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Senior Finance Administrator - Conferences and Events - 97691 - Band 500

Employer
University of Birmingham
Location
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Salary
£23,699.00 - £29,471.00
Closing date
Jul 7, 2021

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Description

Position Details

Conferences & Events - Campus Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £23,699 to £25,458, with potential progression once in post to £29,471

Band - 500

Full Time - Permanent

Closing date - 7th July 2021

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high-quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On-campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Job context

Campus Service is responsible for a very large range of services within the University including student accommodation, catering, Sport and Fitness, cleaning and waste management, conferences and events, delivering the University's post, day nurseries, security and emergency response, Winterbourne House & Garden.

The Senior Finance Administrator post sits within the Conferences & events (C&e) team that resides within Venues and Events, Campus Services and reports into the Finance and Office Support Manager. C&e sells and delivers a vast number of conferences and events to underpin academic work, support the student experience and drive additional income. As with any commercial revenue-generating department within a university, C&e seeks to strike a balance between enhancing the student and staff experience and ensuring a financial return to the University.

Job summary

The Senior Finance Administrator will provide support for a broad range of finance and administrative duties, some of which may be complex. This will include managing, processing, and troubleshooting various accounts and transactions.

The postholder will maintain administrative and financial information for specific areas of nominated budgets including initiating purchase orders, monitoring non-pay budgets, producing budget summaries, analysing and reconciling budgets.

The Senior Finance Administrator will support with the budgets for individual conferences and events, prepare and finalise invoices, and oversee all the financial aspects of the customer management system Kinetic such as identify, correct and report any anomalies, raise requisitions and identify and deal with outstanding purchase orders.

The Senior Finance Administrator will support the activities of the Finance and Office Support Manager, demonstrating a high level of Customer Service to both internal and external customers in all contexts including meeting with staff to advise on procedures and processes.

Main duties

Financial
  • You will be able to deal with complex systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries.
  • You will be expected to exercise your judgment on the answer to queries or on the direction of work within parameters set by your manager. On a day-to-day basis you will be expected to resolve more complex queries without necessarily referring to your manager.
  • You will carry out a full range of duties relating to financial management including:
  • prepare and monitor budgets, including for individual conferences and events;
  • prepare and finalise invoices, ensure standards on invoicing are adhered to and that invoices are followed up to ensure income is received;
  • review and analyse financial reports and ledgers; summarising information and identifying trends;
  • oversee the financial aspects of the customer management system Kinetic and for in-house core systems; for example, identify, correct and report any anomalies, or raise requisitions and identify and deal with outstanding purchase orders and requisitions;
  • monitor team budgets, dealing with any discrepancies;
  • assist the sales team with setting up new clients/customers on the financial system;
  • develop processes for the accurate recording of financial information in the department;
  • produce and distribute monthly sales reports, resolving any issues with data;
  • develop systems for reconciling all received income and transactions, balance figures monthly and investigate and resolve any discrepancies;
  • proactively check bookings for outstanding financial data, paperwork and providing updates on errors/issues found;
  • act as a key contact for the VAT and Finance Officer to ensure correct processes are followed at all times;
  • assist the Finance and Office Support Manager with processing gift/souvenirs orders for both internal and external customers.
  • Maintain high-profile working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
  • You will be expected to use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, analyse and interpret complex data, producing bespoke reports as required. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
  • Provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on area of activity.
  • Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

General
  • Proactively review operating practices such as financial and administrative procedures, suggesting improvements, briefing managers and implementing new systems.
  • Responsible for allocated elements of health and safety implementation and documentation, including devising and delivering a suitable and compliant process.
  • Provide support to managers in promoting sustainability across the University.
  • Provide general administrative support such as taking notes at meetings, setting up meetings, and general administrative support for events and other activities.
  • Monitor service standards and work with others to ensure these are adhered to.
  • Work on Campus Services wide initiatives and to represent the department where necessary.
  • You may be asked to act as a fire warden, for which training will be given.
  • Undertake any other duties commensurate with the grade of the post as directed by the line manager or the Director of Conferencing & Marketing.

Other duties
  • You will support with a range of duties relating to the systems we use to support our business, including:
  • Providing day to-day advice and support to all users throughout the business, managing all queries to resolution
  • Ensuring ongoing administration requirements are met and are kept up to date
  • Performing regular housekeeping to ensure the data is accurate, up to date and clean
  • Checking all bookings loaded for any anomalies and following up as appropriate
  • Proactively engaging with teams throughout the business to optimise data integrity by identifying poor quality data and introducing preventative measures
  • Creating and removing users and ensuring user list is up to date at all times
  • Updating prices, menus, meeting rooms and account codes
  • Update the system to support changes to processes
  • Investigating and analysing reported defects
  • Undertaking regular audits, cleansing data and ensuring system is working optimally
  • Ensuring enquires and quotes are responded to and updated within the agreed KPIs
  • Monitoring catering bookings and ensuring service providers are aware of new orders and updates to orders
  • Logging service desk tickets
  • Proactively liaise with IT Services regarding system updates etc. ensuring these are carried out with minimal disruption to users
  • Proactively suggest system or data management improvements
  • Identifying issues such as incorrect use of the system and escalating as appropriate

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
  • Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
  • Minimum of grade C in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent.
  • Professional experience in a similar role in a finance team, including of managing budgets.
  • Knowledge of Health and Safety legislation; a Health and Safety qualification such as IOSH would be an advantage.
  • An understanding of data privacy standards, freedom of information requests, and of Freedom of Speech requirements would be an advantage, but training will be given
  • Highly proficient IT skills. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required as a number of in-house systems are used
  • Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own workload
  • Excellent interpersonal skills and communication skills. The postholder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
  • A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
  • A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
  • Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
  • Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these.
  • Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
  • Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.


Informal enquires to Sarah Dugmore, email: S.L.Dugmore@bham.ac.uk

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.

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