My role
As a Management Accountant, my role highly deadline driven, and planning is crucial. I support the managers and wider executive team by correctly capturing the status of each project I’m overseeing. My role is to flag up any overspends and underspends in the project across each month. Supporting the teams in ensuring that our finances align with the funding requirements is an essential aspect of my role. Many of our projects are linked to funding KPIs. This involves frequent meetings with managers to ensure we are on track with our KPIs. I also manage any queries related to the finance system to support all the wider teams that work with it to approve invoices.
A typical quarter
The role is cyclical and varies depending on the time of the month and year. During this quarter (Q4), along with the month-end duties (checking each project spend, ensuring the spend is correctly allocated and accounting for any expenses incurred but not received). I’ll prepare monthly management accounts report for the Interim Financial Controller with my comments, and she’ll compile the rest of the team’s reports before presenting this to the Finance Director and later on to the Senior Management Team. Along with this, we must submit funders’ reports within the first two weeks of each quarter, this is a requirement from the funder and is key in ensuring that the funders know the current situation of the project. Once submitted, the funder will release the funding for the quarter. As we are completing the last of the submission of the funder’s reports, I will start preparing the budget for the next financial year along with other members of the team. At this point, we will confirm whether funding has been confirmed, cross-checking all contracts to ensure that we budget for the appropriate staffing and other related project costs. Once this is done, we submit this to the Finance Director for review and any adjustments done before the budget packs are submitted to the finance committee who will return with comments and once approved, presented to the Board by mid-March for their approval.
What I love about what I do
I’ve found fulfilment in contributing to the impactful work of the Solace team on the front lines. I love the diversity in experience as no project is the same, each project presents its own unique complexities. This can be challenging but even more rewarding when we deliver effectively to our service users.
One thing I wish I’d known when I started out
Agility is necessary to tackle the complexities of everyday unforeseen circumstances efficiently. My experience here has reinforced my belief that every individual contributes uniquely, like gears in a machine, to propel the organisation forward.