Associate Accountant London, England
Job description
About Faculty
Faculty is one of Europe’s leading applied artificial intelligence companies. We build, deploy and operate AI solutions to increase our customers’ performance and help them realise their full potential.
We’re perhaps best known for our award winning COVID-19 Early Warning System, that helped the NHS to manage critical supply chains during the pandemic. But our work with over 300 customers to date has delivered impact for customers right across the economy.
Faculty is at an exciting moment in our development as a business. We are launching Frontier; a market leading decision intelligence product, to sit alongside our more established consulting work.
This is an equally important time for the adoption of AI in society. Conversational AI (like GPT3) and Creative AI (like DallE and Stable Diffusion) have given a glimpse into the transformative potential of the next wave of this technology.
It is our belief that Decision AI will have impacts on a similar scale, and fundamentally change the way operational decisions are made in organisations.
Our objective is that in five years time, Frontier will be the leading software in Decision AI category.
About the role
After our fundraise of £30m, Faculty are looking for an Associate Management Accountant to support the growth of the company ensuring day to day finance processes run smoothly and ensuring our reporting, systems and processes are able to scale effectively with our ambitious growth plans.
This role reports to the Financial Controller (FC) and sits within a six person Finance team. The volume of day-to-day accounting and processes is relatively light at Faculty and there is focus on ensuring as much of the processing as possible is automated. We have recently implemented a new payroll system as well as AP automation to reduce manual processes and are looking to implement a new finance system within the next 12 months.
The focus of the Finance team is therefore on ensuring reporting and analysis increases understanding of the drivers of the business and the team works with the business to improve business insight, surface underlying business issues, trigger and support corrective actions, and track progress to ensure we meet business objectives. Integral to the success of this role will be building relationships and working collaboratively across the business.
The responsibilities will include, but are not limited to the following:
- Lead on the preparation of all day-to-day accounting and accurate recording of all transactions, including preparing journals, accruals and prepayments, month end reconciliations, quarterly VAT returns, monthly payroll and expenses.
- Lead on month end, including preparation of accurate profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cashflow.
- Work with the FC on the monthly management accounts and investor reporting packages. With the ambition of this role taking over the management and production of monthly management reporting in the future.
- Preparation of twice monthly payment runs and lead on short term cash flow forecast. Our automated AP processes ensure our payment runs are light on manual data entry and processing.
- Business partnering with senior managers and managers in the business to increase understanding (margins, pricing etc).
- Support the FC on overall budgetholder reporting and lead on a selection of budgetholder communications.
- Support on the preparation of quarterly reforecasting and annual budgeting process.
- Support on design, selection and implementation of a new finance system.
- Support on preparation of annual financial statements and manage the annual financial audit, as well as other regulatory audits as required.
- Support on preparation of annual R&D tax claim, annual tax computation, prepare and file the annual PSA, and any other tax regulatory filings as necessary.
- Identify process improvements both within Finance and the wider business processes.
- Work closely with Head of FP&A on invoicing and credit control.
- Manage the monthly payroll process and liaise weekly with the People team to ensure all the integrated data is correct.
- Run finance onboarding for new joiners and act as the first point of contact for all internal and external finance queries and manage ad-hoc requests from team members.
What we're looking for
- Either have or are in the process of obtaining an accounting qualification (ACA, ICAS or CIMA).
- Experience of working in a finance team in a small or medium sized dynamic organisation.
- Proficient in Excel and Google Sheets.
- Excellent attention to detail.
- Experience working with finance systems (Quickbooks, Xero, Netsuite, Intacct).
- Enthusiasm to work collaboratively with colleagues.
- Desire to get behind the numbers in the areas of the business you will be focused on and really understand how the business runs.
- Able to work independently including managing own priorities and knowing when to take initiative.
- Organised and diligent, passionate about doing a good job and continuous improvement.
- Technically savvy and quick to pick up new software and applications.
Culture & Benefits at Faculty
The Faculty team is diverse and distinctive, and we all come from different personal, professional and organisational backgrounds. We all have one thing in common: we are driven by a deep intellectual curiosity that powers us forward each day. This curiosity pushes us to seek truth and understanding in everything we do, to execute work in a nimble and pragmatic manner, to foster talent in one another and always to challenge assumptions.
Faculty is the professional challenge of a lifetime. You’ll be surrounded by an impressive group of brilliant minds working to achieve our collective goals. Our consultants, product developers, business development specialists, operations professionals and more all bring something unique to Faculty, and you’ll learn something new from everyone you meet. You’ll also have the opportunity to make your mark on a high-growth start-up now poised to expand internationally.
Fostering talent is one of our core values, it’s built into our culture and what we offer. Faculty was founded by people who are passionate about continuous learning, and adding value to our people.
Some of our benefits:
- Unlimited holidays: We encourage each other to use this time to take a break, work on personal projects, or to spend time with their friends and family.
- Genuinely flexible working: We believe people have needs, responsibilities and interests that require something different to a strict working day. We trust people to organise and take accountability for their own work and do our best to support their lives outside Faculty. We provide you with all you need to work from home, including a laptop, keyboard, chair…even Sony headphones!
- Equity: We want you to benefit from Faculty’s growth and success.
- Fantastic private health, optical and dental insurance for you & your family - including 24/7 unlimited virtual private GP appointments and covering pre-existing medical conditions.
- Access to mental health coaching with Sanctus
- Free breakfast, weekly lunches and more fruit, drinks and snacks than you could ever eat when you're in the office.
- We work hard and make sure we enjoy what we do. So we have frequent socials and informal get-togethers to help make sure you enjoy your time with us. You’ll make friends and professional connections that will last a lifetime.
Job Type: Full-time
