SGH Finance Manager - Financial Accounts in London

Responsibilities include developing and maintaining an expert understanding of the Trust's processes and procedures and the accounting system relating to financial reporting and control, including an operational understanding of other Finance functions, e.g. Income, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Procurement.

Key duties involve:

• Having a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of national accounting standards applicable to the trust and an awareness of the NHS Finance framework, e.g. NHS manual for Accounts, Treasury guidelines.
• Preparing the year-end accounts timetable in consultation with other sections of the Finance department (Management Accounts, Accounts Payable, Income and the Systems team), the Procurement department, and Trust budget holders to ensure that all relevant internal and external deadlines are achieved.
• Reviewing and co-ordinating the stock count of the Trust's stocks of drugs, engineering and building materials, high-value radiology and dental stock at year-end.
• Liaising with Trust senior managers, including Directors, regarding the disclosure of their remuneration and benefits in the Annual accounts as required by the Greenbury report.
• Preparing a comprehensive working papers file fully cross-referenced to supporting documentation for the Trust's external auditors and investigating, explaining and resolving potentially highly complex and technical accounting and financial queries raised by the external auditors.
• Reviewing the year-end process after completion to identify areas for improvement and implementing the required changes in working practices to improve the process for the following year.
• Carrying out the Agreement of balance exercise.
• Preparing the monthly VAT returns, proposing adjustments or corrections on input VAT, and coordinating the COS review with the Trust's VAT consultant.
• Coordinating the payables and expenditure side of the NHS balance agreement exercise, liaising with other NHS bodies and Finance staff as required.
• Reconciling and agreeing creditors' balances with statements issued by other NHS bodies and preparing relevant draft WGA schedules as part of the FTC returns.
• Investigating and responding to any queries raised by the External Audit during the year-end accounts process and supporting the implementation of internal audit recommendations within the department.
• Preparing a monthly creditor analysis report to be incorporated into the FIC Board report.
• Managing the cash management function of the Trust, reviewing the cash flow forecast and the investment of short-term cash surpluses with the National Loans Fund daily and ensuring that the assumptions underpinning the forecasts are appropriate.
• Performing the treasury management role in the absence of the relevant finance officer.
• Ensuring that all Financial Accounts control accounts are reconciled on a timely basis and that all errors are corrected promptly.
• Preparing the monthly financial return of the Trust's performance against its targets for income and expenditure, capital, cash flow, cost reduction programme and Better Payment Practice Code.