Finance Administrator - Campus Services - 105626 - Grade 4

Position Details

Campus Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,166 to £28,768, with potential progression once in post to £32,145

Grade: 4

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 5th May 2025

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do. The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University, and depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high-quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Background

Campus Services is responsible for a very large range of services within the University including student accommodation, catering, Sport and Fitness, cleaning and waste management, conferences and events, delivering the University’s post, day nurseries, security and emergency response, Winterbourne House & Garden.

The Finance Administrator post sits within the Conferences & Events (C&E) team that resides within Venues and Events which is part of Campus Services. C&E sells and delivers a vast number of conferences and events to underpin academic work, support the student experience and drive income. As with any commercial revenue generating department within a university, C&E seeks to strike a balance between enhancing the student and staff experience and ensuring a financial return to the University.

Role Summary

The Finance Administrator will provide support for a broad range of finance and administrative duties. This will include processing and troubleshooting various accounts and transactions. The post holder will maintain administrative and financial information for specific areas of nominated budgets including initiating purchase orders, analysing and reconciling budgets.

The Finance Administrator will support with the budgets for individual conferences and events, prepare and finalise invoices, and work to aid on all the financial aspects of the event management system (Events 500), such as identifying, correcting and reporting anomalies, raising requisitions and identifying and chasing outstanding purchase orders.

The post holder will support the activities of the Finance and Office Manager, demonstrating a high level of customer service to both internal and external customers in all contexts including meeting with staff to advise on procedures and processes.

Main Duties

• You will be able to work with the used systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including responding to queries.
• You will be expected to exercise your judgment on the answer to queries or on the direction of work within parameters set by your manager. On a day-to-day basis you will be expected to resolve queries without referring to your manager.
• You will carry out a full range of duties relating to financial management.
• Prepare and finalise invoices, ensure standards and deadlines for invoicing are adhered to and that invoices are followed up and income received.
• Review and analyse financial reports and ledgers, summarising information and identifying trends.
• Oversee the financial aspects of the event management system (Events 500), and Core systems (Oracle Fusion). You will identify, correct and report anomalies, raise requisitions and identify and deal with outstanding purchase orders and requisitions.
• Assist the account managers with setting up new clients/customers on the financial system.
• Work with set processes for the accurate recording of financial information in the department.
• Produce and distribute monthly sales reports, identifying and then working to help resolve any issues with data.
• Work with the processes and systems for reconciling all received income and transactions, balance figures monthly and investigate and resolve any discrepancies.
• Proactively check bookings for outstanding financial data, paperwork and providing updates on errors/issues found.
• Liaise with the VAT and Finance Officer to ensure correct processes are always followed.
• Maintain working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
• You will be expected to use a variety of university systems and processes to research, analyse and interpret data, producing bespoke reports as required. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
• Provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on area of activity.
• Review processes and tasks and proactively offer suggestions for improvement and sharing best practice as appropriate.
• Assisting with any allocated elements of health and safety implementation and documentation, including assisting with delivering a suitable and compliant process.
• Provide support to managers in promoting sustainability across the University.
• Support equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Provide general administrative support such as taking notes at meetings, setting up meetings, and general administrative support for events and other activities.
• Monitor service standards and work with others to ensure these are adhered to.
• Work on Campus Services wide initiatives and to represent the department where necessary.
• You may be asked to act as a fire warden, for which training will be given.
• Undertake any other duties commensurate with the grade of the post as directed by the line manager or the Director of Venues and Events.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics grade C minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• An understanding of data privacy standards.
• Ability to take responsibility for specific tasks, carrying out duties without needing to refer to others, with scope for some choice and using your own judgment.
• Ability to work on your own initiative.
• Good IT skills with working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software.
• Proven ability to plan and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own workload.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work proactively, independently and as part of a team.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems e.g. student databases/finance record systems/HR systems or equivalent, and an aptitude for learning new IT packages and systems.
• Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these.
• An understanding of the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
• The ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.
• Ability to proactively contribute to improving processes and for proposing new ways of communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with others.

Dimensions

This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within the department. You will not be required to line manage anyone in this role or manage a budget.

Planning and Organising

The role is required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks without daily supervision. The focus is on ensuring standards are met, highlighting any possible challenges so solutions can be found before these become an issue.

Problem Solving and decision making

You will be working under the direction of a senior manager, but with the autonomy to deliver the outputs required. You will be working within the framework of existing policies, processes and procedures for the department. You will take day to day decisions on what advice to give and for responding to and resolving queries.

Internal and External relationships

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University-wide and with external stakeholders; you will need to develop and maintain a professional working relationship with contacts.

Informal enquiries to Sarah Dugmore, email: s.l.dugmore@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.