Legal Cashier

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

Our finance team are committed to providing an efficient and accurate service to our legal advisors and to other support functions.  At the centre of this is ensuring that the client and office accounts are kept up to date and invoices are produced accurately and in a timely manner.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Legal Cashier to join our Finance team in Northampton on a permanent contract. You will be working as part of a local team and a larger firm wide department, supplying an efficient and accurate legal cashiering service for the Legal Advisers and other support functions.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone preferably with previous experience within a legal finance environment, to broaden their knowledge and gain new skills. You will need to have excellent communication skills, a keen eye for detail, flexibility, able to manage your own workload within tight deadlines.

General:

• To understand and ensure compliance with the Accounts Rules in relation to all tasks.
• To avoid any breaches of the Accounts Rules.
• To ensure that client and office accounts are kept up to date accurately.
• To be approachable/flexible and keen to learn

Key areas:

• Client & Office account transactions;
  • Sending all CHAPS/International and Faster payments daily within the specified deadlines.
  • To understand & follow agreed procedures for reviewing and operating Bankline.
  • To raise, post and distribute client & office cheques to LA’s / PA’s, this will also include banking. These duties are to be performed on a daily basis.
  • To reconcile out of date cheques on a regular basis and to report into the Finance Manager monthly.
  • To carry out any transfers i.e. client to client, matter to matter, client to bill, client to disbursement and disbursement to disbursements in accordance with Shoosmiths policies.
  • Log anticipated and actual disbursements onto the ledger which should be kept up to date on the accounting system in accordance to our policies.
  • Post special delivery & other soft charges daily.
• Billing;
  • To understand the billing process and raise bills on a daily basis.
  • To understand the process of credit notes/write offs/cancellations/foreign invoices
  • To have a full understanding of the VAT treatment of overseas clients
  • Preferable to have knowledge/understanding of E-Billing systems
• PDQ’s;
  • Run and post all receipts to the ledgers for the worldpay reports and to check for any card payment taken for your local office.
• General Duties;
  • To ensure work is handed out to the team promptly.
  • To understand and ensure compliance with the Accounts Rules in relation to all tasks.
  • Be proactive within the Finance team and be willing to make suggestions where they feel they will make more efficient processes.
  • To cover other team members with holidays or absence.
  • To assist Finance departments at other Shoosmiths sites if required.
  • File and date stamp, bank statements daily.
  • Petty Cash and Stamps when required
  • General daily filing.
  • To ensure all charity cash is counted on a weekly basis and banked the same day or next working day.
  • Ensure there is a sufficient supply of banking books and cheques.
  • Ensure that any problems are appropriately communicated to your Finance Manager and/or team and Legal Advisors promptly.
  • To provide assistance to the ‘Lead Cashier’ when required.
  • Additional hours required during peak times including month end, quarterly and year end.
  • This list is not exhaustive and duties include various other tasks as directed by the Finance Manager.

• Previous legal experience within professional services and ideally at least 12 months within a similar role
• Positive with can do attitude
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy
• Good level of IT literacy ie Excel, Outlook etc
• Have the ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines
• Ability to adapt and maintain high standards
• Organised with a neat and tidy approach to working practices
• Reliability, friendly and helpful approach
• Have a flexible approach to working practices
• Ability to work as part of a small local team but also the bigger Finance team.

Background Checks

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. These checks will include employment references covering the last 5 years, proof of ID, proof of address covering the last 5 years. Personal vetting credit search (which will only highlight Insolvency or County Court Judgements – Should any adverse data show on the Personal Vetting search them any offer of employment made be withdrawn). Terrorism check (against data supplied by the Bank of England) and a basic DBS check previously known as a Criminal Records check.

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.