Senior Accounts Assistant in Slough

Company Description: Lykiardopulo & Co. Ltd are a long established family run shipping agent who act as London agent for Greek ship managers Neda Maritime.

Role Description:

• Sort and process supplier invoices received either by post/email or from Neda Maritime. Invoices get processed in our accounting software in Danaos. This also includes posting the invoice payments once they have been settled.
• Assist with distributing invoices to the appropriate department if invoice approval is required.
• Control and awareness of creditors’ ledger: current status of invoices, queries, due dates. Supplier statement: assist in responding promptly to all supplier queries/chaser via email or phone.
• Assist with preparing invoice batches for payment in Excel.
• Assist with preparation of supplier payments via online bank (DNB) and maintenance of beneficiary bank detail records on the banking platform.
• Lead monthly funding cycle of estimated requirements i.e. what invoices will/will not need to be settled in the month. Obtaining approval of monthly funding cycle from directors and responding to any queries raised.
• Regular maintenance of the control ETB (Excel based monthly extended trial balance), which provides a quick estimation over each months funding per vessel and provides a control to the postings in the Danaos accounting software.
• Month end procedure: Reconciling our monthly Danaos activity to the Danaos ledger cards for each of our bank accounts and for each vessel to the Excel cashflow and ETB. Month end procedure also includes a periodic recharge of expenses such as shared costs or pre acquisition expenses.
• FX purchases – Our vessel supplier invoices are in various currencies i.e. USD/EUR/SGD/JPY, therefore an awareness of what our FX requirements may be and an alertness as to when it may be more advantageous to sell USD to purchase other currencies.
• Lead and overall responsibility for ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the accounting postings to Danaos made by the London office.
• Processing and approval of brokers’ commission invoices. Preparation of monthly payment batch to management for their approval.
• Owners’ payments: assistance with categories of vessel expenses which are passed directly to vessel ownership/managers for settlement e.g. bunker (fuel) invoices and various insurance premiums (hull/war risk). Recording of invoices and payments. Preparation of spreadsheet schedules to assist payment of costs which are payable in periodic tranches.
• For Lykiardopulo & Co Ltd assistance with processing of office administrative supplier invoices via Sage and invoicing agency/commission fees and other rechargeable costs.
• Setting up new vessel fixtures within Excel.
• Entering hire statements provided by the Operations Department.
• Recording receipts of hire/freight payments from Charterers and commission invoices from brokers.
• Everyone in the office needs to read the incoming/outgoing office emails, this includes weekend messages. There are a lot of them. As an international shipping company messages are being sent 24/7 and the candidate would be expected to read them at regular intervals.
• Possibility of some minimal reception cover may be required on rare occasions. However, we do not anticipate this to happen regularly.

Person Specification:

• Due to the nature, business and size of the company the following skills, attributes and qualities are essential to fulfil the role. This is a traditional/formal Greek family-owned business. Discretion, respect and a professional attitude at all times.
• Methodical/meticulous.
• Conscientious and committed.
• Dealing with colleagues in other departments with different work priorities and for whom English may not be their first language.
• Good communicator/articulate. Confident and in charge of facts of any issue to be discussed.
• Willing to contribute to common shared team objectives.

Note: Our fundamental responsibility is processing and settlement of vendor invoices/on-account payments and disbursement accounts. It is vital that we maintain our good reputation in complying with the systems/procedures agreed with the owners to achieve this.

Further Detail:

We want to recruit a new senior accounts assistant who is happy to assist with other office admin and duties when required. Our candidate needs to be numerate, analytical, and methodical with good attention to detail. Prior accounts experience is desirable.

Happy to work in a relatively small office, only 11-12 of us in total, 5 in the accounts department.

Finally, this is a great place to work if you are interested in maritime transport, world affairs, geography and macroeconomics. It is not routine, or mundane. It is a constant challenge and we think most people here enjoy the privilege of working for a high quality, long standing family business.