Finance Assistant

The post-holder, as a member of a Divisional Financial Management Team, will be responsible for assisting in the process, which allows the Trust’s Management to manage the financial affairs of the Trust, by:
Assisting the Finance Directorate in the provision of accurate, timely and meaningful financial information and advice to a range of individuals from director level down within the Trust and other NHS and non-NHS organisations.

Assisting the Finance Directorate to assess investment opportunities by providing accurate costing data.

To assist the Trust’s Management manage the financial affairs of the Trust by assisting the Finance Directorate in the provision of accurate, timely and meaningful financial information and advice to a range of individuals from director level down within the Trust and other NHS and non-NHS organisations.

Come and join a Trust rated Outstanding by the CQC. South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust have been rated as outstanding following our latest inspection by the CQC and we are recruiting new staff to come and help us improve even further.

We provide services across Warwickshire and beyond ranging from Hospitals in Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa and Shipston-on Stour to Community Services across the county. We are a progressive, expanding organisation with great ambition around improving quality, integrating pathways and delivering high levels of productivity.

Our values can be summed up in one sentence. We are ‘Trusted to provide safe, effective and compassionate care’. Throughout the recruitment process you will be asked to think about how you demonstrate these values and how they impact on your work. It doesn’t matter what role you do, whether it is patient facing or not, we are all working in the same way with our values at the core.

Understand and comply with the Trust’s policies, Standing Financial Instructions and Standing Orders.

Understand the Trust-wide financial and operational issues; contribute to the achievement of the Trust’s financial objectives.

Working within the Finance Team and with ward and departmental managers, assist in improving the quality of the financial service to wards and departments within and outside the Trust.

Write and maintain written procedures for tasks within the department.

Determine priorities in workload in order to maximise personal productivity and efficiency; treat all data in an appropriate manner (e.g. preparation, storage, retrieval, dissemination).

On an annual basis and at other times during the year assist in the preparation of ward and department budgets; make a note ensure all cost pressures are noted; cost improvements are recorded; check all budgets for reasonableness and amend as appropriate.

Ensure ward and department managers understand their budgets and the impact of cost pressures and cost improvements so that they are aware of any major changes therein; obtain management sign off on all budgets in line with set timetables.

Log all budget changes and ensure that each is supported by evidence of their validity (e.g. senior manager sign off, skill mix requests, etc); ensure all movements in and out of Trust reserves are authorised by the Associate Director of Finance; store all documents in an appropriate manner and respond to management and audit queries as they arise.

Process budget and actual transactions accurately in line with departmental timescales at month, quarter and year end; escalate to more Senior Management, if any transaction is out of the norm; raise recurrent and ad-hoc invoice requests and, where recurrent, work with the Income & Contracts team to put appropriate Service Level Agreements in place.

Carry out regular reconciliations of appropriate accrued and prepaid expenditure and accrued and deferred income to ensure reports reflect the most up to date situation.

Assist in the maintenance of the schedule of delegated authority and the financial report distribution list.

Prepare, in line within the departmental timetable, draft ward and departmental financial reports and review the anomalies and variances with a view to ensuring the final reports are accurate; where there are anomalies and/or major variances, identify causes (e.g. activity/price changes) and prepare reports to show managers what has happened.

Meet with ward and department managers, on a regular basis, to discuss areas of concern in the financial reports (eg unexpected trends, significant variances); respond in reasonable timescales to any request from managers for further analysis of costs and income.

To work independently, raising any matters of concern with the Deputy Manager or Senior Manager (Financial Management) as appropriate.

Carry out other recurrent and ad-hoc exercises relating to financial information and advice to all levels of management within the Trust (e.g. General Managers, Associate Directors of Operations, Executive Management and Board members) ensuring that eac