Finance Assistant

12126BR

School of Medicine

Administrative Support

Advert

Finance Assistant
Operations Finance Office
Cardiff School of Medicine

You will be required to assist in the smooth running of the School Finance Department and to work as part of a team to ensure an efficient, effective and quality driven service. Previous experience of working in a Finance Office, to include raising orders & processing invoices on a computerised finance system is essential.

This position is full time (35 hours per week), available immediately and is fixed term until 17th December 2021 to provide secondment cover.

Salary:  £19,612 - £21,814 per annum (Grade 3).

Date advert posted: Tuesday, 10 August 2021

Closing Date: Tuesday, 24 August 2021

This post has previously been advertised to employees of Cardiff University only.  We now invite external applications.

Please be aware that Cardiff University reserves the right to close this vacancy early should sufficient applications be received.

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds.  We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Job Description

Job Purpose

Provide an administrative service to the School, engaging and completing a range of routine tasks to meet operational and customer service requirements. Providing an efficient and effective customer focused finance service with in the school, ensuring that the school finances are completed in accordance with University’s financial regulations.

Key Duties

• Deal with a range of enquires from internal and external customers in a professional manner, establishing their requirements and adapting the standard responses accordingly.
• Collaborate with others in order to make recommendations for developments of established processes and procedures.

• To act as a point of contact for financial enquiries with in the School Finance office and provide a customer focussed service taking account of the needs of the different customers.
• To initiate, receive, check and/or process all orders (ensuring the correct VAT treatments are applied), process invoices and transfer charges relating to School finance.
• To receive and process overseas travel requests, advances and claims, checking their compliance and cost effectiveness, and make all the necessary travel arrangements, if required.
• To raise sales invoices to external stakeholders and liaise with the Finance Division.
• To carry out a range of reconciliations, such as supplier statements, purchase cards and open orders.
• To be responsible for producing accurate financial reports and input and retrieve ORACLE to budget holders as required.
• Work closely with the Finance team by providing cover for other colleagues, contribute to team meetings, identify new ways of working that improve the service, and then look to share best practice across the School.
• To initiate and maintain contact with relevant suppliers and liaise with the Finance Division as required, specifically resolving discrepancies or problems with orders and invoices.
• To be responsible for cheque and cash banking, process cash receipts and initiate cheque payments including administration of petty cash, ensuring compliance with cash handling procedures.
• To develop, evaluate, maintain and supervise all electronic and other data and filing systems.
• To ensure analysis codes and account codes are used is a consistent way.
• Ensure all practices within the School are fully compliant with the University’s financial regulations and procedures.
• Establish working relationships with key contacts to help improve service levels.
• Undertake a variety of  administrative duties to support the team and department.
• Gather and analyse data to update administrative systems with accurate information, establishing basic trends and patterns in any data submitted.
• Contribute to the success of the team, leading others through example, and supporting the supervision and management of the team.

General Duties

• Ensure that an understanding of the importance of confidentiality is applied when undertaking all duties.
• Abide by University policies on Health and Safety and Equality and Diversity
• Perform other duties occasionally which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

Qualifications and Education

1. NVQ 2/GCSE level A-C or equivalent

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

1. Significant experience of working in an administrative or office environment and the ability to set up standard administrative systems and procedures

2. Proficient in using common office IT packages (e.g. MS Office), especially Excel spreadsheets to a high standard

Customer Service, Communication and Team Working

3. Ability to communicate effectively and professionally with a wide range of people, both in writing and verbally

4. Demonstrate a high level of accuracy and attention to detail together with the ability to work as an effective team member or using your own initiative when providing advice and guidance to other team members where necessary

5. Proven ability to deal with escalated requests for information or service, resolving customer issues where appropriate

6. Demonstrate a high level of accuracy and attention to detail

Planning, Analysis and Problem Solving

7. Ability to plan, prioritise and organise own workload within established time scales with a minimum level of supervision

8. Ability to use initiative in solving problems and responding to queries ensuring compliance with standard procedures and practices

Other

9. A willingness to undertake further training and development

Desirable Criteria

1. Significant experience of working with in Finance environment and using financial systems

2. Experience of working in a Higher Education environment

3. Fluency in Welsh, written and oral

Additional Information

IMPORTANT: Evidencing Criteria

It is the School of Medicine’s policy to use the person specification as a key tool for short-listing. Candidates should evidence that they meet ALL of the essential criteria as well as, where relevant, the desirable. As part of the application process you will be asked to provide this evidence via a supporting statement.

Please ensure when submitting this document / attaching it to your application profile you name it with the vacancy reference number, in this instance for this post, 12126BR.

If candidates do not provide written evidence of meeting all of the essential criteria then their application will not be progressed. The School of Medicine welcome the submission of CVs to accompany evidence of the job-based criteria.

Job Category

Admin / Clerical