Bookkeeper in London

Location: London. All 3 days in office for the first three months. From month 4, 1 day per week remote once the agreed targets are being met.

Shape: Part-time, 3 days per week. Permanent or contract — both considered.

Salary: £30–34k FTE equivalent, pro-rata (£18–20.5k at 3 days). Contract equivalent £150–200 per day.

Reports to: Financial Controller (interim: Managing Director)

Start: As soon as available

About Lab54: Lab54 is a content-led events and production company. We create high-impact experiences in unexpected locations, capture them, and turn them into content. Combined global audience of 425,000+. We work with brands, record labels and artists — around 100 events a year across brand activations, artist pop-ups, hard-ticket shows, house parties and festival takeovers.

The role: The Bookkeeper is Lab54's day-to-day finance function: reconciliation, purchase-order matching, receipt capture, invoicing, debtor chasing and payroll preparation. The defining feature of the job is that every pound has to land against an event. Lab54's core financial object isn't the month — it's the project. Each event carries a code (YYMM-Owner-Event-City) that runs from HubSpot through Xero, Teamwork and the purchase-order flow. Coding transactions to that project is not admin; it's the thing that makes per-event profitability computable. It is the single most important part of this role. This role prepares, never approves. All payment runs are approved by the Managing Director, with the CEO approving above an agreed threshold.

Responsibilities:

• Purchase orders and supplier ledger: Match supplier invoices to their purchase order in Xero. Enforce the PO rule at the front door: any commitment of £500 or more needs a PO, and an invoice arriving without a PO number goes back to the supplier rather than into the ledger. Prepare payment runs for approval. Reconcile supplier statements monthly against our purchase ledger. Maintain the purchase ledger and keep the aged creditor position accurate.
• Reconciliation and coding: Bank and card reconciliations kept current within 48 hours, including Revolut Business card spend against Xero tracking categories. Code every transaction to the correct project code and tracking category. Chase the team when a code is missing rather than guessing one. Produce a weekly untagged-spend report, by spender, and drive it to zero.
• Receipts and VAT recovery: Chase and capture missing receipts to a 98% target. Flag transactions carrying no VAT treatment where the supplier is UK VAT-registered. Prepare the VAT return workings for the external accountancy firm.
• Sales invoicing and debtors: Raise client invoices within 48 hours of the billing trigger, coded to the project. Own debtor chasing end to end.
• Project close: When a project closes, produce its final position: budgeted cost against actual cost, budgeted revenue against invoiced revenue, and the resulting margin.
• Cash and reporting: Produce a weekly cash one-pager: bank position, overdue debtors with days outstanding, payment runs due, projected balance. Keep the company's master P&L model current.
• Payroll preparation: Prepare payroll data and submit it to the external payroll provider ahead of deadline. Confirm the payroll account is funded before each run.
• Close, deadlines and records: Run the monthly close to a published working-day deadline. Maintain the statutory deadline register and flag each one in advance.

What the first 90 days actually look like: The first 90 days is a clean-up, not a steady state.

• Days 1–30: Learn the ledger and the project-code structure. Take over reconciliation, receipt capture and PO matching.
• Days 31–60: Clear the untagged backlog. Take over sales invoicing, debtor chasing and received-payment matching.
• Days 61–90: Run a full month close to deadline: suspense at nil, every accrual scheduled, supplier statements reconciled.

On being in the office: The first three months are fully office-based. Clearing a backlog this size means asking people questions in real time.

What we're looking for:

• Essential: Proven bookkeeping experience. Xero to a high standard is non-negotiable. Strong reconciliation, coding and purchase-ledger discipline.
• Nice to have: Multi-currency invoicing and foreign supplier payments. Experience cleaning up a ledger rather than only maintaining a tidy one.

How you'll work: Meticulous. Proactive on receipts, POs and debtors. Discreet and trustworthy with company finances. Organised to deadline without being chased yourself.

How we'll measure it: Bank and card reconciliations — current within 48 hours, every week. Receipt capture with correct project coding — 98%. Supplier invoices matched to a PO — 100%. Untagged transactions — zero at each week-end. Sales invoices raised from trigger — 95%+ within 48 hours. Month-end close — completed to the published working-day deadline. Payroll — data submitted, journal posted, account funded ahead of deadline. Statutory deadlines — every one flagged in advance. Zero missed.

What's different about doing this here: Per-event P&L, not just a company ledger. Close to the commercial detail of a live business — 100 events a year, heavy freelancer and crew spend, international suppliers and multi-currency invoicing. A clear control structure. Room to grow.