Trainee Accountant

About Selina Finance, our mission is to provide exceptional value with simple and flexible financial products. We’re building a next-generation digital lender targeting homeowners across the UK. More than £2tn of equity value is locked up in UK homes, while homeowners still rely on high-interest-rate consumer loans, credit cards, or overdrafts. We offer a financing product unlike anything else out there, one that is as flexible as a current account, as affordable as a mortgage, and as easy to apply for as a consumer loan.

We are building an incredible team and culture of high performance, development, reward and recognition, ready for the next phase of our adventure, and this is where you come in!

We’re looking for a Trainee Accountant to join our finance team here at Selina and take ownership of the company’s financial reporting. Working alongside Oli, our Senior Finance Manager and with our Head of Strategic Finance, Andreas, you will be joining a team with a clear mission. Selina is a fast-paced environment, and this role will give you exposure and experience to many aspects of the finance function.

We’re looking for a candidate who has a keen interest in being part of a growing FinTech start-up that is constantly evolving and improving. You’ll have a questioning mindset, a problem-solving attitude and love working as part of a team, but also thrive when working with freedom and responsibility.

• Own the integrity of the company’s financial information by working closely with the Senior Finance Manager to maintain an accurate general ledger
• Take ownership of a number of the reporting processes to our external funders
• Constantly seeking ways to automate or improve our FinOps function
• Act as a key point of contact with our external funders and other external stakeholders
• Support the month-end close process, ensuring timetables are adhered to and deliverables are met
• Prepare and distribute key management information packs
• Own our Accounts Payable process, reviewing supplier terms and ensuring payment terms are adhered to, optimizing our working capital requirements
• Manage the monthly payroll process, working closely with other departments to ensure accurate completion (commissions, overtime, bonuses, joiners, leavers etc)
• Research and propose new financial tools and best practices to help scale the finance function
• Develop an understanding of how our business works and how this is reflected in our data
• Assessing and tracking the quality of data and working with the team to solve issues
• Support the company’s budgeting process - ensuring budgets are kept up to date and reviewed regularly for variances
• Reconcile transactions by comparing and correcting data
• Assist with the annual audit
• Work closely with our operations team to complete the daily loan disbursement process
• Assist with enhancing the internal documentation on FinOps processes
• Establishing strong relationships with other stakeholders across the business to represent the data needs for Financial Operations

• Experience in a finance role with an understanding of finance operations
• Solid understanding of accounting and financial reporting
• You love problem-solving, improving processes with an action-driven approach
• Strong communication, interpersonal and presentation skills, both written and verbal
• Have a strong work ethic, promoting empathy and accountability
• Strong Excel and analytical skills

• Prior experience at a fast-paced start-up/scale-up
• Financial or accounting degree or part qualification (ACA / ACCA / CIMA)
• Experience with Xero, Salesforce and Spendesk

• £30,000-£35,000 base salary, dependent on experience
• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays
• 30 days’ work-from-anywhere allowance
• Bi-annual Bonus (discretionary)
• Volunteering allowance
• Growth Shares
• Annual L&D budget
• Cycle to work scheme
• 3% pension contribution
• Monthly socials
• Free access to mental health support via Spill
• A choice of benefits that work for you, courtesy of our benefits platform
• Annual £60 cycle allowance for Santander cycles or Evans
• Workplace Nursery Benefit, allowing eligible nursery costs to be paid via salary sacrifice

Our values underpin how we work together as a high-performing team, driving our growth and success. Take Ownership - We all act as owners. We make decisions in the best interest of the company. We pride ourselves on solving problems, not finding barriers. We have a bias for action; we move fast and we deliver. Customer Obsessed - We all act as owners. We make decisions in the best interest of the company. We pride ourselves on solving problems, not finding barriers. We have a bias for action; we move fast and we deliver. Drive Change - We all act as owners. We make decisions in the best interest of the company. We pride ourselves on solving problems, not finding barriers. We have a bias for action; we move fast and we deliver. Empower Our Team - We believe that collaboration and teamwork are the cornerstones of success and we set up our team for great achievements.

We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to ensuring that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements that cannot be shown to be justifiable. We also welcome and encourage applications from traditionally underrepresented categories, and provide feedback to any candidate we interview, even if that feedback is speaking to another candidate being more suitable for the role.