Finance Officer

Purpose of the role:

At NEON, we know that you can t separate the external work of the organisation from the internal work. They are so interlinked and interdependent that they both have to be given priority and resources if we want to achieve high impact. We see them as inseparable.

So the purpose of this role is to support NEON achieving its mission by ensuring the smooth running of NEON s finance systems and processes. You ll do this by delivering on the main financial tasks day-to-day, and support with finance projects aimed at improving NEON s systems.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Doing all of our day-to-day fundraising administration to keep us well-organised and compliant. This includes:

   1. Recording and monitoring fundraising data using our Fundraising Tracking Database

   2. Keeping all of our grant agreements, contracts and other relevant documentation well-organised on GDrive and elsewhere

   3. Ensuring compliance with the financial requirements of the grant agreements, and updating and maintaining the grant payments schedule

   4. Raising invoices on Xero in line with funder agreements - noting instalment dates and receipts

2. Preparing payroll each month, ensuring everything happens on time and coordinating with our payroll agency. (This may only be a temporary responsibility)

3. Processing and reconciling payments. This includes:

   1. Reconciling bank receipts and chasing late payments

   2. Processing supplier invoices and payments

   3. Monitoring our team s Pleo card expenses and posting on Slack to our team for authorisation

   4. Managing the subscriptions on Pleo cards (this is likely a temporary responsibility until our People & Ops Manager returns from sabbatical leave)

4. Preparing some financial reports and accounts. This includes accounts to trial balance, and ad hoc reports from Xero when our team have finance queries or need support

5. Supporting with finance projects which make our finance systems work more efficiently, simply and sustainably e.g. helping to update our budget spreadsheets and approach to budgeting, or moving to a new bank

6. Supporting the Head of Finance with budgets, financial planning and reports and any other ad hoc finance tasks

7. Being part of Ops Hub shared work and cross-organisational work and team days

About you:

• You have experience dealing with people in different capacities, both internally and externally, on a day to day basis, and build strong working relationships

• You have solid finance experience and skill. For us that means:

  1. a minimum of three years work experience in a finance role, preferably within the charity/non profit sector. This means you have a good understanding of non-profit finance, including VAT and managing restricted and unrestricted funds

  2. a solid understanding of Accounts Payable (with BACs, invoicing, etc) and Receivable (invoicing and credit control) processes

  3. a Level 4 AAT, equivalent qualification or equivalent experience

  4. experience in control accounts reconciliation, and posting journals

• You know how to use accounting software and apps (e.g., Xero, Quickbooks, Sage) as well as Microsoft Excel or Google sheets

• You are proactive, well-organised and feel empowered to solve problems yourself when they come up (sometimes described as an ownership mindset ), as well as balancing this with asking for help when you need it

• Excellence is important to you and it shows in your work. Whatever you do, you do it to a high standard

• You have strong organisational and time-management skills that are required to manage multiple tasks and deadlines. And you are comfortable moving between different paces of work - slower, more methodical work and quicker turnaround work

• You are a great communicator and you know that good communication is really important to the type of work you do - you ll be happy to use our internal comms systems (Slack, Google Suite, Asana) to keep everyone in the loop on your work

• You re willing to continuously learn and grow - you have growing levels of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, including around your own power and identity and how that means you relate to others. As a result, you ll receive feedback from others well (and learn to give feedback well too)

• You are committed to NEON s purpose of building the strength of movements for social, economic and environmental justice, and to learning how to align your actions with the values of NEON: solidarity; generosity and respect and our commitment to anti-oppression