Assistant Financial Accountant

Merseywestlancs; Knowsley; On-site; GBP 30,000 - GBP 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional healthcare trust in Knowsley is seeking a full-time Assistant Financial Accountant to manage the Accounts Receivable team. This position requires advanced Excel skills for data analysis and effective management of financial reporting. The ideal candidate will have an AAT Level 4 Diploma, supervisory experience, and the ability to negotiate on debt recovery. Join this committed healthcare team to enhance financial operations and contribute to patient care across the Trust's various services.

Benefits

Generous pension scheme

27 days annual leave

NHS discounts

Employee of the month recognition

Qualifications

• AAT Level 4 Diploma in Professional Accounting or equivalent experience.
• Supervisory experience in a finance role.
• Significant financial accounting experience.
• Ability to analyze, interpret, and present complex data.

Responsibilities

• Manage the daily operations of the Accounts Receivable team.
• Provide monthly analysis and reconciliation of debts.
• Lead negotiations with customers on debt recovery.
• Prepare management reports to support decision-making.
• Assist in internal and external audits.

Skills

Supervisory skills

Advanced Excel skills

Communication skills

Analytical skills

Problem-solving skills

Education

AAT Level 4 Diploma in Professional Accounting

Tools

Oracle General Ledger System

MS Word

MS 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 Assistant Financial Accountant will be based at Knowsley Community College and will be full time (37.5 hours).

Main duties of the job

Responsible for daily management of the Accounts Receivable team.

Provide monthly debt management analysis and action plans to senior managers.

Provide monthly Trust-wide balance sheet reconciliations, including analysis and actions/advice to resolve.

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

Accounts Receivable/Debt Management

Leading debt management calls between the Trust and NHS Shared Business Services and agreeing action points.

Negotiating with customers to recover debt in a timely manner.

Preparing management reports/analysis for Accounts Receivable to help with communicating information at a higher level and aid decision making. This will involve the use of advanced Excel skills such as lookups and pivot tables.

Making suggestions on debt write-offs in line with debt management policy.

Potential to have to deal with upset customers who may be struggling financially to pay an invoice.

Planning workload with the team, setting key performance targets.

Providing performance feedback, coaching and training to the team.

Assisting with Freedom of Information requests.

Supporting both Internal and External audits ensuring data requests and any recommendations are acted upon.

Balance sheet reconciliations

Reconciling control accounts of the Trust on a monthly basis. Following up on queries and also monitoring control accounts done by other staff to ensure they are being managed in an accurate and timely fashion. This involves the use and understanding of both internal and external data resources.

Assisting in the preparation of reports and information for year-end accounts including ensuring evidence for auditors is available.

Answering queries raised by finance colleagues, other staff members and sometimes the public, regarding issues relevant to the position. If unable to deal with then pass on to the correct person/department.

Clinical and professional responsibilities

Maintaining professional registrations as necessary.

Adhering to relevant code of practice of professional body.

Administrative responsibilities

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

Teaching and training responsibilities

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

Teach and train Accounts Receivable staff and other staff members as necessary.

To attend Trust statutory and mandatory training sessions.

Line Management/Supervisory responsibilities

Deputising for the Deputy Financial Accountant as and when required.

Undertaking annual performance development reviews of Accounts Receivable staff.

Day to day management of Accounts Receivable Staff e.g. sickness recording, approval of annual leave.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) Level 4 Diploma in Professional Accounting and/or education or significant experience to degree level

Knowledge and Experience

• Supervisory experience
• 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, able to extract data, create and manipulate complex spreadsheets
• Significant Financial accounting 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

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
• Ability to work under pressure and to meet tight deadlines
• Ability to support change
• Ability to handle a range of emotive situations
• 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.

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 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.