Accounts Assistant

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 an Accounts Assistant to join our Finance team in Northampton on a permanent contract. You will be providing efficient, timely and accurate accounting support to the Financial Accountant and team.

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

Main key areas:

• Daily manual BACS payment processing.
• Daily Bank Reconciliations – ensuring compliance with SAR.
• Regularly review of out of date cheques – ensuring compliance with SAR
• Daily assistance to the Treasury Administrator
• Sending all CHAPS/International and Faster Payments daily within the specified deadlines.
• Daily Purchase Ledger assistance – processing expenses, supplier invoices and supplier statement reconciliation.
• Posting prepared journals
• Monthly Balance Sheet reconciliations
• Company credit card system processing & administration
• Carbon emission & CR analysis
• Client rate changes
• Providing holiday/absence cover when required
• Other adhoc reporting and administration as necessary

• Applicant should possess excellent numeracy skills
• Good level of IT literacy i.e.  Excel, Outlook, Word
• Experience  of working in an accounts environment
• Knowledge of SAP would be an advantage but not essential.
• Positive with can do attitude
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy
• 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.

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.