Finance Lead

Finance Lead

About us

At The Love Local Jobs Foundation, we aim to create a community where every young person is inspired and empowered to become their best self.

Through the charity, we partner with ethical employers, public sector entities, educational institutions, and community youth groups to provide impactful experiences for local young people that help to raise aspirations, develop their employability skills, and encourage them to reach their full potential.

We believe that the right people create the right culture.  Our core values help to define who we are, by inspiring one another and encouraging us to thrive personally and professionally.   We believe that being curious makes us more knowledgeable, being kind to those around us gives us humility and our relentlessness brings us results and growth.

We are looking for a Finance Lead that can support in ensuring all financial records and transactions are accurate and support with ensuring the charity is compliant.

That is where YOU come in. 

What you’ll do

As a pivotal role for the foundation and you will work closely with other colleagues and the Board of Trustees to help deliver the Objectives of the Charity. The duties primarily include finance, governance and administrative systems and processes.

You will have a solid understanding of applicable charitable accounting preferably from experience within a charity, not for profit or a social enterprise.

You should be confident working with financial data, including producing easy-to-use reports to summarise financial information.

You will also…                       

Accounts

• Provide timely processing of all management accounts and journals and manage the monthly reconciliation of charities bank account.  
• Month end processing, to produce monthly and quarterly management accounts and present to the CEO, Trustees, Trustee led steering groups and internal department heads.
• Managing the company’s budgets – calculating variances from the budget and report significant issues or variances to management and board of trustees and report back monthly via monthly meetings with the senior management team.
• Ensure all processes and procedures are followed such as expense claims, petty cash, donation cash handling and recording of cash receipts and donations.
• Hold monthly meetings with senior management team to discuss variances and to accurately determine cash flow projections.
• Process all sales and purchase invoices, purchase orders, payments, BAC runs, and accounting system transactions within Xero.
• Preparing VAT returns, uploads, and payments
• Be responsible for the accurate reporting of restricted and unrestricted funds.
• Alongside the CEO, support in helping to develop the charity's financial strategy to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the organisation.
• Exploring ways to improve cost control and full cost recovery, and to develop new plans around generation of unrestricted income and asset development.
• Input into the creation and implementation of the Strategic Plan and oversee the ongoing monitoring and analysis of the financial sections. This includes identifying and managing financial risks and mitigations.

Governance and Compliance

• Oversight of all terms of business documents to ensure compliance and accuracy.
• Set standards of compliance to ensure the business is not at risk of any breaches in its Charitable operations and work with the Management Team and Board of Trustees to ensure appropriate financial risk assessments are identified and implemented.
• Oversee the gift aid application process, ensuring our procedures within Salesforce are accurately accounting for the eligibility of gift aid prior to claiming via HMRC.
• Ensure compliance with relevant statutory requirements including Charity and Company Law, Charity Commission, PAYE, VAT, Corporation Tax, and payroll.
• Manage all aspect of tax compliance i.e. entertaining rules, travel/subsistence rules.
• Ensure ongoing compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and through Sales Force Support in submitting DBS checks for the foundation team and mentors when required.
• Support the Charity’s CEO with bid applications.
• Lead liaison with the Auditors for the annual year-end accounts, including preparation of Xero accounts and grant and project supporting documentation.
• Stay up to date on developments in the areas relevant to your work - such as developments in practice, sector news, funding opportunities etc. Sharing this knowledge, along with updates on the successes and challenges of your work with the wider organisation.

Payroll

• Submit monthly payroll to our outsources payroll company, ensuring payslips are sent to staff within the time frame set out.  Also, supporting with any pay discrepancies.  
• Oversee outsourced payroll function. Working closely with outsourced HR to ensure accurate information on hours worked and on project allocation. Be responsible for monthly staff hours and process payments for wages, pension and taxes and post journals.
• Process pensions, PAYE and NIC monthly

Requirements

What you should have?

• Three years’ experience working in the charity sector or having a solid knowledge of Charity Regulations and Governance is desirable but not essential.
• Part qualified professional accounting qualification is desirable.
• An understanding of the charity sector would be beneficial, alternatively you must have a strong commitment to learn and grow in the Charity Sector.
• Proven extensive experience of working within and running a finance department.
• Working knowledge of relevant financial systems including Xero accounting
• Good knowledge of Microsoft core programmes including excel, word, power point, access including pivot tables and databases.
• Excellent communication and engagement skills, demonstrating exceptional inter-personal skills and the ability to work collaboratively with team member, volunteers, trustees, and external parties.
• Excellent attention to detail and be a strong problem solver. Also, to be comfortable enforcing rules and measures.
• Literate: excellent spelling, grammar and copy writing skills.
• Numerate: comfortable with budgets, forecasts, pricing.
• Self-sufficient:  take decisions, prioritise, work independently, and manage personal administration.
• Ensuring that you always follow the Foundations Inclusion, Equality and Diversity Policy, also considering unconscious and conscious bias when delivering to groups of individuals.

It’s also a bonus if you have:

• Foundation/Charity/Career/Education experience
• Worked with public and private sector organisations.

Why work with us?

We are set up to support and create success.  We are hugely proud of the Foundation and what we have achieved within the community and alongside our partners.

We have passion for what we do, and we love working together.  Everybody in our team has an important part to play in our success. Whilst we are each individually responsible for our day to day running, we work very closely as a team to always provide the best solutions for our partners.  We want you to succeed, together we are stronger.

We know that if people feel good, they will do well. It’s simple!

We are a team that respects, trusts, and looks out for one another. We have a flexible remote working system that allows us to balance time in work with our interests and commitments outside of work. This is very important to us and has undoubtedly been the key to our success in recent times.

Some of our MANY benefits include:

• Hybrid working - we like working remotely but we love being in each other’s company more, so that flexibility is there to work wherever you want with no hidden agendas.
• The office hours are Monday to Thursday 8.30am - 17.30pm with a 16.00pm finish on a Friday.
• We also believe in the freedom to work the hours where you are more productive so more flexible arrangements can be arranged.
• Opportunity to travel to events and meetings in the UK Holiday allowance of 25 days plus 8 bank holidays, that’s 33 days a year. 
• We also increase your allowance each year once you have passed 3 years giving you the opportunity to have 38 days holiday per year.  Nice!
• Regular social events with a great team! Mid-year and end of year party!
• Birthday day off!
• We celebrate work anniversaries with a lie in or early finish AND special gifts to celebrate certain milestones along the way!
• Private Health Care, which also includes Free Gym membership!
• Pension contributions as you’d expect! ……….and much more!