Finance Officer

At Soha, we are passionate about living our values, we put people at the heart of decisions, which are made with humanity. We are constantly learning and restless about excellence and we incentivise curiosity, initiative and acting to make things better, as we learn from every experience. We are one team and trust each other to do the right thing, taking responsibility and making decisions as locally as possible. We strive for honesty, clarity, and kindness in all our relationships and we treat feedback as a gift, wanting to see staff, residents and communities fulfil their potential. We operate with fewer, better rules as we value simplicity, expecting everyone to solve problems, exercise good judgement and take responsibility.

We offer fully agile working which means you can choose to work wherever is best suited to the task, that could mean working at home, in our newly refurbished offices in Didcot or out on site and we will ensure that you are fully equipped to enable real flexibility.

Our employee benefits are enhanced including family leave such as maternity, paternity and paid carers leave. We also offer an excellent flexible benefits scheme which gives you the choice to tailor your benefits to suit, with options including private healthcare, regular health checks, additional leave, a personal allowance and generous employer pension contributions to name a few.

**JOB ROLE**

You will be reporting to the Service Charge Team Leader and will be responsible for ensuring that all service chargeable costs are accurately recorded in the service charge system.

**KEY RESPONSIBILITIES**
- To collect supplier cost data and collate into service charge spreadsheets, sense checking for reasonableness and querying any anomalies as they arise,
- Ensure that grounds maintenance is allocated to properties on an agreed basis and recorded accurately,
- To liaise with third party management companies and build good working relationships.

**KEY DUTIES**
- Sense check the monthly mass electricity billing invoice to ensure reasonableness,
- Query and rectify any anomalies with suppliers,
- On an annual basis enter electricity usage into the service charge system to ensure that the cost is accurately recharged,
- On a monthly basis enter ground maintenance, communal cleaning, window cleaning and fire protection invoices into the service charge system,
- Review and sense check costs entered and query any anomalies as they arise with the relevant supplier,
- To check service charges being charged to Soha by third parties are fair and appropriate, liaising with the respective management companies/ landlords, representing Soha’s interests,
- Liaise with the 3rd party provider to receive a breakdown of costs and enter into the service charge system,
- Liaise with 3rd party service providers for any queries from residents,
- To liaise with the Development Team to ensure service charges for new build properties and acquisitions are set-up correctly prior to allocation of new tenancies,
- To actively seek views of customers to ensure continuous improvement of the service, and to meet the changing needs of customers,
- To contribute to and play an active part in the overall work and development of the Finance department, including cover, when necessary, for the other sections of the Finance department,
- To provide information and assistance to both internal and external auditors,
- To undertake any other duties that may reasonably be required.

**What you will need**
- Financial knowledge and experience
- Excellent numeracy, financial and IT skills
- Excellent administrative, organisational, interpersonal and communication skills
- A positive and proactive approach to working with colleagues
- Ability to deal appropriately with confidential information and to use tact and diplomacy
- Ability to time manage workload and work to deadlines
- Ability to be flexible and to work alone or as part of a team whilst using own initiative

**It would also be nice to have**
- Experience within the social housing sector or a finance team
- Experience of using open accounts
- Experience of using a QL or a housing management system
- Experience of operating service charge systems for housing sector

**Job Types**: Full-time, Permanent

**Salary**: £30,000.00 per year

**Benefits**:

- Additional leave
- Bereavement leave
- Casual dress
- Company events
- Company pension
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee mentoring programme
- Enhanced maternity leave
- Enhanced paternity leave
- Free parking
- Health & wellbeing programme
- On-site parking
- Paid volunteer time
- Private medical insurance
- Sabbatical
- Sick pay
- Store discount
- Transport links
- Work from home

Schedule:

- Monday to Friday

Ability to commute/relocate:

- Didcot, OX11 7NN: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Licence/Certification:

- Driving Licence (preferred)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Didcot, OX11 7NN