Assistant Accountant

Closing date: 18/05/2017
Term: Permanent
Salary: Competitive
Working hours: Full-time
Reports to: Finance Manager
Department: Finance Department
Location: Cardiff
The firm

Lewis Silkin is a UK top-100 commercial law firm with offices in London, Oxford, Cardiff and Hong Kong. The firm is recognised by clients and industries alike as being distinct: for its deep understanding, insight and advice to creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses; for its market-leading international practice in employment, immigration and reward; and for delivering pragmatic, commercial advice in a refreshingly human way.

With 59 partners and more than 300 staff, the firm is structured around two key divisions.

In employment, immigration and reward, it is consistently top-ranked, and was named HR Law Firm of the Year 2015 by the Legal 500. With over 100 lawyers, Lewis Silkin’s employment and immigration team offers an unrivalled service supporting clients, including many of the world’s leading businesses, on their HR, employment and immigration law needs domestically and internationally. 

The creators, makers and innovators team is made up of leading advisers for creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses, offering a deep understanding of the industry sectors in which clients operate combined with real expertise across a wide range of legal services. From start-ups to multinationals, the firm’s comprehensive and commercially focused advice helps clients succeed in an increasingly complex and converged international marketplace.

The department

The Finance Department supports all aspects of the Firm’s financial requirements from the provision of strategic support through to detailed transactional processing, with a key focus on providing excellent customer service to our internal clients. The department is comprised of a central finance team (based in London and Cardiff) plus a London-based operational team covering client related transactions and working capital related activities.

The Assistant Accountant is a full time role which sits within the central finance team. The central finance team deal with the provision of management information, external financial reporting and audit, cash flow management, purchase ledger and employee expense claim processing, compliance with VAT/PAYE regulations, oversight of payroll, and Partner related transactions.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities and Duties

The Assistant Accountant role is based in our Cardiff office reporting into the Finance Manager, based in the same location, and will include periodic travel to the Firm’s London office. The role is intended to provide varied support to the central finance team with a primary focus on transaction posting, cash flow management, internal reporting, and systems development activity.

Working collaboratively with other team members, responsibilities will include:

  • Assisting with the firm’s accounts payable (AP) and expenses payment processes, and processing of UK and foreign payments including ensuring that the appropriate VAT treatment is applied to these transactions;
  • Cash flow management including reporting of daily balances, funding overseas accounts and cash flow forecasting;
  • Providing support to the management accounts reporting process, identifying areas requiring prepayments and accruals and undertaking balance sheet reconciliations;
  • Assisting with the firm’s external financial reporting, audit and regulatory returns;
  • Involvement in setting up users on the Firm’s practice management and time recording systems  and extraction of system data for further analysis;
  • Providing support to the finance systems team including report development, data uploads and project support as needed;
  • Preparation of property service charge workings, and requests for payments in respect of these;
  • Ad-hoc support to the central finance team as required.
Additional information

Experience and Skills Required

  • Demonstrable accounting experience in a similar role;
  • Excellent attention to detail and a consistently high level of accuracy;
  • Strong technical skills including advanced Excel and experience of practice management systems or other accounting software packages;
  • An understanding of VAT recovery processes is desirable;
  • Experience of finance systems support or reporting development (e.g. SQL) is desirable but not essential;
  • The ability to manage their own time, organise and take responsibility for their work, and deal with queries efficiently and promptly;
  • The ability to build relationships with partners and key stakeholders across the firm;
  • The knowledge and desire to identify and implement improvements to processes and procedures;
  • Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to communicate at all levels of the organisation;
  • The ability to appreciate organisational objectives, working with the rest of the team and supporting others as required to achieve these; and
  • An enthusiastic and flexible approach with a ‘can do’ attitude.