Financial Accountant (General Ledger)

Merseywestlancs; Knowsley; On-site; GBP 40,000 - GBP 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent NHS Trust in England is seeking a Financial Accountant (General Ledger) to join their Finance Department. The role involves key financial responsibilities such as maintaining the ROU asset register, preparing statutory accounts, and assisting with audits. Candidates are expected to have significant financial accounting experience, preferably in the NHS, alongside strong analytical and communication skills. This full-time position is an excellent opportunity to contribute to a well-regarded organization dedicated to serving its community.

Benefits

Generous pension scheme

27 days annual leave

NHS discounts

Qualifications

• Significant financial accounting experience required.
• Experience in NHS finance environment preferred.
• Ability to manage complex reconciliations and audits.

Responsibilities

• Provide financial accounting services and support the financial reporting.
• Maintain accurate records for ROU asset capital accounting.
• Prepare financial analysis and assist with year end audit.

Skills

Financial accounting experience

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Organizational skills

Experience with Oracle General Ledger

Education

Relevant accounting qualification

Tools

Oracle Finance System

Business Intelligence

Excel

Job description

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has become available within the Finance Department at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

The position of Financial Accountant (General Ledger) will be based at Knowsley Community College and will be full time (37.5 hours).

Main duties of the job

• Provide key aspects of financial accounting services which include updating and monitoring the Trust’s ROU asset register, preparation/review of the Trust’s Charitable Funds accounts, remeasurement and monitoring of provisions and reconciliation of balance sheet accounts.
• Support the Assistant Director of Finance – Financial Services on aspects of internal and external reporting including monthly reporting and statutory year end accounts.
• Assist with the year end external audit exercise and be responsible for provision of information as it relates to the role.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Our services:

• Acute Care — Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care — Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services — Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.
• Specialist Regional Services — We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

ROU Asset register

To ensure that records relating to ROU asset capital accounting are accurately and effectively maintained on the Finance General Ledger and the Trust’s ROU asset register including regular reconciliations to assist in the accurate production of the Trust Balance Sheet to the required reporting timetable.

To liaise with budget holders, Divisional managers and the Assistant Director of Finance to ensure continued accurate identification of additions, cessations, upgrades and replacements / damaged / obsolete ROU assets. The ROU asset register will be updated as necessary for such amendments.

Informing Assistant Director of Finance – Financial Services of any issues that arise and help inform the resolution process.

Assist in the production of statutory annual accounts for the Trust. This will also include taking part in the national agreement of balances exercises.

Dealing with internal and external audit requirements as required.

Co-ordinating reconciliation of specific Shared Business Service and local balance sheet reconciliations especially salary sacrifice schemes.

Internal (Management Accounts and payroll) and external (customers and suppliers) communications required when reconciling balance sheet accounts, for example, calculating and agreeing external recharges.

Knowledge of the use of control accounts and how to perform complex reconciliations required.

Reconciling certain balance sheet codes monthly actioning requirements such as journal corrections, raising sales invoices or other actions.

The ability to concentrate on complex financial information and calculations without loss of accuracy, for prolonged periods of time, with interruptions, is required.

Significant data analysis required with inputs into and exports out of the oracle finance system, Business Intelligence and creation/amendments of multiple excel spreadsheets.

Charity

Manage the Charitable Funds ledger system and the work of the Charitable Funds Officer.

Responsibility for the preparation of the Trust’s Charitable Funds accounts in accordance with latest SORP.

Preparation of financial information for the Trust’s Charitable Funds sub-committee.

Preparation of financial analysis for, and regular communication with, the Trust’s Head of Charity.

Provisions

Create and maintain spreadsheets in order to provide an accurate calculation of provisions for accounts purposes e.g. pensions, employer’s and public liability claims against the Trust and permanent injury benefits awards referring to the latest technical accounting guidance.

Clinical and professional responsibilities

Maintain professional registrations as necessary.

Adhere to relevant code of practice of professional body.

Administrative responsibilities

Ensure all relevant procedure notes and associated forms are completed in line with departmental policy and audit requirements.

Teaching and training responsibilities

Actively participate in the annual performance development review to identify personal needs.

To attend Trust statutory and mandatory training sessions.

Line Management/Supervisory responsibilities

Day to day management of staff as required.

Undertaking annual performance development reviews as necessary.

Person specification

Qualifications

Knowledge and Experience

• Significant financial accounting experience
• Supervisory experience
• Experience of working in NHS finance
• Experience of the Oracle General Ledger System including Business Intelligence
• Experience of providing training and support to others in own specialist area
• Evidence of planning and organising tasks required to achieve a specific outcome within a specified timeframe without direction from line manager
• Experience of analysing, interpreting and presenting complex data and producing robust forecasts
• Highly computer literate including MS Word, Excel, Access. Able to extract data, create and manipulate complex spreadsheets

Skills

• Good standard of communication skills including the ability to effectively communicate complex financial information to nonfinance managers
• Acts professionally in all dealings with colleagues and in liaising with external bodies; must be able to adapt style appropriately to deal diplomatically with senior personnel
• Good standard of written communications
• Excellent problem solving and analytical skills
• Well organised, able to plan and prioritise own workload
• Good negotiating and influencing skills
• Ability to work under pressure and to meet tight deadlines
• Ability to support change
• Ability to manage conflicting priorities
• Requirement to concentrate for long periods when inputting data and when analysing data/statistics

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [e-mail]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update

For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK.

Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.

Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to:

• Understand how to generate an eVisa share code

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

• All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
• There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
• Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website.

You will be expected to undertake the Trusts' commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here .

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.