Finance Assistant

We are looking for a Finance Assistant to support the smooth running of Salience Labs' day to day finance operations. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys bringing order and accuracy to financial processes while working as part of a fast moving, collaborative team.

Reporting to the Finance Director, you will play a key role across accounts payable, bookkeeping, expense management, purchasing, and financial administration. You'll also contribute to finance projects, including the implementation and improvement of systems and processes as the company continues to scale. This is a hands‑on role with broad exposure across the finance function. You'll work closely with colleagues across the business and have the opportunity to develop your skills in a growing deep tech company where adaptability and continuous improvement are highly valued.

• Manage the purchase ledger and accounts payable processes, ensuring invoices are processed accurately and on time.
• Support the purchase order process, including raising, tracking, and reconciling purchase orders.
• Post supplier invoices and maintain accurate financial records within internal systems.
• Maintain and update the vendor database to ensure supplier information remains accurate.
• Prepare payment proposals for review and approval.
• Process and reconcile employee expense claims, including supporting the senior leadership team with expense reporting.
• Assist with the administration and reconciliation of company credit cards.
• Support accounts receivable activities, including raising customer invoices and communicating with external clients where required.
• Input bookkeeping transactions, purchasing activity, payments, and expenses into the company's finance systems.
• Assist with the preparation and submission of quarterly VAT returns.
• Support the Finance Director with administration relating to share option schemes, including option grants, exercises, and annual HMRC reporting.
• Assist with the administration of the company's insurance arrangements.
  
  Work alongside the Finance Director to support the implementation and continuous improvement of finance processes, business systems and bank reconciliations.
• Provide ad hoc administrative and finance support as the business evolves.

• Experience in bookkeeping, finance administration, or a similar finance support role.
• AAT Level 3 qualification as a minimum, with Level 3 or Level 4 preferred, or equivalent experience.
• Good understanding of accounts payable and core bookkeeping principles.
• Strong organisational skills with excellent attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Confident using Microsoft Excel and finance systems, with experience of accounting software desirable.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills with the ability to build positive relationships across the business.
• A proactive approach to problem solving, with the ability to anticipate issues before they arise.
• Comfortable working in a fast paced, changing environment where priorities can evolve quickly.
• A collaborative mindset and willingness to support colleagues across a broad range of finance and operational activities.

• Have experience working in a start-up, scale up, or technology business.
• Have supported finance systems implementation or process improvement projects.
• Have experience administering share option schemes or supporting HMRC reporting.
• Are keen to continue studying towards a professional accounting qualification.

This is a unique opportunity to make an impact. We value collaboration, innovation, and growth here at Salience so if this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!

Salience Labs Limited is a leader in photonic solutions targeting connectivity for AI datacenter infrastructure.

Backed by over a decade of research from the University of Oxford in the UK and the University of Münster in Germany, Salience’s innovative developments in photonic switching technology enable high-speed, ultra-low latency networking fabrics that remove infrastructure bottlenecks for AI workloads.