Accounts Assistant

About the Goodfellow Group

Established in London in 1946, the Goodfellow Group is a global leader in advanced materials, supporting innovation and discovery for nearly 80 years. From pioneering cancer research and advancing aerospace technology to driving progress in green energy, our materials are at the heart of some of the world’s most exciting breakthroughs.

With a catalogue of over 170,000 materials including metals, ceramics, polymers and compounds, we enable scientists, engineers and manufacturers to push the boundaries of what is possible. Our global customer base spans cutting-edge research institutions, high-tech industries and ambitious startups, all united by a shared goal of solving the challenges of tomorrow.

Goodfellow operates as one team across the globe, with offices in the UK, France, Germany, the USA, Switzerland and China. Supported by Battery Ventures, a leading private equity firm, we are on a dynamic growth journey accelerated by strategic acquisitions and ambitious global expansion plans.

Recent acquisitions include:

• Potomac Photonics (USA): A leader in microfabrication and digital manufacturing, enabling precision prototyping and scalable production for the medical, biotech and electronics sectors.
• Suisse Technology Partners (Switzerland): A centre of excellence in materials and surface technology, providing advanced analytical and technical safety services as well as packaging development.
• The Bureau of Analysed Samples (UK): A historic provider of Certified Reference Materials, supporting quality assurance in chemical and spectroscopic analysis worldwide.

Together, we are one Goodfellow Group, driven by technical excellence, collaboration and sustainable innovation. Whether your passion is science, engineering, technology or business, joining Goodfellow means being part of a team that is shaping the future across many industries and making a real difference in the world.

The Role

The role of the Accounts Assistant works to ensure that the account records within the business are processed with accuracy in a timely manner.

A support role for the whole finance function of the group, this role is likely to have exposure to various responsibilities and roles, with an initial focus on customer credit provision and hold, and aged debtor chasing.

The role is likely to also support in completing a variety of transactional work, month end close procedures and generally supporting finance leadership.

Key Responsibilities

• Pool of Accounts Assistants working together to ensure transactions for the group are processed efficiently and correctly

• Supporting the finance function across all companies within the group

• Contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance department by assisting peers, management, and finance leaders in identifying and implementing improved processes and procedures

• Work to meet deadlines in accordance with month-end close timetable:
  • Completing accurate month-end reporting and reconciliations
  • Performing review and ‘house-keeping’ checks to ensure the ledgers are tidy

• Complete various financial transactional requirements across the group, which may include, but are not guaranteed or limited to:
  • Updating journals and ledgers as required
  • Processing supplier, customer, and intercompany transactions accurately on to the system (including any matching required)
  • Proactively dealing with customer, supplier and internal queries and variances – supporting effective and efficient resolution
  • Chasing customer receipts;
  • Identifying and rectifying issues or errors noted in financial records;
  • Preparing and processing payment runs;
  • Processing bank transactions;
  • Ad-hoc administrative support and cover for other colleagues;
  • Perform regular housekeeping checks and ensure ledgers are tidy;
  • Dealing with and resolving site queries and requests;
  • Dealing with auditor requests

• Working on multiple companies, and multiple finance systems as required;
• Maintain own workflows list, with priorities and timelines summarised, and send to managers for review and discussion on at least a weekly basis;
• Manage relevant finance/accounts mailboxes to ensure effective and efficient communication with customers and suppliers;
• Ownership of initial analysis and review of one or two specific group companies to highlight queries and questions to be addressed;
• Work on producing clear system and group-specific finance process documents;
• Support, as necessary the prepare month end reports on pre-payments update and releases, and fixed assets creations, depreciation and reconcile;

Cash focus:

• Weekly, and month end update and communication of exchange rates;
• Input multi-currency bank transactions accurately on the system daily;
• Perform bank reconciliations daily across all accounts;
• Update cash balances, and transactional details into cash status and cash forecasting files daily;
• Process intercompany transactions and inter-currency transactions;
• Completing and processing non-company credit card employee expenses;
• Review and escalation of non-company credit card expenses outside of policies;
• Prepare payment runs for employee expenses, backup for weekly payment runs;
• Completing bank reconciliations for all accounts at the month end, reviewing/correcting/commenting on any unusual balances.

