Senior Management Accountant

Job overview

The primary purpose of the Senior Management Accountant is to provide management and financial information and support to their assigned Directorates and ensure that their financial requirements are understood and delivered by themself and/or by other members of the financial management team.

The Senior Management Accountant is responsible for the delivery of all aspects of operational financial management within a Directorate area, providing advice, information, analysis and interpretation to Directors and budget holders to underpin effective decision making and meaningful performance management . They will be accountable for delivery of finance reporting for the Directorate, maintaining financial controls to support governance and providing financial support to budget setting, cost improvement and productivity schemes.

Main duties of the job

The main purposes of the role are –

• Ensuring the effective provision of a comprehensive management accounting service.
• To prepare annual budgets and quarterly forecasts, including supporting scenarios and Commentary
• To coordinate and produce accurate and timely in month forecasting.
• To investigate and challenge variances against budget and forecast, providing analysis and commentary where appropriate.
• Undertake regular meetings with budget holders (without supervision) to review accounts and support their understanding of the financial position

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Job Purpose:

The primary purpose of the Senior Management Accountant is to provide management and financial information and support to their assigned Directorates and ensure that their financial requirements are understood and delivered by themself and/or by other members of the financial management team.

The Senior Management Accountant is responsible for the delivery of all aspects of operational financial management within a Directorate area, providing advice, information, analysis and interpretation to Directors and budget holders to underpin effective decision making and meaningful performance management . They will be accountable for delivery of finance reporting for the Directorate, maintaining financial controls to support governance and providing financial support to budget setting, cost improvement and productivity schemes.

The main purposes of the role are –

• Ensuring the effective provision of a comprehensive management accounting service.
• To prepare annual budgets and quarterly forecasts, including supporting scenarios and Commentary
• To coordinate and produce accurate and timely in month forecasting.
• To investigate and challenge variances against budget and forecast, providing analysis and commentary where appropriate.
• Undertake regular meetings with budget holders (without supervision) to review accounts and support their understanding of the financial position

Key Responsibilities:

• 1)           Finance & Business Planning
• Produce summary financial plans for services ensuring they reflect their strategic objectives.
• Identify financial risks and produce a downside financial plan and help to identify mitigations.
• To lead the annual and periodic detailed budget setting processes in conjunction with budget holders and the senior management team, endeavouring to ensure that resultant targets (both financial and non-financial) are realistic and are fully understood by budget holders. To ensure that budgets are congruent with Trust targets and activity plans.
• To provide financial input, where required into the preparation of Directorate or Trust wide business cases, working with both financial and operational managers. 2)           Reporting
• Produce accurate and timely monthly finance reports to ensure the veracity of information and highlight and substantiate key issues – meeting the monthly reporting deadlines.
• Monitor the performance of those budgets and analyse key variances timely, proposing remedial action as required.
• To produce accurate financial forecasts.  The forecasts plans should highlight potential opportunities and risks.
• Assist/complete financial returns and questionnaires as required. 3)           Productivity & Efficiency
• Assist the Directorate with planning and reporting of the Cost Improvement Programme (CIP) for the Directorate.
• To further develop cost awareness, identifying and quantifying key cost drivers and being able to model the implications of changes in activity on these. 4)           Engagement
• Promote a modern and collaborative approach to engaging clinicians in financial management.
• To work positively and professionally with other members of the Finance Department to ensure that the financial requirements of the Directorates are understood and delivered.
• Work with the whole finance team to deliver standardisation of all areas of process and development. 5)           Other
• To act at all times as a representative for the Finance Directorate ensuring that the professional reputation of the Directorate is upheld.
• Ad-hoc duties as required - there will be a number of non-routine tasks to be undertaken on an ad-hoc basis in order to assist the Finance Business Partners or Deputy Director of Finance.

Personal Specification:

Each requirement will either be identified through the candidate’s application form (A) or interview (I). Candidates should not be hired unless they have ALL essential requirements. Areas that can be developed through L&D can be deemed desirable.