JOB TITLE: Apprentice – Junior Billing Assistant
GROUP: Branding and Trade Marks – Finance Support
REPORTING TO: Tahir Basheer and Christiana Loizides
TERM: Apprenticeship
HOURS: Full-time, 9:30am – 5:30pm, Monday to Friday with one hour for lunch. A flexible approach to working hours is a must, overtime may be required at busy times.
LOCATION: You will be required to work from the office 5 days per week, Monday to Friday, throughout your apprenticeship.
ABOUT SHERIDANS
Sheridans is a leading London law firm whose lawyers combine the in-depth legal knowledge and breadth of expertise and experience required to give unparalleled advice to their clients.
Since 1956, Sheridans has represented individuals and organisations across a wide variety of sectors, providing quality advice which is commercially focussed and personally delivered. Specialist lawyers in leisure, media and entertainment work closely alongside the firm’s corporate finance, employment, real estate and dispute resolution groups to provide a truly bespoke service to its clients.
ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY
We are seeking an enthusiastic individual with a strong interest in Finance to join the Accounts team at Sheridans. This is a brand new role, where we are able to offer an apprenticeship opportunity for the first time.
As part of a close-knit team of 8 and working closely alongside the Trade Mark Billing Administrator, you will have the chance to learn and upskill yourself whilst making a real difference to the finance operations that ensure the smooth running of the trade mark department.
WORK EXPERIENCE AND EXPOSURE
The Junior Billing Assistant will offer trade mark finance support, and will be responsible for managing the trade mark department’s billing, purchase ledger and accounts payable function and assisting the Firm to achieve its financial targets by providing an efficient and commercially focused service.
The key responsibilities of this role are:
- Uploading multi-jurisdictional agent fee notes onto Lawman ensuring compliance, and with correct VAT and currency requirements and reconciling supplier statements
- Dealing with queries from fee earners (solicitors) and support staff
- Chasing internal allocation of rechargeable disbursements
- Processing Client Payment receipts and Client to Office Bill Payments
- Generate monthly WIP reports, bill drafts and final bills for fee earner’s review
- Generate on demand pre-bills, draft and final bills in an expedited manner. Utilise specialised knowledge of client and industry standard/requirements, and suggest corrections when applicable
- Work with collections team to ensure proactive follow-up on aged invoices and resolution of client requests and queries
- Respond to requests from fee earners and PAs
- Raising pro formas in line with fee earner requirements
- Monitoring dynamic bill payment report and processing international/BACS payments of third-party agent fees ensuring correct coding onto NatWest Bankline
- Assisting fee earners in the preparation of standardised budget/cost quotes on fixed fee work on an expedited basis
- Updating/reconciling third part payments onto Lawman in a timely manner ensuring correct allocation of fees and posting additional charges when necessary
- Monitoring the EUIPO and UKIPO deposit accounts and ensuring sufficient funds available for fee earners and topping up accounts when necessary using Natwest Bankline.
- Managing client account balances; processing client account refunds on aged balances in line with SAR requirements
- Ad hoc finance duties as and when required
- Ensuring compliance of all processes and systems in the accounting cycle against the relevant internal and external regulation and legislation
The above is not an exhaustive list of duties, and you will be expected to perform different tasks as necessitated by your changing role within the Firm and the overall business needs.
SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS
The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following:
Skills & experience
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience liaising with senior internal stakeholders
- Enthusiasm, resilience, and a professional approach, with an excellent customer service ethic
- Self-starting approach, taking ownership of matters, tasks and projects and the ability to work under own initiative and motivation
- Comfortable sharing knowledge with other team members, upskilling and supporting other and more junior team members when necessary
- Commitment to being a collaborative team player and fostering an attitude that promotes comradery, creativity and innovation
- Ability to liaise with, persuade and influence colleagues and clients at all levels
- Ability to remain organised, prioritise and multi-task particularly when managing a large workload under pressure and to tight deadlines
- Ability to work confidentially, remaining discreet at all times
- Flexibility towards working out of regular hours at busy times
Qualifications
- Accomplished academic background – i.e. strong GCSE results
TO APPLY FOR THIS VACANCY, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION VIA BPP ONLY: https://www.bpprecruitment.co.uk/Search/Job?id=249496&asid=1
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
Our aim is for all staff to feel welcomed at Sheridans and ultimately be their true self at work. We are proud to promote inclusion & diversity among clients, candidates, and staff as an equal opportunities employer. It is our policy to support people who hold Protected Characteristics (under the Equality Act 2010) both internally and externally through supporting practices based solely upon merit.