Credit Control focus:

• Credit Management
  • Actively manage customer credit limits in line with Company policy;
  • Manage and clear relevant credit hold queues on a regular basis ensuring a consistent flow of orders;
  • Working closely with the sales and customer support teams to resolve queries and issues – scheduling and running cross-department catch-ups on issues;
  • Proactively manage accounts ‘on-stop’, driving timely resolution;
  • Complete daily batch invoicing, or review the output of any automated processes to ensure customers are receiving invoices on a timely basis
• Debt management
  • Run D365 debt reports and manipulate in Excel for tracking chasing and issues;
  • Follow the Company procedure to support the chasing of outstanding invoices by telephone, email, letter etc.
• Coordinate and raise commission for distributors on a quarterly basis;
• Run and review the debtors ageing report; reconciling to the balance sheet, reviewing balances generally and unusual/credit/aged balances; completing commentary
  • Presentation and discussion of this within a monthly review meeting
• Calculate debtors provision as required in line with group policy, and based off on debtor understanding
• Reconcile any third-party systems linked to sales and invoicing (company invoice portals; Avalara US tax reporting; etc)

Purchase ledger focus:

• Process purchase invoices and credit notes to ledger
• Responsible for highlighting and appropriately recording/saving down, all invoices which:
  • Are for a service or item to be received in the future, or over a period of time in excess of a calendar month
  • Are for items which may be considered to be assets
• Produce payment run proposals, and process through the bank on a routine basis
• Upload company credit card transactions, process receipts to them, and allocate to GL
• Review and escalation of CC expenses outside of policies
• Run and review the supplier ageing report; reconciling to the balance sheet, reviewing balances generally and unusual/debit/aged balances, completing commentary
  • Presentation and discussion of this within a monthly review meeting
• Ensure any supplier invoices which relate to future months or potential fixed assets as saved down in the relevant folders and communicated with the relevant people in the finance department
• Support the consideration of whether there are any costs missing on a monthly basis
• Complete supplier statements reconciliations on a timely basis

Key Requirements

• 3 years experience, and keenness to learn and work with a team and cross departments
• Experience of financial reconciliations
• Understanding of accounting processes
• Ready and able to exercise initiative
• Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail
• Numerical and problem-solving skills
• Confident in accounting systems, and quick to learn
• Good Excel ability to manipulate and amend reports
• Good general Microsoft abilities – Office, Outlook, Sharepoint, etc.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills

Salary & Benefits

• Basic salary, dependent on experience.
• Plus: Company healthcare, company pension (5% company contribution), company sick pay, critical illness cover and life assurance cover, 22 days annual leave, rising to 25. Plus a range of employee benefits provided through our insurance provider. Details will be provided.
• In addition, there is free car parking, free tea and coffee and social events during the year.

Our Values

All employees are required to live by the company values:

Continuous Improvement:

• Acknowledge the shortcoming and limitations within yourself and your team and take action to mitigate these.
• Seek ways to improve and enhance Goodfellow working practices.
• Be receptive to new ideas and practices to improve the results within your team.
• Implement solutions and changes positively and encourage the same within your team.
• Encourage your team to provide solutions not problems.
• Be receptive to feedback for your own and team’s performance.
• Go above and beyond.
• Actively seek feedback from your teams’ customers to ensure their needs and expectations are met.

Responsibility:

• Knowledge of managing the commercial impact of a team.
• Ability to meet both personal and departmental KPIs.

One Team:

• Regularly communicate the progress of the department/teams’ efforts based against the operational plan and business objectives.
• Build a positive and healthy working relationship with all colleagues in your team and company.
• Communicate with all colleagues in a professional, calm and assertive manner.
• Be flexible to the needs and requirements of other teams.

Customer Centric:

• A mindset that puts the customer at the centre of everything we do.
• Flexibility and a positive attitude towards opportunity.
• Exhibit a positive approach and treat all colleagues, clients etc with dignity and respect.