Interim Senior Accountant

Our Head of Finance is going on maternity leave, and we are looking for an experienced finance professional to run our day-to-day finance function whilst she is away. You will be the main point of contact for finance: keeping the books accurate, making sure suppliers and payroll are paid on time, and getting clear monthly numbers to the leadership team. You will work independently, with our external accountants and Senior Leadership on hand for any issues.

• Engagement: Contractor, up to 2 days a week (days to be agreed, with availability for month-end, payroll and VAT deadlines)

• Duration: 6 months, with the possibility of extension

• Location: Remote, UK-based

• Start date: December 2026, including a handover period with the Head of Finance

• Competitive day rate

• Flexible scheduling

• Code and post transactions in Xero accurately and on time

• Reconcile bank accounts, cards and payment platforms across all entities and currencies

• Maintain prepayments, accruals, fixed assets and intercompany balances, and hit the month-end close deadlines

• Raise customer and partner invoices in line with contract terms, and check them against agreed pricing and usage data. Maintain supporting files in excel to be sent with invoices.

• Allocate cash receipts, chase overdue invoices and report on debtors and cash collection

• Process supplier bills, run payment batches and answer supplier queries

• Review and approve employee expense claims against policy, and reconcile company cards (Pleo) including account coding and VAT codes.

• Run monthly UK payroll through our payroll provider, including starters, leavers, changes, pensions and benefits

• Submit payment to the payroll provider on time.

• Prepare and submit VAT returns through Xero, including reverse charge and overseas sales treatment. Comfortable calculating partial claims

• Spot and flag VAT issues early, and raise anything unusual

• Provide information to our external accountants for year-end accounts and corporation tax

• Prepare monthly management accounts (P&L, balance sheet and cash flow) with clear variance commentary against budget if needed.

• Consolidate multi-currency into group accounts

• Update the cash flow forecast and highlight cash risks to the leadership team

• Respond to finance queries and data requests from colleagues, customers, partners and suppliers (for example supplier forms, VAT certificates and bank letters)

• Work with external accounts to prepare year end accounts and tax returns

• Based in the UK, with the right to work in the UK

• Proven experience running day-to-day finance, ideally as a senior bookkeeper, assistant accountant or finance manager

• Strong Xero skills, including bank reconciliations, multi-currency and month-end close

• Confident with UK tax: VAT returns and PAYE payroll

• Advanced Excel

• Comfortable using AI tools (Claude) in your daily work, and keen to use them to work faster

• Accurate, organised and able to work independently to deadlines, and explain the numbers clearly to non-finance colleagues

• AAT, ACCA, ACA or CIMA qualified or part-qualified

• Experience in a startup or scale-up, ideally with multi-entity groups including US subsidiaries