Member Job Opportunity: Action for Children- Director of Accounting & Finance

Salary: £90,000
Location: Watford, Hertfordshire (with occasional travel into London and national regions).
​Directorate: Corporate Shared Services
Contract Type: Permanent Full Time
Closing Date: 9 June 2022

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Perks: Annual leave of 29 days, plus public holidays, flexible maternity, adoption and paternity packages, annual staff awards, up to 7% employer contribution pension scheme, employee discount portal with all your favourite brands, check out more on our career's portal. 

Closing date: Midnight on Thursday 9th June 2022.

If we receive a high number of applications, we may need to close earlier than advertised so get your application in quickly!  

We're thrilled that you're considering a career with Action for Children so here's what you need to know….

About Us  
At Action for Children, we believe that every child should have a safe and happy childhood. Last year, we helped more than 600,000 children and families across the UK. We work to ensure their voices are heard and we campaign to bring lasting change to their lives.  

What you'll be doing
The successful candidate will improve the quality of service, accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness of financial operations, accounting, tax, and financial reporting functions, through established policies, procedures, and application of effective financial controls. You will also have an active role with the implementation of financial strategies, financial planning, and analysis, and to ensure the accurate recording of financial data, reporting to internal and external stakeholders. In addition, you will guide the team through the current implementation of the new financial system project to maximise the impact and to deliver the benefits expected.

You'll do this by:

• Providing leadership, direction, and a hands-on management approach to guide a team of senior professionals and others to ensure the timely, effective, and accurate delivery of the outputs expected in a very busy environment with multiple demands.
• Owning the organisational financial records and the compliance requirements to ensure all financial transactions are captured and maintained accurately to deliver comprehensive and timely monthly management accounts and fully compliant year-end financial statements.
• Implementing short but comprehensive month end and year end closure processes while maintaining a fully reconciled balance sheet on monthly basis to ensure the integrity of the accounting records.
• Ensuring robust financial projections including modeling reserves movements and cash flow planning to help tight control of the cash movements and short-term investment management.
• Leading preparation of detailed business and financial models to carry out scenario planning and to prepare forecasts to aid decision making and to provide insightful financial analysis, quality, and timely management reports to aid understanding of the I&E, cash flow and the free reserves position.
• Ensuring all required policies and procedures along with internal controls are developed, implemented, communicated, monitored and to act against noncompliance with the objective of minimising financial risk exposure and to help deliver strategic and operational goals of the organisation.
• Liaising with Nations and Functional Directors, to implement financial controls, policies, and procedures and through finance business partners to provide financial guidance and quality business support to help them in making key business decisions.
• Leading the external audit work to ensure a clean and timely completion of the annual audit and to prepare with accuracy the year-end financial statements along with necessary notes/backup reports which forms part of the Annual Report for the approval of the CFO, ELT and ultimately by the Board prior to publication. Further to link with Internal Auditors and follow up their recommendations.
• Providing leadership and direct management of staff to maintain an efficient and effective finance function that is built on continuous development of the team and ensure both central and regional finance staff are brought together to form One Team with shared goals and a high-performance culture with ownership and accountability.

What we need from you: 

• Fully qualified Accountant (CAAB) or equivalent.
• Significant and senior post qualification experience gained in a large organisation.
• Experience in business modelling, performance analysis and preparing budgets/forecasts.
• Proven experience in finance management and dealing with CFOs, Executive and Board Directors.
• Experience of preparing final accounts after an external audit and formalising annual statutory financial statements for submission
• Demonstrable technical competence to lead both month-end and year-end closure of accounts process and liaising with external auditors.
• Experience of introducing and applying policies, financial controls with a focus on assurance.
• Appreciation of the importance of quality, accuracy, and timeliness in providing outputs/reports.
• Provide guidance, identify critical path, planning the work and manage multiple demands to deliver satisfactory outcomes.
• Providing challenge and critique to senior organisational colleagues, achieved through establishing credibility, confidence, and trust.
• Ability to take a brief from CFO and plan what is necessary and deliver accordingly.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a positive attitude to bring the team together and to link up effectively with internal stakeholders.
• Provide guidance, identify critical path, planning the work and manage multiple demands to deliver satisfactory outcomes.

Working here is so much more than a job. It's an investment of time to truly make a difference to the lives of vulnerable children, young people, and families across the UK. 

We work together to reach our vision of safe and happy childhoods. Given this and our ongoing commitment to Diversity and Inclusion, we encourage applications from everyone.

We value and celebrate the diversity of those that work with us and as an inclusive workplace we want all our current and future staff to feel able to be themselves in the workplace. 

If, for any reason, you need support with your application, please contact David Simpson on 01923 361732. We'll be happy to give you any support you require. 

Full details and application documents here