Income Accounts Analyst

About the role

You will reconcile and report on all of Welsh Water’s revenues, developing a deep understanding of all income streams and their derivation. You will work closely and collaboratively with the Regulation team and Commercial Finance (management accounting) team to ensure that variance analysis is robust and that the business is well-informed.

You will be involved in the year end audit , being the first point of contact for revenue matter from the auditors. You will coordinate your responses with the Retail and Economics and charges department.

You will be responsible for ensuring the integrity of the revenue and debtor codes in SAP, by performing detailed reconciliations to the billing engine and other external systems. 

What you’ll be responsible for

1.    Ensuring the integrity of all revenue and debtor data in SAP and producing income-related accounting data for Welsh Water to deliver a high quality, customer focused service to the business.

2.    Responsibility for producing a full suite of monthly income reports covering some £1+ billion of business revenues: 
•    Variance analysis (against business plan, prior periods and regulatory determination)
•    Regulated and non-regulated income
•    Forecast revenue outturn

3.    Balance sheet reconciliations: responsible for ensuring the integrity of a significant section of the group’s balance sheet. You will have direct control over and need to develop a deep understanding of:
•    Miscellaneous cash transfers and returned payments 
•    Adjust system for payments to customers (e.g. payment in lieu of account credit)  
•    Maintain security deposit register
•    Debtors reconciliation to billing system (various balance sheet codes) and customer listings 
•    Customer refunds reconciliation and liaison with Payments Processing Unit (PPU) 
•    Other smaller reconciliations

4.    Income bank account: 
•    Maintain reconciliation between bank and SAP records
•    Investigate and resolve exceptions
•    Ensure daily PPU interface to SAP runs correctly 

5.    Management of ‘cross-border’ income
•    Prepare quarterly returns for Severn Trent and Dee Valley 
•    Liaise with all to obtain year-end data, both financial and non-financial
•    Prepare annual return for United Utilities and Waterplus

6.    Manage the Control Daily database 

7.    Additional responsibilities for interim and year-end reporting: 
•    Full analytical review of income movements from prior period
•    Analysis of movements in the measured income accrual
•    Analysis of bill adjustments for the demand team
•    Provide information to the external auditors on a timely basis
•    Liaise with other departments to ensure that the request is dealt with promptly

8.    Financial month-end duties, including: 
•    Running the core income report and reconciling to the customer database
•    Posting all regulated income into SAP and reconciling to the billing system (Rapid)
•    Preparing and posting the trade effluent accrual 
•    Preparing the raw water ledger
•    Preparing journals in respect of billing/turnover recognition adjustments
•    Preparing debtors listing for receipts in advance and debt reconciliation
•    Post adjusting cash items from bank reconciliation 

9.    Prepare comprehensive income pack 

10.    Reviewing monthly VAT reports for (income) accuracy and liaising with the Tax team

11.    Assisting with other activities of the regulatory and financial accounting team as necessary, including statutory and regulatory financial reporting and financial month end processing and reporting.

Who you’ll work with

Internal
•    Tax department 
•    Regulatory department
•    Retail data team
•    Economic and Charges department
•    Commercial finance department ( wholesale and retail management accounting) 
•    Payment processing unit

External
•    External financial auditors
•    External regulatory auditors
•    Other water companies (Severn Trent, United Utilities, Dee Valley)
•    Ofwat and other regulatory bodies

About you

• A recognised accountancy qualification (AAT qualified, ACCA part-qualified or equivalent) 
• Worked in finance department or had financial exposure
• Strong technical and analytical skills
• Financially numerate to a high level of competency and ability
• Ability to work effectively with other teams 
• Proactive and Work with minimum supervision 
• Good working knowledge of excel and word  
• Ability to ensure that systems and processes are sufficiently robust so as to produce accurate and complete data 
• Effective communicator both in verbal and written form, with a strong customer focus 
• Excellent time management and organisational skills, and ability to effectively manage competing priorities 
• Excellent accuracy and attention to detail

Benefits

As well as a market competitive salary, 33 days annual leave (pro rata, including public holidays), we offer a range of employee benefits and rewards including:

 
•             Option to buy additional annual leave up to 5 days per year
•             Enhanced employer pension contributions – Up to 11% employer contributions
•             Free Mortgage Brokering Services 
•             Enhanced family friendly policies
•             Progression opportunities, including the ability to apply for funded training and coaching and mentoring programmes
•             Gym and fitness discounts as well as high street shopping
•             Cycle to work scheme
•             Discount off all Welsh Water visitor attraction centres and gift shops
•             Car-leasing scheme and free on-site parking at all sites
•             Health CashBack scheme and access to an online GP service
•             An employee assistance programme for employees and their immediate family
•             Many more can be found here!  

 
 
Whilst also working for a not-for profit company that truly cares about earning the trust of customers everyday, and about looking after our beautiful environment
 
 
Please note, we may close this role sooner if required. We may also extend the original closing date depending on interest.
 
Due to the nature of the industry, we require satisfactory references, post offer medical clearance, and a criminal records Basic Disclosure check on all new employees joining the business. For some roles there may be additional checks and security clearance required, and this offer is subject all checks being satisfied. You will receive further information on how to complete these checks via email once you have accepted this offer.

Who we are

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water keep 3 million people healthy each day with safe, reliable water, and take away wastewater to clean, before returning it safely to our beautiful rivers and seas.

To be able to deliver high quality, essential services which help to protect the health of our customers, colleagues and our environment, we need the right people to deliver on our vision.  This is achieved by living our core values and demonstrating the core behaviours that underpin them.  The security of our people, assets and information is key to us, so we are looking for people who understand and comply with the company’s required security objectives.

We know that the most successful teams are the most diverse teams. Equality, diversity and inclusion provide the very foundation to our culture at Welsh Water. We want every individual to feel confident, proud and able to bring their whole selves to work. 

To ensure an improved representation in our workforce, applications are particularly welcome from minority groups including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, Females, LGBT+, Non-binary and people with disabilities. Together we continue to build a workplace that not only celebrates the diverse voices of our colleagues but also represents each customer we serve.

In essence, ours is a company based on trust, openness, respect, commitment and honesty. A company that our colleagues are proud to work for.