Plan projects to positively impact across the department & the organisation.
• Contribute to the overall financial strategy and finance accreditation.
• Work on own initiative and lead by example.
• Delivery of accounting, financial services over the financial year the function.
• Prepares plans for financial and people aspects of service provision
• Contributes to medium term financial strategy with planning colleagues, assessing the impact on cash and working capital of financial / capital investment plans.

Physical Skills

Essential criteria

• Ability to concentrate for long periods (inputting, validating and financial data analysis).
• Light physical effort required - sitting, standing, walking and driving / travelling.
• Use of PC / Laptop / display screen equipment continuously.
• Concentration required when inputting data, checking and reconciling information, making calculations and when answering queries.
• May be required to switch tasks with no notice.
• Office conditions may vary from time to time (eg. open plan, single office).

Other requirements specific to the role

Essential criteria

• Requirement to work flexibly, including working on-site depending on the requirements of the role or the wider team at any particular time.
• Requirement to attend face to face meetings and other activities (eg training, stock takes).
• Requirement to attend virtual (MS Teams) meetings when working from home and be present and available during office hours.
• Incidental contact with patients, clients.
• Suggest changes to and implement accounting policies and financial procedures in own area or section.
• Propose changes to and redesign local accounting and financial policies and procedures, which impact in other areas.
• Allocate work to more junior staff in the section.
• Provide training / deliver formal finance training to a range of non-finance managers.
• Design, formatting of spreadsheets and databases for specific purposes / responsible for introducing, adapting and improving financial systems for use by others.
• Work to achieve agreed objectives and freedom to do this in own way.
• Act without reference to manager
• Act as lead specialist in own area

Commitment to Trust Values and Behaviours

Essential criteria

• Behave in a way that is consistent with the Trust's Team NUH behavioural standards.

Come and join our wonderful team at NUH. We are big believers in diversity and welcome new ideas to help develop our team in order to deliver world class healthcare to the vast patient populations we serve. With endless personal development opportunities available, at the NUH we will endeavour to turn your job into a career!

We particularly welcome applications from people who identify as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, or Disabled, as we are striving to be better represented at NUH.

Applicants are kindly requested to refrain from using AI at any stage during the recruitment process.

Closing Dates: Please submit your application form as soon as possible to avoid disappointment; we reserve the right to close vacancies prior to the published closing date if we receive a sufficient number of completed application forms.

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