Finance Assistant

At Britvic we’re on a journey to become the most dynamic soft drinks company. As one of the UK’s leading players in the FMCG market we pride ourselves on setting high standards, being courageous and pushing ourselves to think outside the bottle.

We offer consumers a range of family favourite and global premium brands such as Robinsons, Tango, J2O, R Whites & London Essence. We exist to help people enjoy life’s everyday moments.

About the Role:

The role sits in our Shared Services Purchase to Pay team and reports to the Accounts Payable manager.

Our Shared Services team supports transactional activities for our GB, Ireland and International (Belgium, Netherlands, North America, and Singapore) business units.

The main purpose of the role is to process payments both outgoing and incoming direct debit collections, journal processing, balance sheet reconciliations and administration of Accounts Payable direct debit accounts.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Process supplier payments and customer direct debit collections.
2. Ensure manual payments are entered and approved in the banking software within agreed SLA’s, deadlines, and adherence to financial controls and processes.
3. Reconcile and clear bank transactions in the banking general ledger accounts daily ensuring so that no reconciling items form part of the bank reconciliation at the end of the financial period end.
4. Liaise with internal stakeholders and our bankers to resolve payment queries in a timely basis.
5. Prepare month end bank reconciliations and submit for review and approval.
6. Work with the finance master data teams and Accounts Payable to ensure supplier payment exceptions are kept to a bare minimum ensuring all payments receive payments from Britvic on time.
7. Ensure failed customer direct debit collections are reported to the Shared Services Accounts Receivable teams in accordance with agreed SLAs to ensure maximised cash collections and reduced credit risk.
8. Process and allocate supplier direct debit payments working together with the Accounts Payable team where invoices need to be processed to allow full allocation.
9. Ensure any bounced payments to suppliers are resolved quickly by resolving master data issues with the finance master data teams and Accounts Payable team.
10. Administration of the supplier finance programme ensuring invoices / credit notes are uploaded to the supply chain finance partner in line with SLA’s. Processing and allocation of the monthly supplier finance direct debits to vendor accounts.
11. Prepare and process journals relating to travel and expenses and leases where those invoices are processed by the Accounts Payable team.
12. Support with Purchase to Pay balance sheet reconciliations as and when required.
13. Prepare and update process documentation as required.
14. Proactively challenge and drive continuous improvement around payment processes.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience Required:

1. Excellent understanding of basic accounting and double entry principles.
2. Experience of working with outgoing and incoming payments in a high volume / high value environment.
3. Excellent understanding of multicurrency ERP systems, preferably SAP and HSBC Net.
4. Excellent IT and system skills, confident in understanding complex problems and problem resolution
5. Very strong team player with the drive and flexibility to support team members
6. Desirable to have previous working knowlegd in FMCG or Shared Services
7. General study support will be provided towards ACT/ ACCA qualification if this is of interest. 

We believe we are stronger together and that’s why we’re committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees. We know that by building a truly inclusive environment where everyone feels celebrated, safe and respected - diversity and wellbeing will naturally thrive