Finance Administrator

About Somerset Community Foundation

We re a grant-making charity that helps build strong communities where everyone can thrive. We do this by funding local charities and facilitating local giving.

We provide simple, rewarding and impactful ways for donors to give locally, guided by research and our unrivalled local knowledge.

For small, local charities, community groups and social enterprises, we provide vital funding and support to help their organisations flourish. We provide around £4 million of funding to local groups every year. Our turnover in 2024 was nearly £5 million, and we re building an endowment for long-term investment into our communities, which is currently valued at around £11 million.

By inspiring local giving and funding social action, we support local communities to drive change and realise their dreams.

The role

You ll bring energy and enthusiasm to the team, ensuring financial processes are carried out efficiently, effectively, accurately and in a timely way, to support the organisation s finance function.

The focus of the role will be maintaining accurate financial records, carrying out financial administrative tasks and supporting the Senior Finance Manager with preparation for monthly management accounts and annual audit and reporting. You ll work closely with the whole team of staff, trustees and volunteers, but you ll work most closely with the Senior Finance Manager.

We re implementing a new version of our Salesforce CRM this year, and you ll play an integral role in this project. You ll be provided with training on this and all our IT systems. The successful applicant will always be expected to observe our values and policies, and to actively engage with continuous professional development.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Monitor our bank account, recording all income and expenditure accurately on our Salesforce database and Sage 50 Accounts
• Prepare BACS payments to creditors and grant recipients, and prepare supporting paperwork for authorisation
• Banking cheques and cash
• Reconcile financial data between Sage, Salesforce and our bank accounts, working with the Senior Finance Manager and team members to spot any errors or inconsistencies
• Prepare and track invoices, updating records promptly
• Monitor and report on the repayments of loans made under our Social Investment Programme
• Provide ad hoc Fund Reports and respond to queries as required.
• Assist with production of monthly grants lists working with our Programmes team
• Assist with our annual audit process and preparation of the statutory accounts
• Assist with preparing financial data for Fund Reports to be shared annually with donors
• Administration of donations, including donor thank you letters
• Assisting with general finance tasks, reporting, documentation and any other reasonable duties as requested.

Person Specification Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Required

• Previous experience working in an administration or finance role
• Strong IT skills and experience of accounting software
• Experience of working with databases and Microsoft Office, particularly Excel
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Able to work under own initiative but also able to request support when necessary
• Able to learn systems quickly and to embrace systems changes with a positive attitude
• Confident managing a busy and varied workload and able to prioritise effectively
• Good problem-solving competencies
• Attention to detail and high levels of accuracy
• Flexible and adaptable
• Please note that our office is in a rural location and that access to a car and a clean UK driving licence are required

Desirable

• Experience working with Sage 50 and Salesforce
• AAT qualified (or working towards)
• Understanding of the role of local charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises, and the people they help

More about working for us

Our values: We re a values-driven team and organisation, and they underpin our culture, identity and everything we do.

Diversity, equity and inclusion: Together we re creating a culture where everyone, from any background, can do their best work and bring their whole self to work. We re also working to ensure the voices of those we support inform everything we do. We would especially welcome applications from minority ethnic people, people with disabilities, younger people, LGBTQ+ people and people with lived experience relevant to our work.

Flexible working: Our work is really important to us, but so is the rest of your life. We offer flexible working that means you can choose hours that work for you and choose a blend of working in the office, at home, or out and about.

Pension: We ll match your pension contributions up to 5% to help you save for your future.

Enhanced Family Leave policies: We offer an enhanced family leave policy for all employees, including Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, Shared Parental and Adoption Leave.