Job title: Bookkeeping Manager
Location: 118 Sydenham Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5JX
Salary: Starting from £35,000 per year
Hours: Full time, 38 hours per week
Contract: Permanent, subject to a 3-month probationary period
Reports to: Directors
About us
Major's Accounts & Co Ltd is an established, ACCA-registered accountancy practice based in Sydenham, South East London. We are a digital-first firm, we run on cloud accounting and automation, and we help our clients move away from paper and spreadsheets onto systems that give them real-time numbers.
We look after a varied and interesting client base, with particular strength in construction and CIS contractors, property development and SPVs, and high-end restaurants and hospitality. It is hands-on, commercial work, no two clients look the same.
We are a QuickBooks Platinum ProAdvisor firm, a Parliamentary Review Best Practice Representative and Accounting Excellence Awards winner. Our team is 20 strong and growing.
The opportunity
We are looking for someone to run our bookkeeping and VAT department, to own the function end to end, take responsibility for the quality of what leaves it, and build it into something that runs properly rather than reactively.
You will plan and allocate the department's workload, review the VAT returns before they are filed, set the standards and procedures the team works to, and develop the bookkeepers who report to you. You will still be technically hands-on as this is a working management role, not a purely supervisory one.
Alongside that, you will prepare the monthly and quarterly management accounts for our clients and present the numbers in a way a business owner can act on. This is the part of the role our clients value most: contractors who need to know whether a contract is making money, developers tracking spend against appraisal, and restaurants watching gross margin and wage percentage week by week. If you enjoy the point where bookkeeping stops being record-keeping and starts being information, this role is built around it.
It will suit someone who is already doing a good part of this informally and wants the title and authority to go with it, or an experienced senior bookkeeper ready to step up into their first departmental role.
What you will be doing
Running the department
- Owning the bookkeeping and VAT function: workflow, deadlines, capacity and quality
- Planning and allocating work across the team, and keeping a live view of where every client stands
- Managing the VAT filing calendar so no deadline is missed, and holding the team to internal deadlines that sit comfortably ahead of HMRC's
- Setting and documenting the department's standard procedures; how a job is picked up, worked, reviewed, queried and closed
- Reporting to the directors on department performance, capacity, recoverability and problem clients
- Escalating issues early, whether that is a client who will not produce records or a job that is running well over budget
Management accounts
- Preparing monthly and quarterly management accounts for clients across the firm's sectors
- Journals, accruals, prepayments, depreciation, WIP and provisions to get to a management figure you can stand behind
- Profit and loss, balance sheet, cashflow and KPI reporting, with comparison against budget, forecast and prior period
- Variance analysis and written commentary; explaining not just what the numbers are, but why they moved and what the client should do about it
- Sector-specific reporting: contract profitability, retentions and CIS for construction; spend against appraisal and drawdown for property development SPVs; gross margin, wage percentage and site-by-site performance for restaurants
- Presenting the management accounts to clients and directors, and answering the questions that come back
- Building repeatable reporting packs and templates so the process gets faster and more consistent each cycle
- Working with the directors to turn management information into practical advice for clients
Reviewing and technical oversight
- Reviewing all VAT returns before submission; standard, flat rate, cash accounting, partial exemption and the domestic reverse charge for construction
- Reviewing bookkeeping files and trial balances before they pass to the accounts and tax teams
- Being the firm's go-to for VAT and bookkeeping technical queries, and knowing when to take a point to the directors
- Keeping the team current on Making Tax Digital and other changes, and making sure the procedures reflect them.
Leading the team
- Supervising, coaching and developing the bookkeepers in the department
- Giving clear, constructive review feedback and following up so the same points do not recur
- Running one-to-ones, input into appraisals, and helping identify training needs
- Involvement in recruiting and inducting new bookkeepers as the department grows
Systems and improvement
- Owning the department's software: rollout, licences, training and getting the most out of what we use
- Onboarding new clients onto cloud software and overseeing migrations from manual or legacy systems
- Identifying where automation can remove manual work, and implementing it
Client contact
- Acting as the senior point of contact for bookkeeping and VAT matters
- Explaining VAT positions and technical points to clients in jargon-free language.
- Handling records chasing and difficult conversations when they need to be escalated
What we are looking for
Essential
- Substantial bookkeeping and VAT experience gained in an accountancy practice, taking clients through to trial balance
- Demonstrable experience preparing management accounts
- Proven experience of reviewing other people's work, particularly VAT returns, and giving feedback that sticks
- Strong, current VAT knowledge, including MTD filing
- Experience of CIS and of construction or property clients
- Comfortable with payroll journals and their reconciliation
- Experience of managing workflow and deadlines across a number of clients and people at once
- Software-agnostic, happy to work across several cloud packages and to pick up new ones quickly. Our stack includes QuickBooks Online, Xero, Dext, AutoEntry, Briefcase and Hammock, alongside other specialist tools.
- ICB/AAT/ACCA/ACA/CIMA qualified or qualified by experience,
- Organised and calm under deadline pressure, with the confidence to hold people to standards
- Clear communicator, with clients, with your team and with the directors
Desirable
- Previous experience running or deputising for a bookkeeping or VAT department
- Budgeting, forecasting and cashflow modelling experience
- Exposure to property development, SPVs or hospitality businesses
- Experience of cash-intensive businesses and the record-keeping challenges that come with them
- Experience writing or improving procedures, checklists and workflow systems
- An interest in process improvement and automation, we love working with people who spot a better way of working
What we offer
- Starting salary from £35,000, with increases based on performance
- Real ownership of a department, with the autonomy to shape how it runs
- Direct access to the directors and a genuine say in how the firm develops
- 20 days holiday plus public holidays
- Workplace pension
- An early Friday finish every week; we close at 3.00pm
- Support with continuing professional development and training on the software we use
- A friendly, close-knit office team in Sydenham, two minutes from Sydenham station
Pay: From £36,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Work Location: In person
