Accounts & Business Advisory Service Senior Manager

The Role

As an ABAS Senior Manager, you will oversee complex client accounts, providing strategic financial advice and ensuring compliance with standards. You will manage client relationships, mentor teams, and contribute to business development. Your role bridges leadership and operational delivery, driving quality and supporting practice growth.

Core Skills

Client Focus

• Demonstrates an understanding of client/customer needs not limited to service line
• Demonstrates exceptional client service (both internal and external) and understands its importance to Azets as well as clients
• Demonstrates the ability to look forward at industry and wider legislative (or otherwise) changes which may affect clients and proactively seeks to offer support where appropriate
• Is able to tailor services to match client requirements in regard to scope and deliverables, timing and cost of services provided
• Understands client core priorities and challenges and is able to advise on ways that their internal process and procedures could be reviewed to assist in their achievement
• Is able to confidently lead meetings with stakeholders
• Maintains a regular in-person dialogue with clients as a primary point of contact and uses this to improve client service and identify sales opportunities.

Technical Excellence

• Takes the lead in ensuring team members possess the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviours required to deliver accurate, high quality work for our clients through identification of and input into development opportunities / training
• Able to work collaboratively with other service lines on complex issues in order to reach a solution and takes the lead in communicating outcomes to clients
• Proactively communicates news of a technical or topical development within Azets in their areas of specialism
• Is aware of upcoming changes to applicable legislation / regulation affecting their service line and how this will affect Azets workflow, processes and the scope and approach to client service delivery.

Commitment

• Volunteers to lead or execute tasks that help achievement of departmental or office business plan and strategic objectives
• Builds morale in the wider team creating a working environment which fosters a positive approach and feeling of achievement and inclusion
• Proactively and professionally puts forward considered views to drive change and improve processes for the better.

Attention to Detail

• Responsible for quality and takes pride in it at both a team and personal level. Continuous focus on raising team standards to ensure output is of a high quality and well presented
• Gives meaningful and insightful feedback to all members of the team
• Acts quickly to resolve quality issues raised and seeks to analyse the cause of such issues to rectify.

Key accountabilities

Decision Making

• Ensures decisions and judgements are well informed by utilising all available data and information
• Shows understanding of the implications and consequences of decisions and judgements
• Can admit and own when they are wrong – responding to such situations in a positive and professional way
• Genuinely listens to others and is open to changing own mind
• Takes personal responsibility for following mandatory consulting processes in own service line and encourages compliance by others.

Efficiency

• Role models and motivates others to work efficiently and to embrace new technologies and ways of working to achieve this
• Encourages and empowers the ideas of team members on improving efficiency and champions these ideas as appropriate
• Identifies ways in which work delivery can be improved and puts ideas into practice, consulting with the wider team as appropriate.

Leading People

• Role models how to celebrate the success of our people
• Effectively communicates objectives and motivates and supports people through times of change
• Understands and demonstrates the importance of business needs and the needs of individuals – crucially being able to balance each
• Is able to deal with poor performance, identifying development needs and supporting individuals to work towards objectives including being responsible for more formal support and monitoring of personal performance plans
• Acts as a coach and mentor to more junior team members, supporting their management of their own team
• Is able to mediate internal conflicts where they may arise
• Demonstrates effective use of delegation and development of staff to achieve departmental strategic goals.

Leading Yourself

• Maintains passion and commitment to goals, in the face of obstacles and frustrations, seeking to understand the reason for these and ways to overcome them
• Deals with complex challenges and can move difficult and/ change management strategies forward
• Demonstrates an awareness of personal development objectives and actively takes steps to challenge themselves to achieve these, identifying where support is needed
• Identifies, welcomes and is receptive to contributions from all levels and is not closed to new learning opportunities
• Appreciates and demonstrates the value of delegation to accomplish goals. Is aware that they can't and shouldn't do it all.

Driving Business Growth

• Actively increases knowledge and awareness of business and competitive environment to seek out opportunities
• Has an established network of specific professional contacts relevant to their work through which business opportunities can arise
• Identifies opportunities to promote their specialist area to clients, prospects and external professional referrers with the aim of generating new referrals and work wins
• Is aware of team growth targets and understands their role in achieving these
• Demonstrates the ability to look forward at industry and wider legislative (or otherwise) changes which may affect clients and proactively seeks to offer support where appropriate.

Living Our Values

• New to Azets: Shows good understanding of our company values, and making good progress towards consistently demonstrating required behaviours
• Existing Colleague: Consistently 'lives our values' - demonstrates expected behaviours in line with our company values

Technical Skills

• Take a view on materiality and talk through unadjusted errors with clients; understand risks of not adjusting
• Able to identify missing, omitted or adequacy disclosure notes within accounts
• Is able to prepare completion accounts in line with SPA or similar
• Is able to review low and medium risk corporate tax returns and identify matters for technical escalation
• Understand the process for adding a client to our ASA for all relevant services
• Able to work with clients to identify strategic business goals and support AZETS can offer
• Awareness of AZETS partner app stack and know when it can be utilised by clients, confidently talking about technology
• Is able to advise on audit thresholds and consequences of exceeding the limits (inc. group structures)
• Able to advise pros/cons of VAT registration and scheme options at a high level with clients; seeks support of specialist VAT team where needed
• Demonstrates application of associated company rules and group loss relief for review under tax manual SOPs as applicable.

Qualifications
Holds an accountancy qualification or qualified by experience (e.g. ACA/ACCA/CA).

What is in it for you?

Our benefits include hybrid & flexible working, birthday leave, professional subscription and much more. You can find out more about how we reward our colleagues - Careers | Rewards And Benefits | Azets UK

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