Senior Finance Assistant (Maternity Cover) – Strand, London, WC2R 2LS

The purpose of this role is to safeguard the financial integrity of the university's fee income by ensuring accurate billing, robust credit control, and compliance with regulatory standards. Working across the commercial trade debt, student debt, and fee billing teams, the postholder will oversee the integrity of financial data, the setup of annual fee schedules, the timely completion of tuition fee billing, and the effective recovery of student and college fee debt.

The role also ensures adherence to anti‐fraud and anti‐money laundering (AML) requirements through due diligence checks, reconciliation of control accounts, and accurate processing of overpayments and refunds, while supporting the administration of external loan schemes. By combining analytical rigor with strong communication and stakeholder engagement, the postholder will promote best practice, mitigate financial risk, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the student finance and credit control functions.

This is a full time Maternity Cover until 15‐Aug‐2027.

Key Responsibilities

• Debt Recovery and Reporting: The role is responsible for the recovery of outstanding university fee balances in accordance with institutional policies and procedures. This includes monitoring overdue accounts, engaging with relevant parties to secure payment including 3rd party debt collection agents and solicitors, and taking appropriate action to recover unpaid amounts. The role also involves producing accurate and professional reports for management with excellent attention to detail, outlining the status of recovery efforts and identifying any notable issues or trends affecting university fee collection.
• Customer Service Management: A core component of this role is overseeing high volumes of inbound communications, including emails and phone calls, from a range of stakeholders regarding university fee matters. The postholder is expected to manage and respond to these inquiries promptly and effectively, ensuring compliance with service level agreements (SLAs) and maintaining a consistently high standard of customer service and satisfaction.
• Proactive Communication: This role requires a proactive and professional approach to engaging with individuals and third parties regarding outstanding university fee accounts. The focus is on resolving issues promptly and effectively, while maintaining clear, courteous, and constructive communication to support positive relationships and encourage timely resolution of balances.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Complex Query Resolution: This role acts as a key contact for resolving high‐level or contentious queries that require careful handling and professional judgement. The postholder will maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, offering timely, well‐informed responses and facilitating productive dialogue to achieve resolution. They will uphold high standards of customer service and ensure that communication is both clear and sensitive to the reputational importance of fee‐related matters.
• Analytical and Escalation Handling: This role demands strong analytical abilities and meticulous attention to detail in evaluating processes, identifying inefficiencies, and constructively challenging suboptimal practices. Precision is essential when reviewing complex data, interpreting policies, and assessing the implications of decisions. As a key escalation point, the role involves resolving complex issues thoroughly and accurately, providing clear guidance on challenging cases, and working collaboratively with other departments to ensure efficient, compliant, and well‐coordinated operations.
• Team Performance and Objectives: Collaboration with colleagues is key to achieving both individual and team objectives. The role involves contributing to shared goals by exchanging knowledge, providing support across tasks, and actively participating in the delivery of performance targets established by supervisory leadership.
• Billing Operations: Help the end‐to‐end tuition fee and trade billing operations, including system upgrade testing, SITS fee matrix configuration, invoice and credit note processing, debt collection, customer account controls, workflow compliance, query resolution, reconciliations, process improvement, and maintenance of accurate financial documentation and controls in line with college policy and regulatory requirements.
• Process Improvement: Lead or actively contribute to short‐term projects aimed at improving operational efficiency, service delivery, or compliance within the credit control function. Take ownership of specific tasks, managing them independently from initiation to completion. Ensure all credit control processes, workflows, and system configurations are clearly documented and reviewed regularly to reflect current practices and system changes. Promote a culture of continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to streamline operations, reduce errors, and enhance reporting. Uphold and promote the principles of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI), ensuring all process improvements support a fair and inclusive working environment.
• Documentation and Review: Maintaining accurate and up‐to‐date documentation of processes and system configurations is a key aspect of the role. This ensures procedures are clearly recorded, centrally stored, and regularly reviewed to reflect operational changes. Effective documentation supports compliance, staff training, and ongoing improvement initiatives.
• Overpayment Processing: The role includes managing the accurate processing of overpayments in line with institutional policies and regulatory requirements, including anti‐fraud and anti‐money laundering standards. It involves handling refunds across multiple payment methods such as card transactions, bank transfers, and third‐party platforms. Additionally, the role requires coordination and compliance in administering external loan schemes, ensuring timely allocation of funds to fees and the appropriate refunding of surplus balances.
• Compliance Checks on Bank Transfers: The role holder will routinely undertake thorough checks on all inbound direct bank transfers to King's, as well as any additional wider encompassing checks and controls on payment pathways and customer bases under the universities compliance umbrella. This involves taking proactive steps to collect the necessary data from the student / payer and completing all compliance checks in a timely, discreet and professional manner to prevent any potential issues from arising.
• Sanctioned Jurisdiction Monitoring: Perform compliance checks on students or payers from sanctioned jurisdictions before releasing payment instructions and/or allocating the payments to the invoice. This includes cross‐checking receipts to ensure that all regulations are followed and that no prohibited transactions occur.
• Reconciliation of Control Accounts: Handle the end‐to‐end reconciliation of control accounts related to both direct and third‐party college inbound receipts and refunds. This task ensures accurate financial records and helps maintain the integrity of financial data.
• Fraud Prevention: Regularly conduct thorough cross‐checks of card acquirer reports to detect fraudulent activity and prevent financial loss. Investigate and review individual transactions flagged as high‐risk to assess their legitimacy and escalate issues where necessary. Maintain a proactive approach to identifying emerging fraud trends and contribute to strengthening internal controls and mitigation strategies. Collaborate with relevant departments to ensure a consistent and coordinated response to potential fraud threats.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

• Educational Qualifications: Candidates should possess a minimum of a degree qualification or an equivalent financial certification, such as those offered by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM), Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), or demonstrate equivalent experience in the financial field.
• Understanding of Anti‐Fraud Compliance and Legislation: Ability to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of anti‐fraud compliance regulations, such as those related to Money Laundering and the Proceeds of Crime Act, is essential. This also includes a deep understanding of Data Protection Legislation and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which governs the handling of personal data and ensures compliance with legal standards.
• Advanced IT and Numeracy Skills: High numeracy skills and proficiency in IT are required, particularly in using Microsoft Office software. Candidates must demonstrate advanced skills in MS Excel, including the ability to manipulate data effectively using pivot tables and VLOOKUP formulas, essential for accurate data analysis and reporting.
• Accountancy Knowledge: A solid working knowledge of accountancy functions and procedures is crucial. This includes understanding financial controls, bookkeeping, and reconciliation processes to ensure accurate and compliant financial management.
• Professionalism and Attention to Detail: The role requires a highly professional approach to work, with exceptional attention to detail and accuracy. Strong self‐management and organisational skills are necessary to handle tasks efficiently and meet deadlines.
• Independent Work and Communication: Ability to work with minimal supervision is vital. Candidates must be adept at communicating clearly and effectively with customers and stakeholders, utilizing a solution‐focused approach to address and resolve issues.
• Experience with Compliance and AML Checks: Prior experience in performing compliance and Anti‐Money Laundering (AML) checks on inbound payments or new customers is required. This experience ensures familiarity with regulatory requirements and the ability to identify and mitigate potential risks.

Desirable criteria:

• Knowledge of administrative and accounting functions and processes within a Higher Education environment.
• Knowledge of SITS/SAM Student Records and Unit 4 ERP (formerly called Agresso or Business World).

Equality and Diversity Statement: The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.