About the Role

Acorn Early Years is a charitable organisation providing childcare and early education, operating day nurseries, forest schools, out-of-school clubs, and specialist early years catering and training services. We are an agile organisation that is growing rapidly, despite the challenges facing the sector, with 18 nurseries and over 500 employees with an expected turnover of approximately £18m this year.

In this role, you will be a key part of the finance team, responsible for maintaining accurate purchase ledger records, processing supplier invoices and payments, and supporting month‑end activities. You will also work closely with payroll to ensure the monthly payroll is processed.

The role is based in our Central Support Office in Castlethorpe, Monday to Friday. 09:00-17:00

Role and Responsibilities

Purchases:

• Processing supplier payments and monthly payroll on the bank
• Allocating payments to SAGE.
• Monitoring finance inbox and processing purchase invoices to YOOZ for approval.
• Liaising with suppliers and reconciling supplier statements
• Adding new suppliers onto the system and verifying banking details.

Bank:

• Completing weekly bank reconciliations.
• Overseeing the set-up, amendments and closure of company credit cards
• Completing other banking administrative tasks.

Month End:

• Maintaining a monthly accruals and prepayment schedule
• Monthly reconciliations for creditor’s, employer loans, tech schemes, and payroll accounts
• Monthly depreciation and amortisation journals.
• Completing monthly internal journals.
• Completing internal audits relating to credit cards.
• Finalising month end reports for distribution to the nurseries and Senior Leadership Team.

Other:

• Assisting with annual external audit.
• Liaising with the Central Support Team, Nursery Managers and Nursery Administrators as required.
• Completing general finance duties as required.

Person Specification

Core Competencies:

• Previous finance experience
• Proficient use of finance software
• Excellent IT skills (specifically Microsoft Excel)
• Highly organised with good time-management skills
• Strong attention to detail
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Strong commercial awareness
• Flexible to changing priorities

Desirable Competencies:

• Experience or understanding of the Early Years sector

Benefits:

As a thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to making Acorn a safe, nurturing and fun place for our children to be, we offer:

• Payscales that are competitive, transparent and reviewed annually
• 65% Childcare discount - Pro rata - According to contracted hours
• Generous family leave
• Christmas closure
• 25 days of annual leave, plus bank holidays (and the option to buy more)
• 4 dedicated training days and individual development plans
• Enhanced pension scheme
• Cyclescheme
• Techscheme
• Length of Service awards
• Summer and Christmas parties
• Pay advances
• Employee assistance wellbeing programme