Overseas and Subsidiaries Accounts Assistant - London (15-months FTC)

British International Investment (BII) is the UK’s leading development finance institution, wholly owned by the UK Government. Our primary mission is to address global development challenges through strategic investments that promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. BII focuses on catalysing economic development, creating jobs, and building resilient economies in some of the world's most complex and underserved markets. We invest in businesses and projects that prioritise inclusive development, environmental sustainability, and innovation. Our approach is characterised by rigorous investment standards, high governance principles, and a commitment to delivering measurable development impact. Our team consists of highly skilled and passionate professionals dedicated to making a tangible difference globally. We foster a collaborative and intellectually stimulating work environment that values curiosity, innovation, and professional growth. Our culture balances high performance with a strong emphasis on wellbeing, ensuring our employees can achieve their full potential while contributing to our mission.

BII at a glance:

• Over 75 years supporting sustainable business growth in developing and emerging markets
• More than £9.9 billion in net assets
• 1,600+ businesses invested in
• 950,000+ workers in the businesses we support
• 650+ people in our diverse global team

Team and role overview

The Finance team is responsible for the accounting, financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, investment accounting, purchasing and procurement, accounts payable and accounts receivable functions. The finance team consists of 40 people, including the CFO, having grown in the last 24 months to enable it to support business growth. This role will be part of the Overseas Finance Team of 6 and will be based in London. BII has operations overseas offices and carries out accounting and financial reporting to the overseas entities and UK investment holding companies. There are currently ten overseas offices and twenty-six UK investment holding companies which are subsidiaries of BII plc with separate local reporting and statutory compliance requirements.

The Role

Purpose: This role will be responsible for performing the bookkeeping, month/quarter/year-end close financial reporting, monthly reconciliations, indirect tax compliances and supporting the Overseas Finance Team with management of information for a portfolio of entities mentioned above.

Responsibilities:

• Supporting the day-to-day work carried out by the Overseas Team (1 Manager, 4 Executives, and an Accounting Associate and an Accounting Assistant) for an allocated portfolio of entities;
• Performing real-time bookkeeping of transactions, posting and approval of entries in SUN for the overseas entities and UK Holding companies;
• Processing and review of supplier invoices in Accounting Review in Concur with a specific focus on booking the correct applicable taxes for each jurisdiction;
• Ensure all overseas value-added tax (VAT) and withholding tax (WHT) returns are prepared by overseas providers, reviewed, payments are completed, tracked and returns filed with the relevant tax authorities within deadline;
• Refreshing and reviewing the monthly trial balance, reporting pack and supporting schedules for all entities for accuracy and completeness;
• Preparing month-end reconciliations of balance sheet accounts, supplier reconciliations in collaboration with Accounts Payable team, VAT & WHT control accounts, bank reconciliations review, intercompany reconciliations, accruals and prepayments;
• Calculating advisory fees on a quarterly basis and preparing advisory fee invoices for payment approval;
• Preparing ageing of intercompany balances and raise recharge/reimbursable expenses invoices to subsidiaries on a timely basis accordingly;
• Ensure all invoices, documentary evidence and correspondence is shared regularly with service providers to enable them to discharge their duties in line with the scope of work in the engagement agreement;
• Ensure all documents and correspondence with the business is filed logically for ease of reference for audit purposes in the respective folders on Sharepoint;
• Respond to internal and external audit requests for information per the agreed audit timetable;
• Prepare and review annual statutory financial statements in line with IFRS for each entity in allocated portfolio;
• Establish and maintain good working relationships with overseas service providers and the business (other functional departments within BII) in order to get the right information for processing on time;
• Ensuring good financial controls are followed, process improvement and documenting new processes where necessary in the Standard Operating Procedure manual;
• Assist the team in collating information to drive for automated solutions in financial reporting to improve efficiencies, data accuracy and sharing knowledge with the rest of the team.

The Candidate

• Must be qualified/pursuing an accounting qualification or with degree/diploma in Accounting with an ability to apply technical concepts and accounting principle to their work;
• Extensive bookkeeping and financial reporting experience;
• Knowledge and experience with accounting for VAT & WHT in overseas jurisdictions, reconciliation of control and balance sheet accounts and data analysis in Excel.
• Preferable exposure to smaller companies or subsidiaries based in Overseas Offices with some manual processes;
• Good organisational, communication and project management skills to take work to completion with minimal supervision;
• Strong bookkeeping, accounting skills and data analysis skills with particular attention to detail and problem solving;
• Fast learner with a keen interest to learn, investigate accounting variances and preparing regular reconciliations;
• Experience in using Infor SunSystems and Q&A is preferable;
• A flexible team player, self-starter and proactive contributor;
• The ability to take the initiative, tackle new challenges and take tasks through to completion;
• Candidates should be strongly motivated by BII’s development mission and ideally demonstrate some commitment to development or social goals through previous executive or non-executive activity.

Our cultural values:

• Impact-led, commercially rigorous
• Tenacious in the face of challenges
• Collaborative and caring

BII is committed to diversity and inclusion and welcomes all applicants regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation or educational background.