Billing Finance Analyst (advanced excel) - Wealth Management

Finance Analyst

Reporting to the Head of Finance, the successful candidate will oversee the entire billing function from start to finish as well as various standard accounting tasks on a regular basis, ensuring that the Firm charges the correct fees to its clients and that these are correctly accounted for in the Firms and Custodians systems.

The ideal candidate will be degree educated with a strong quantitative background as well as possessing a minimum of 24 month's experience in a similar role within the financial services industry. Wealth Management experience is preferred although not essential.

The ability to interact with staff, at all levels, in a fast-paced environment while also being flexible, proactive and resourceful. A high level of professionalism and confidentiality is crucial to this role. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong analytical ability and attention to detail are equally important.

Specific duties and responsibilities include:

Finance Responsibilities:
* Track revenues per custodian platforms and cash balances on a quarterly basis and submit these to book keeping
* Monitoring bookkeeping entries relating to revenue and expenses and ensuring they match the recognised and accrued fees
* Liaising with the book keepers to ensure all provisions are monitored
* Preparation of quarterly sales and VAT analysis
* Detailed understanding of VAT treatment for fees, commission payments etc.
o Being able to advise Wealth management teams on VAT treatment if necessary
o Applying this knowledge to quarterly fees (see operational responsibilities)
* Monitoring and recording Cash balances on a daily basis from all accounts and checking it against firm's Fixed Overhead Requirement
* Maintaining Company KPIs on an ongoing basis such AUM etc.
* Preparation of FCA and SEC Levy/Reporting calculations annually
* Provide the compliance team with key data for regulatory reporting
* Providing monthly transaction reports to bookkeepers
* Cashflow analysis
* Assist with annual statutory audit

Operational Responsibilities:
* Running the mid quarter fee process. Accounts that have additional funds come in during the quarter must have a fee task to charge on the new money that is traded for the amount of days it was invested before the end of the next quarter.
* Calculation of annual maintenance fees and ad-hoc requests
* Preparation of specific data for management and/or advisors
* Calculation of quarterly fees/revenue, collection and reconciliation
* Revenue income analysis
* Performing analysis on proposed bespoke fee rates and building the tiered fee system in the firm's in-house systems and excel - This includes being able to run comparative analysis to see how much will be lost in revenues and what stage the marginal increase in AUMs would justify such rate.
* Recovering missed historic fees (if any) and recalculating fees as and when required from the missed date until current period
* Introducer commissions calculation, analysis and outgoing payments
* Preparation and submission of client and third party statements, invoices etc, taking into account the individual needs of each client and third parties
* Preparation, calculation and detailed analysis of advisor payments (wealth manager remuneration) on a quarterly basis
* Liaising with Compliance, Client Services and wealth management teams on an ongoing basis for ad-hoc requests
* Monitoring and approving custodian fees and charges
* Process payments, refunds, partial adjustments
* Have the ability to build various models in excel
* Ensuring the fees process runs from start to finish with no errors and meet the agreed deadlines
* Monitor Finance Team inbox for all incoming internal and external queries

Skills and specifications for the role:
* Advanced Excel is a requirement. The candidate must be comfortable with data manipulation and be aware of the limitation of each data analysis and manipulation tool within Excel. (Test will be required)
o VLOOKUP, SUMIFs, pivot tables, IF functions etc. are considered basic/intermediate
o Ability to run and repair complex functions in Excel as and when required
* Basic understanding of ACCESS. VBA a bonus.
* Ability to manage relationships internally and externally
* Ability to learn quickly and apply to real world scenarios
* Ability to run multiple processes simultaneously
* Ability to spot errors in large data sets with tight deadlines
* Ability to follow strict instructions for external submissions
* Strong mathematical ability
* Understanding of tiered fees, marginal fees and average fees, how they differ, what each one of them is and how each one is used in each stage of the fee calculation process
* Understanding the implications of charging fees (or processing refunds) in tax deferred accounts as well as tax advantaged accounts.

Education and qualification requirements:
* Degree educated - minimum 2:1 (Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Accountancy, Computer Science and Engineering degrees only)
* Very strong analytical ability and attention to detail
* Advanced Excel skills with basic VBA and SQL a bonus; an understanding of accountancy and fee/billing processes
* Has an understanding of Financial Markets & Securities