Assistant Management Accountant

A full time, permanent role based in Cambridge, with occasional travel to other offices and hybrid working

The role

Reporting to the firm’s Assistant Financial Controller, this is a key role supporting the business in achieving the firm’s 2025 strategy to be a leader in client experience and drive profitable growth.  The key activities will include supporting management and statutory reporting, budgeting and forecasting, as well as ad hoc finance analysis.

This is a great opportunity to join a high performing finance team and further your career in an ambitious and growing top 50 national law firm.

The person

This is a busy and challenging role and to be successful, your background will:

• probably mean you are educated to degree level
• include experience in a similar role, but not necessarily within a law firm environment
• be as a minimum AAT qualified or equivalent

The role requires someone who:

• is enthusiastic, proactive and adaptable
• has an excellent attention to detail
• is logical and systematic in their approach
• is energetic and delivery focused, with resilience to deal with challenging situations and deadlines
• has a consultative and collaborative working style and is a great team player
• has a good knowledge of Excel

In addition, you will need to:

• be willing to travel to the firm’s other offices as required
• be flexible on when you take your annual leave depending on the demands at certain points in the monthly and annual reporting cycles
• be flexible and able to work longer hours as the role demands

Activities

Annual planning

Support the preparation of the firm's 3 year financial plan, including:

• Working with the Management Accounts team to assist Support Service Heads in the preparation of their annual budgets
• Managing data in the planning tool and preparing relevant reports, analysis and graphs

Monthly management accounting and reporting

• Prepare expenditure reports and analysis in preparation for meetings with Support Service Heads, where the Management Accounts team will take them through their month and year to date spend, support them in analysing the figures, monitoring spend and understanding variances
• Assist in the preparation of monthly re-forecasts using the planning and forecasting tool, working to tight deadlines
• Support the preparation of firm, branch, and business unit profit and loss accounts
• Assist in preparation of the firm’s balance sheet and cash flow statement monthly, as well as being able to review and provide explanation of variances on the trial balance
• Prepare the cost rates for input into our practice management system (PMS) promptly and accurately, ensuring that a sound understanding of the process is developed and a commercial approach is taken when reviewing the output

Support/be responsible for the completion of various monthly journals including

• Posting of accruals and prepayments
• Payroll journals
• Reconciliation of control accounts
• Fixed asset register maintenance and depreciation
• Bad debt provisioning
• Correcting journals in regards any miss-posting of invoices / expenses
• Be responsible for the maintenance of the claims provision, working with our compliance team to ensure that this is accurate
• Complete monthly and adhoc summary statistics, KPI reports, variance analyses and graphs, as agreed with the Assistant Financial Controller

Year end close and audit of financial statements

• Assist in preparing the year end trial balance and management accounts and liaising with external accountants during the annual audit, to include being responsible for monitoring and ensuring that audit requests have been actioned to timescale and issues are discussed as they arise
• Assist in the preparation of various analyses to support the year end process and reporting

VAT returns and related work

• Responsible for the completion of the LLP VAT returns and ensuring that all payments of VAT are made within set deadlines
• Responsible for the submission of the Mills & Reeve Services Limited VAT return
• Responsible for submission of other subsidiary company returns

Subsidiary companies

• Maintain accounting records for all the firm's subsidiary companies
• Producing regular intercompany reconciliations, with support of the Assistant Financial Controller

Other responsibilities

• Complete the majority of survey requests received by the finance team (for example CBI service sector survey, ONS fees survey and Deloitte’s quarterly legal sector survey) and support with the more complex annual surveys, for example the PwC annual survey, ensuring that they are complete and accurate
• Preparation of quarterly invoices for rent and service charges due from the firm's various subtenants
• Provision of financial data for the purposes of recruitment requests
• Develop an understanding of our partner accounting and reporting to support the team as required
• Ensure you develop a sound knowledge of key finance systems and metrics to support your role
• Maintain the Management Accounting reporting tool, developing a sound understanding of how it works, how to update it and to run key reports from it
• Perform other work as necessary to assist in meeting firm objectives as delegated by the Financial Controller and Assistant Financial Controller

Pre-employment screening

Please note that, in the event that we make an offer of employment, we will conduct pre-employment screening that includes checks relating to your professional and academic qualifications, references from previous employers, your eligibility to work in the UK and any disciplinary history recorded with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). You will also be required to complete a self-declaration to access your character and suitability.

Disclosure and barring service check

This post is also subject to a satisfactory response from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

The Mills & Reeve Business services career structure

We have a firm wide Business Services career structure and a published career progression framework.  Within the firm wide career structure there are five career levels.  For the purposes of the framework, this role is at Advisor level and the role profile that details the outcomes and activities expected of across the firm is included with this job description.  Further information on the firm’s Business Services career structure is available from the HR team.

The package

As you would expect, the firm offers a generous salary and benefits.  The firm’s standard benefits are detailed in the following link:

http://www.mills-reeve.com/benefits/

The firm

What really sets Mills & Reeve apart from other law firms is the way we work with our clients. We understand that clients, in the 21st century, no longer want a traditional law firm – they want one that embraces forward thinking approaches to service, billing, commercial know-how, innovation, people management and community engagement.

Why not find out more about what it’s like to work at Mills & Reeve by taking two minutes to watch our video?

https://player.vimeo.com/video/157575542

And finally..

Mills & Reeve is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive working environment. We are happy to consider flexible working arrangements and endeavour to achieve the right balance for both our people and the business. This attitude to flexible working ensures we continue to provide outstanding service to our clients, whilst allowing our people to develop their careers in the knowledge that personal priorities will remain just that.

Mills & Reeve is committed to promoting equality, diversity and to providing an inclusive and supportive environment. Please click here to find further information regarding our diversity policy.

If you would like any more information about Mills & Reeve, you can visit our website by clicking on the following link:

http://www.mills-reeve.com/