The role and person

• Permanent
• Full time, 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday

Accent Group are recruiting for a Service Charge Accountant to join a newly established service charge team within our existing and established Business Finance team.   This is an exciting opportunity to join Accent and this critical role.

You will work closely with the colleagues across the business and in particular the Customer Experience, Homeownership, Development and Growth teams, leading on all aspects of service charge finances.  This will include both variable and fixed service charges.

As a business partner you will provide advice and support on all aspects of service charges as well as actively be involved in specific complaints, and enquiries from customers both internal and external.  

We want our people and our customers to be proud of the homes and services we provide and you have a key part to play in this.

As a Service Charge Accountant, key elements of your role will include:

• Ensuring all service charge costs are accurately allocated to the correct scheme and account code in the accounting system.
• Forecasting all service costs in the monthly management accounts, building this up from scheme and account code.
• Report and understand the recoverability of costs on a scheme by scheme basis.
• Preparation of income and expenditure reports/documents for external accountants and non-audit scheme accounts in a timely manner.
• Lead on the audit / accountants certification for schemes including sign-off with the Service Charge and Home Ownership Manager.
• To ensure involvement in S20 consultation and the completion of S21 and S22 as required by the business and to represent service charge.
• Oversee and review sinking funds at budget setting and year end. Work with relevant officers in the Home Ownership team on annual contribution levels and expenditure.
• To work with other teams across the business including service providers, partners, and procurement, to ensure we provide and receive value for money for each service charge element.
• Work with the Rent team to ensure all year-end adjustments are correctly recorded on tenant’s accounts.
• Lead on the budget process to ensure service charge estimates are prepared for all schemes / tenants.
• Prepare and consolidate service charge income budgets and scheme budgets to link in with the overall Accent regional, legal entity and group budget packs including relevant commentary.
• To instigate and set up service charge profiles and budgets for new developments or newly acquired stock working with colleagues from Development & Growth allowing timely release of sales units.

The must haves

• Have detailed understanding, experience and knowledge of financial service charge legislation and regulation, particularly in respect of leaseholders and home owners.
• Experience in producing timely and accurate reports.
• Ability to deal with external auditors.
• An understanding of the different tenure types they may encounter in the role (Leasehold/RTB/Shared Owner/Freehold (with & without charges)/Rented/etc).
• Excellent communication skills, spoken, written, and verbal.
• Member of or currently studying toward of CCAB/or equivalent.
• Highly developed knowledge of Microsoft Office applications (Word Excel Dynamics) and the ability to manipulate large volumes of data.

The added extras

• Commitment to equal opportunities and diversity.
• Empathy and respect for others (e.g. customers, colleagues, contractors).
• Commitment to equal opportunities and diversity.
• Positive attitude and commitment to good customer service.
• Effective interpersonal skills.
• Can demonstrate enthusiasm towards the role.
• Positive/can do attitude.
• Effective problem-solving skills.
• Ability to write reports, effectively turning data into detailed reports for the business.
• Self-motivated and able to work using own initiative with minimum supervision.
• Flexible approach to work – as part of a team and/or across a business as the lead representative of a team/department.

Location

At Accent we’re a keen promoter of agile working and encourage the use of working from home as our new way forward.

Should you wish to work occasionally from any of our regional offices, you may do so on a hot desk basis, available from September.

Salary

The spot salary for this post is £31,103 per annum for applicants who fully meet the requirements of the post. Applicants, who do not meet all of the requirements of the post, will start 5% or 10% below the spot salary.          

Benefits

• 28 days paid holiday per year rising by 1 day per year up to a maximum of one working week
• Option to purchase additional holiday of up to 2 of your working weeks (at managers discretion)
• Cycle Scheme
• Learning & Development opportunities
• Employee Assistance Programme
• A choice of salary based contributory pension schemes, a defined benefit scheme or a defined contribution scheme, each offering life assurance cover

Who are Accent?

We own almost 22,000 houses across the North, East and South of the country.

They are home to over 35,000 customers. We exist to improve lives, providing people with high quality homes, affordably. Whatever their housing need, whether family, single, older or more vulnerable – our customers come first. They are always at the very heart of our business. 

If you feel great about delivering excellent services to customers, then we feel great about you joining the Accent team.

And we are a team. We live and breathe our values – we are smart, we are driven, we are caring and we are inclusive – are you? If you can do what’s right and challenge what you think is wrong, relish the opportunity to work with some fabulous colleagues to improve the customer experience and make sure we keep to our promises, then you are the person we are looking for.

Come and join us and start your own journey with Accent. We aim to be number one, and you could help us get there.