Project Accountant

Atkins is one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies with a revenue of approx £1.4bn. It employs approximately 17,000 employees globally, of which circa 10,000 are UK based. At any one time, the Group is delivering several thousand projects out of its UK offices, ranging in size from small scale, short-term pieces of work to highly complex projects delivered over several years.

The key purpose of the role is to support Project Managers to manage the financial aspects of their projects, and to enable timely collection of cash from clients through prompt issuing of accurate invoices.
The role is part of the Project Accounting Team based in our Epsom, Worcester and Bangalore offices. This team provides project accounting and invoicing services to the Atkins Group UK based businesses. The role is based in Epsom Gateway Office.

The role will be part of a co-located Project Accounting Team, which covers our Infrastructure division, members of the team work closely together, reporting to a Team Leader. The role involves working closely with a number of Project Managers and embedded Finance staff; who are located at different UK offices and client sites..

Responsibilities

supporting effective management of Client invoicing, including:

• Liaising with Project Managers to ensure that all invoicing is completed in a timely basis.
• Preparing sales invoices, applications for payment and credit notes and any necessary supporting documentation.
• Preparing and distributing information regarding unbilled balances.
• Obtaining approval for sales invoices and credit notes.
• Posting invoices and credit notes onto the finance system.
• Working closely with Project Managers, and the Cash Collections Team to ensure timely resolution of any billing queries, and collection of cash.

Supporting Project Managers to understand the financial performance of their projects:

• Supporting the correct set-up of new projects in the finance system.
• Supporting correct allocation of costs to projects, eg by coding invoices, setting up access for staff to be able them to book their time to a project, and correcting coding or time booking errors.
• Preparing and distributing job-related information and reports, e.g. time and expense reports.
• Supporting the controlled closure of completed jobs in the finance system.

Supporting the implementation of new processes and procedures:

• Support the Team Leaders and Head of Project Accounting with design and implementation of process improvements.

Essential Requirements

• Experience of working in a busy finance function, preferably working as part of a team involved with preparing client invoices.
• Good analytical, numerical and technical skills, together with Intermediate Excel skills (including sorting and filtering data, pivot tables and lookups).
• Experience of using accounting systems to extract financial information for review and collation.
• Good attention to detail.
• The ability to work collaboratively, building strong relationships with colleagues in their own and other teams and with business and project managers to ensure joined-up delivery .
• Ability to explain financial issues to non-finance staff in a clear and concise manner.
• Capability to manage a diverse range of activities with short, medium and long term deadlines, prioritising workload to meet deadlines.
• A desire to own tasks and the resilience to work through issues to conclusion, maintaining energy and motivation .
• Good written and verbal communication skills .
• An enquiring mind and a confident, proactive approach.
It is desirable for candidates for this role to have:
• Studied for a relevant degree or currently studying for an accounting qualification.
• Knowledge of VAT
• Knowledge of JD Edwards accounting software.