Project Accountant (12 month FTC)

at  Lewis Silkin LLP

Term:

Contract
Duration:

1 year
Working hours:

Full-time
Reports to:

Head of Cardiff Finance
Department:
Finance Department
Location:

Cardiff
The firm
Lewis Silkin works with leading businesses to protect and enhance their most important assets - their ideas, their people, their brand and their future. We call it: Ideas. People. Possibilities.
With offices in London, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin and Hong Kong, we are recognised by clients and industry alike as being distinct for our unique culture, market-leading practice areas, sector focused approach and for providing solutions to complex, multijurisdictional business challenges, with a pragmatic and human touch. We have two things at our core: people — both ours and our clients’— and a focus on creative, tech and innovative businesses.
Our culture is encapsulated by an ethos of bravery and kindness, guided by our values of Integrity, Clarity, Unity and Excellence (our ‘I-CUE’). We aim to provide a supportive environment for our people, clients and wider community and embrace diversity & inclusion, ensuring people are able to bring their full selves to work.
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 split across several of the firm’s offices and the Cardiff finance team deal with the provision of management information, all aspects of financial reporting, compliance with VAT/PAYE regulations, oversight of payroll and all aspects of Partner related transactions.
The finance department also supports on a number of key strategic projects across the firm such as bringing new products and services to market, property related projects, mergers, dealing with lateral hire partners, and implementing new software packages where there is a financial impact.
Responsibilities
Reporting to the Head of Cardiff Finance the Project Accountant role is based in our Cardiff office. The Cardiff finance team consists of ten team members who manage all aspects of accounting, internal and external financial reporting, and accounts payable.
The role is a 12-month fixed term contract (FTC) to provide support on several finance transformation projects and some backfill for elements of the management accounts, reporting, budgeting and reforecasting functions where existing team members are also supporting those projects. The Project Accountant will be involved in various long term financial reporting projects and will also have responsibility for the completion of recurring weekly / monthly tasks.

Working collaboratively with other team members in Cardiff, Manchester and London, responsibilities will include:

• Leading on a project to implement a new set of dashboards to support data provision to department heads, partners and fee earners.
• Leading on the migration to a new reporting platform, including report review and development where required, ensuring the reports are built as defined and are bringing through the correct data.
• Supporting on the implementation of new budgeting, reforecasting and cash flow management software.
• Production and review of monthly management accounts reports.
• Involvement in managing the firm’s budgeting and reforecast processes.
• Leading on the firm’s annual review of charge out rates.
• Involvement in profitability reporting.
• Various aspects of statutory reporting including production of the financial statements.
• Involvement in audit planning, fieldwork requirements and sign off of financial statements.
• Assisting on aspects of partnership tax.
• Dealing with ad-hoc internal financial reporting queries as and when they arise.
• Approving banking transactions as and when required.
• Providing cover for team members during holiday or other absences.
• The Project Accountant will also be involved in other ad-hoc projects as and when they arise.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS REQUIRED

The Project Accountant will be a professional, self-motivated and positive individual who is able to demonstrate:

• An ability to actively engage in the business, through strong verbal communication skills and a pro-active approach to identifying and putting in place process improvements to ensure the needs of the partnership are met.
• Excellent organisational skills with a proven track record in forward planning and managing their own time to ensure deadlines for a wide variety of activities are met in a timely and effective manner.
• Track record of achievement and development in similar role; a good understanding of practice management / accounting systems, MS Excel and ideally database query and interrogation techniques.
• Excellent attention to detail, a focus on accuracy and a track record of delivering high quality outputs, balanced with pragmatic approach to meeting deadlines; and an enthusiastic and flexible approach with a ‘can do’ attitude.

• Leading on a project to implement a new set of dashboards to support data provision to department heads, partners and fee earners.
• Leading on the migration to a new reporting platform, including report review and development where required, ensuring the reports are built as defined and are bringing through the correct data.
• Supporting on the implementation of new budgeting, reforecasting and cash flow management software.
• Production and review of monthly management accounts reports.
• Involvement in managing the firm’s budgeting and reforecast processes.
• Leading on the firm’s annual review of charge out rates.
• Involvement in profitability reporting.
• Various aspects of statutory reporting including production of the financial statements.
• Involvement in audit planning, fieldwork requirements and sign off of financial statements.
• Assisting on aspects of partnership tax.
• Dealing with ad-hoc internal financial reporting queries as and when they arise.
• Approving banking transactions as and when required.
• Providing cover for team members during holiday or other absences.
• The Project Accountant will also be involved in other ad-hoc projects as and when they arise