Assistant Accountant

HarperCollins Publishers is looking for a dynamic, organised and analytical individual to join their finance team in the role of Assistant Accountant. This is a full time, permanent position based at their Sydney Head office. It is a great opportunity to join a supportive team with a focus on learning and development. You will work with technically strong-minded individuals who can support you through your CPA/CA journey. 

The purpose of the role:

The Assistant Accountant reports to the Finance Manager and is responsible for our End-to-End Royalty accounting ~$15m cost pa and preparing reconciliations, journals, accruals, reporting and various accounting tasks including but not limited to bank reconciliation, first line support for treasury, employee expenses approvals and completion of regulatory renewals and forms. This role is pivotal to the GL team and has very wide exposure across numerous core finance processes.

Activities (include but not limited to): 

Preparing the bank reconciliations

• Coordinate with credit control team to ensure that all daily cash bank transactions are identified/ reconciled/recorded on a daily basis and journaled on a weekly basis in our General Ledger
• Assist in preparing the cash-flow forecast process which is done on a weekly basis;
• Ensure that the weekly/monthly reconciliations of the GL accounts and the monthly FX entries are done in a timely manner;

Administering the cash function and one-off invoicing

• Manage company cards (AMEX and VISA for AU; Mastercard for NZ);
• Administer our AU & NZ bank accounts (signatories on Westpac)
• Manage the invoicing of eBooks, sub-rights, sundry charges;
• Overseas manual payment processing and clearing
• Refunds payment processing and other miscellaneous payments

Coordinating the employee expense approval workflow

• Manage our online expense management system Concur (new users, structure changes, any other change) and review the expense reports that are submitted by employees and ensure that they are correctly recorded in the GL;
• Prepare the month-end Concur reports and prepare ad hoc reports of our expense structure for further analysis;

Completion of regulatory returns and renewals

• Completion of information requests from ABS, APA requests etc
• Support of Insurance renewal information requests
• Other ad hoc tasks

End to end Royalty, Advance Provisioning and Sub-rights: Connecting business processes, financial accounting and to generate business outcomes 

• End to end ownership of royalty accounting - Review, reporting, analysis and forecasting royalty and advance provisions ~ $15m cost area
• Connecting with the Royalty Manager to processes contracts and payments to the general ledger
• Monitoring and reviewing unearned advances, collaborating with sales and publishing teams on opportunities and provisioning requirement
• Partner with sub-rights team in respect to accounting, reporting and payments of sub-rights income
• Assist in preparation of annual budget and monthly forecasts

Essential skills and experience:

• Minimum of 1-3 years’ experience in a finance function, degree qualified and CPA completion/working towards
• Good competency in Excel
• Multi-tasker with strong attention to details
• Team player
• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written

To be effective in this role you should have a strong desire to learn and grow in the job. You will have high learning agility and a problem-solving mindset. You have the ability to take on a large variety of tasks, whilst prioritizing your workload efficiently.

At HarperCollins ANZ we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We invite candidates of all ages, races, religions, genders, sexual orientation and people with disability to apply for this or any other advertised role on offer.

If this role sounds like you, apply now! Only successful applicants will be contacted for an interview.