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Position Details

Finance Office

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £29,762 to £32,411 with potential progression once in post to £36,333

Grade 6

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 25th May 2023

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Role Summary

Reporting to the Management Accountant and working as part of a central support team to provide management information to a range of Colleges and Professional Services, the post holder is responsible for the preparation and consolidation of monthly accounts and communication of that information to key stakeholders.
In order to deliver an effective and efficient financial service across a range of financial and management accounting activities the post holder has responsibility for ensuring that the data provided is accurate, timely and consistent and that reports provided are clear and easily understood. The post holder will work closely with the business partnering teams to fully understand the business and to ensure the integrity of data so that the information provided can be used by budget holders to manage their budgets effectively and to support in financial decision making.

Main Duties

Management Accounts

• Responsibility for ensuring the income and expenditure for the budget area is reported accurately and consistently against the budget set and to agreed accounting principles.
• Responsibility for the preparation of accounts ensuring all deadlines are met and that budget holders are adhering to financial regulations and accounting practices.
• Ensuring spending is in line with budget or plans and advising on implications.
• Preparation of variance statements and commentaries of variances against targets.
• Liaising with budget centre contacts and Finance Office staff to resolve day to day queries or issues identified through monitoring.
• Undertake monthly balance sheet reconciliations.
• In support of the budget holders, key role in preparing budgetary and forecast information across a range of budget centres in line with assumptions agreed.
• Calculation and reporting of budget to date information considering agreed principles and assumptions.
• Ensuring that the financial information provided is relevant and understood.
• Producing ad-hoc financial data as deemed necessary.

Financial Monitoring and Reporting

• Reviewing the financial position of areas under his/her control, interpreting and analysing information and communicating these in a clear way to key stakeholders.
• Undertaking system reconciliations and data integrity checks prior to the publication of monthly reports.
• Understanding and interpretation of management information for use in business decisions related to finance level initiatives and reviews.
• Providing accurate and relevant information required by both the business area and Finance. This includes provision of annual accounts as well as budgetary and forecast information.
• Discussing and reviewing outputs and reports across Finance and relevant budget centres.

Process Improvement

• Delivering improvements to the monitoring of financial performance indicators to ensure targets are set.
• Identifying critical areas of financial performance and focussing time on those areas where improvements can be effected.
• Providing knowledge and advice on best practice relating to all aspects of accountancy, financial processes and management information.
• The ability to develop and propose solutions to problems for review.
  
  

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Part qualified Accountant with membership of one of the recognised accounting bodies.
• Experience of working in a large and complex organisation with an aptitude for challenging and changing existing practices and principles.

Specific Skills:

Communication

• Communication skills are essential as the post holder will deal with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders. This would include senior members of the Finance Office as well as budget managers within Colleges or Professional Services.

Analytical Skills

• Aptitude for reviewing and interpreting often complex information.
• Proven planning and analytical skills.

Contributing to change

• Adaptable and flexible when dealing with complex situations and the unexpected.
• Ability to generate innovative solutions in response to challenges to deliver change and to articulate these sharing both implications and benefits.
• Resilient and positive in response to changes.
• Able to influence both formally and informally within an organisation.

Other

• Excellent general computer skills with the aptitude to develop skills in specific areas such as reporting systems.
• The ability to work independently and as a team.
• Ability to plan, organise, prioritise workload, and work to strict deadlines.
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Problem solving and decision making

Without reference to others:
Organising workload and establishing working procedures to ensure an effective and timely service to all stakeholders. This includes coping with strict deadlines, short notice tasks and competing demands. Advising and influencing Budget centre and other Finance Office staff to follow best practice.

After consulting others:
Changes in the presentation of reports/management information produced locally to improve usefulness to users.
Changes in procedures to improve efficiency and cut out unnecessary tasks.

Or that would be referred to someone else:
Changes to reports that would require major changes to either the University’s chart of accounts or how this is represented in the financial systems

Informal enquires to Chantelle Thomas, email: [email protected]

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .