Accounts Assistant

Salary: £27,319.00 - £28,031.00  per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 09 October 2025

The Role

Are you ready to take the next step in your finance career and be part of a team that delivers accurate, timely, and insightful financial information while driving continuous improvement?

We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated Accounts Assistant to join our Financial Analysis & Costing team. In this varied and rewarding role, you will report directly to the Financial Analysis & Costing Accountant and play a key part in supporting the University’s financial planning and decision-making.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Contribute to the delivery of monthly management accounts, financial reporting, costing, and analysis
• Be involved in the annual budgeting cycle
• Perform key month-end close tasks
• Gain experience working with SAP/Business Warehouse and our costing system
• Coordinate SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) requests
• Support TRAC reporting

This is a great chance to build on your existing skills, broaden your finance experience, and make a real impact in a supportive, collaborative team.

If this sounds like the right opportunity for you, we’d love to hear from you. Informal enquiries are welcome and can be directed to Lynne Patrick (Lynne.patrick@newcastle.ac.uk), Financial Analysis & Costing Accountant – Financial Performance.

Please ensure you upload a covering letter with your CV when applying for this role.

Key Accountabilities

• To assist in the execution of month end account procedures, including the posting of transactions into SAP. This involves working to specified deadlines.
• To support the co-ordination and logistics of the Annual Budget Cycle, creating calendar invites and Teams links for meetings, taking notes and sharing agreed actions.
• To assist the Cost Accountant in the production of annual TRAC return, including the analysis of financial information and the calculation of cost drivers & charge-out rates.
• To assist in providing support and advice to a range of end users on SAP Business Warehouse planning and reporting.
• Support the continued development and application of Business Warehouse reporting and planning solutions, through testing of new reports/business processes.
• To support in the administration of the academic time allocation system (Diary Exercise). This includes maintenance of the web-based recording system, monitoring response rates and liaising with academic colleagues to resolve queries.
• To provide support for the costing system, through testing of new releases and updates to costing data held within system.
• Processing of SRM authorisation and restructure requests ensuring that they are dealt with in a timely manner.
• To assist in the production of regular and ad hoc information and analysis for both internal and external purposes e.g. Quarterly Finance report, Annual Integrated Report, Annual OfS Return.
• To undertake any other duties of a relevant nature from time to time.

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to interact with colleagues at all levels in the University.
• Good level of literacy and a high level of numeracy in order to interpret and explain financial data.
• Ability to deal with confidential financial information in a professional manner.
• The ability to work quickly and accurately, with attention to detail, to meet monthly and quarterly deadlines.
• Proficiency in IT and technology in relation to production of spreadsheets and the use of Teams and Power-point presentations.
• SAP financial system skills are advantageous.
• Recent relevant experience from a financial environment.
• Experience of working with large financial systems, in particular master data transaction input and reporting routines.

Attributes And Behaviour

• Use appropriate methods of communication to exchange correct, clear and concise information.
• Enthusiastically assist with team workload.
• Contribute to and support team decisions.
• Work in an organised and structured way.
• Prioritise tasks to manage workload and ensure deadlines are met.
• Pay attention to detail.
• Show a positive and enthusiastic attitude.
• Strive to deliver a high-quality service to both colleagues and customers.

Qualifications

• Educated to GCSE level (in English and Maths) Grades A-C, or equivalent.
• 3 A levels grade A to C or equivalent.
• It would be beneficial of the post holder could demonstrate some progress to becoming AAT qualified.

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 28634