Financial Accountant

Financial Accountant - 12 month Maternity Cover FTC

The Firm: 500 lawyers, offices in London and the US covering cooperate, private client, real estate and dispute resolution.

The Role: This is a maternity cover Financial Accountant position, and the firm are looking to do a two-month handover with the current incumbent. They are looking for someone fully qualified working alongside another fully qualified accountant, and assistant accountant and the accounts payable team.

Responsibilities:
* Full responsibility for the accounting of Private entities, including reconciliations, monthly management accounts, weekly reports, quarterly VAT returns, reconciliation of intercompany balances, and annual accounts preparation;
* Preparation and review of monthly P&L's - Departmental Contribution Statements / Overhead Statements / Firm Profit & Loss statements;
* Critical variance analysis of performance against budget and prior year of firms costs;
* Liaising with Business Operations managers to improve their understanding of financial performance along with preparation of monthly departmental reports;
* Responsible for Business Development cost allocation model, ensuring accurate reporting of Business Development costs and identifying variances to budget;
* Review of monthly balance sheet and reconciliations and responsibility for managing asset leasing schedule;
* Preparation of cost and overhead budgets;
* Review of weekly supplier/employee expenses payment runs ensuring appropriate authorisation and coding of invoices and expense claims;
* Preparation and submission of quarterly VAT returns for LLP;
* Assistance in the preparation of Annual LLP Accounts for audit review, liaising with auditors to provide additional analysis as required;
* Assisting with the month end closing process;

Requirements for the role:
* Qualified accountant with strong financial and management accounting background
* Legal experience preferred but not essential
* Significant experience of using Aderant, or other similar practice management system
* Excel/spreadsheet working to highest levels
* Ability to write and run SQL queries preferred but not essential
* Excellent interpersonal skills