Senior Digital Bookkeeper

An experienced bookkeeper is sought who will be in charge of all aspects of the accounts for a friendly holiday park business near Southport (Willowbank Holiday Park).

It is a part-time role estimated to be 40 hours per month (an average of 10 hours per week).

The role is ideal for someone who lives close enough to Southport to occasionally visit the team but most of the work can be done remotely.

We have a set of month-end, quarter-end and year-end processes. These processes are documented and constantly improving. You will be in charge of performing all these tasks to a very high standard. It is important that you have a good understanding of accounting.

You will have a good attention to detail: an essential quality of a good bookkeeper.

You will be working directly with the Managing Director of the business. He is a trained Management Accountant whose goal is to have Willowbank Holiday Park have management accounts and financial accounts that are always ready quickly, efficiently, accurately and, most importantly, give good insights on the business performance and areas of improvement.

You will also be working with individual team members at Willowbank who are involved in invoicing, sales and bills. We are a small, friendly team.

It is also essential that you are experienced at exporting and importing data from different systems (e.g. bank statements, Stripe, GoCardless, invoices) into and out of Xero.

As a holiday park, we use an excellent park management system called CampManager. You do not need to have prior experience of using it but be keen to understand how we use it to record all payments and track customer payments and learn how to use it.

We use ChatGPT to prepare some of the invoice data prior to import into Xero.

You need to be someone who enjoys working with digital systems and looking to improve things via clever automations and APIs where possible.

We use Google Workspace (i.e. Gmail, Google Sheets) as well as Microsoft Excel.

For at least the first three months and possibly longer, the bill payments side of things, the VAT return and payroll is handled by a very good, long standing bookkeeper for the business who works part-time. As you settle into your role, this work may transition across to you (but it won't add additional hours because you will have become proficient at the other tasks by then).

**The business bookkeeping context**

We handle more than 1500 customers per year booking for caravan and motorhome sales and each get invoiced and need their payments reconciling.

We also have 200 holiday home owners with invoices covering their initial purchase of the van and then payments for gas bottles, caravan washes and seasonal pitch fees. The handling of VAT is complicated because some elements are VATable at 0%, 5% and 20%.

Whilst much of the activity goes smoothly, there are inevitably customer over payments and under payments that need to be clarified and rectified in the accounts.

We have numerous suppliers: some long standing and some new.

**Month-end**

**1. Import all the bank transactions into Xero**
We have a live data feed from NatWest from the main bank account and from Stripe for card payments. Manual data imports are done from GoCardless and NatWest Clearspend (for staff card payments).

**2. Import all invoices from CampManager**
Numerous issues arise each month related toinvoices or customer payments. It is your job to resolve these with the other members of the Willowbank team.

**3. Reconcile sales invoices**

**4. Reconcile purchase invoices (i.e. Bills).**

The purchase invoice side of things is currently overseen by a long-standing bookkeeper. You will be helping ensure the managing director's purchase invoices are all properly in the system and to resolve any questions related to team member payments that this bookkeeper has.

**5. Produce monthly management accounts report**
Make a handful of journal adjustments.
Use Xero to produce a report that shows key variances.

**Quarter end**
Each quarter, produce a quarterly report.
Assist with the VAT return

**Year end**
Close the books at year end. Make appropriate journal adjustments.
Produce year end performance reports using Xero.

**Requirements**:

- Proven experience as a bookkeeper or in a similar role within an accounting environment.
- Strong knowledge of accounting principles and practices.
- Proficiency in accounting software Xero is essential
- Excellent attention to detail and organisational skills.
- Ability to work independently and manage multiple tasks effectively.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret financial data accurately.
- A relevant qualification in finance or accounting is preferred but not mandatory.

The first round interview will be via Zoom.

There will be a 3 month probationary period.

For the right person, this is a great role with plenty of responsibility, joining a team you will enjoy working with.

**Job Type**: Part-time

Pay: £15.00 per hour