Finance Manager

The business

We’re an AI-native, human-led business built to help clients reimagine, reinvent, and lead their markets into the AI era. We bring the imagination, intellect and market insight, execution smarts, and adaptive approach to collaboration required to help leaders deliver real change.

We work with clients in four closely interdependent markets: central Government, including departments, agencies, and strategic, commercial suppliers; health and care, including national bodies, trusts, place-based partners, and commercial and digital suppliers; education, including national bodies, awarding organisations, and front-line institutions; and, the FTSE - principally leveraging our expertise in AI and associated capability building.

Through A WORKS we collaborate with thought leaders, innovators, and AI-specialist developers to build products and solutions which tackle the biggest problems we see in the markets we support – setting aside the consulting commercial model to work in whatever ways best solve the problem.

For example, through Project Shybird, we recently launched a suite of tools which innovate the education value chain to bring deeply researched, high-quality qualifications and learning programmes to market at pace; create and support deeply personalised learning experiences; and close the loop with deep insight.

We are a business powered by the passion, grit, insight, intellect, and execution-smarts of our people: a tightly knit team of market experts, willing to challenge market convention, and our colleagues, in pursuit of the transformational change we believe is possible through the dawn of the AI era.

The role

We're looking for a qualified, talented, and ambitious finance manager to take personal ownership of finance processes, reporting, and provide colleagues with sound financial advice and challenge.

The successful candidate will likely be relatively recently, fully, qualified - and making their first or second move having started their career in a finance practice or function. You'll be ready to confidently, competently, take personal ownership of financial management and control.

Under that banner the role spans the full range of financial management and reporting including

Board reporting - preparing robust, accurate, concise, and insightful finance reports for our senior management team and board each month.

Engagement management - working with colleagues to ensure that client projects are robustly managed and compliant from a finance perspective.

Supporting bid preparation - working with consulting colleagues to model the cost of new client proposals, using standard, agreed, pricing templates and tools.

Financial records management - maintaining up to date, accurate, reconciled, transparent, finance records in Xero including journals, accruals, and other agreed adjustments.

Working capital and billing - securing and managing purchase orders, managing debtors to ensure that our payment terms are met and managed.

Payments and banking - running weekly supplier and other payment runs consistent with client and supplier payment terms, and our finance regs.

Cash flow reporting - maintaining up to date, accurate, rolling cash flow forecasts (the production of which is automated using an app called Fathom).

Payroll and VAT - preparing accurate, up to date, payroll reports for our outsourced partner and scrutinising drafts before payment; reviewing VAT returns for accuracy before submission.

Stats - working with our external accountant to prepare and submit statutory accounts and other Companies House / HMRC returns on an ad hoc basis.

Person specification

Qualified accountant with at least a year of post-qualification experience.

High levels of ambition, energy and resilience, consistent with the firm’s plans for growth.

Strong communication and presentation skills, internally and externally, at all organisational levels.

Enjoyment working in an entrepreneurial, commercial, high-performance environment.

High levels of precision and presentational pride across all your work.

Working location

At least three days per week in the firm’s Farringdon office.

Package

• Basic salary of £45-55k depending on expertise.
• Up to 20% bonus based on firm and individual performance.
• 27 days’ annual leave (excl. bank holidays), rising to 30 based on performance.
• Private medical and dental insurance.
• 4% pension contributions.