Service Charge Accountant - 12-month fixed-term contract

The Howard de Walden Estate•London, CA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Howard de Walden Estate (HdWE) is embarking on a business-wide modernisation programme, to revitalise ways of working, data, systems and processes. Project Elevate has been initiated to replace the current Property Management and Accounting system (MRI Platform X), in place for nearly three decades. The programme will deliver a unified, scalable and supportable SaaS platform covering finance, property management, procurement, project accounting and reporting. It is a strategically important initiative that will fundamentally change how the organisation operates and how colleagues interact with core systems. Project Elevate is a multi‑year transformation programme to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management as the organisation’s core ERP platform, integrated with existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and M-Files Document Management applications. The project will also incorporate specialist Independent Software Vendor (ISV) solutions, including Yavica’s FlexProperty and SignUp’s ExFlow products. This role is specifically concerned with Phase One of Project Elevate, which is expected to last around 12 months starting April 2026, with a target go‑live of April 2027. This role is a share-responsibility position, alongside the existing Service Charge Accountant. You will jointly be Subject Matter Experts on service charge governance and financial transactions for Project Elevate, and will provide advice, validation and assurance on end‑to‑end service charge requirements and future‑state design. The aim is to ensure that service charge processes, controls, reporting and data structures are robust, compliant and workable in practice. The role will be involved in both day-to-day Service Charge activities in our existing ERP system, as well as contributing to Project Elevate by supporting requirements gathering, process design, data transformation and readiness activities for service charging arrangements across the entire portfolio. HdWE requires an ERP solution to manage the full lifecycle of service charges across its estate: from schedule set‑up at unit level; lease variations affecting recovery; apportionments, floors and caps; on‑account charging based on budgets; expense capture and coding; balancing statement preparation and review; issuance to occupiers/leaseholders; and posting of charges/credits to customer accounts. The estate includes both residential and commercial buildings, including mixed‑use properties where residential leaseholders and commercial occupiers exist within the same building. The service charge model, disclosures, statutory processes and reporting therefore need to support both residential and commercial regimes, and accommodate split schedules and apportionments within a single asset. The role will also act as a key bridge to the technical project delivery team. The role is not a technical systems configuration role; it exists to help the business successfully adopt the new platform through process standardisation, data improvement and user readiness. A key requirement of this role is to champion the programme principle of “adopt, not adapt” — adopting standard solution capability and best practice wherever possible to protect ease of use, upgrade pathways and long‑term sustainability. Customisation should be treated as the exception and only pursued where absolutely necessary, as a critical business differentiator.

Requirements

Demonstrable experience in service charge accounting in a UK property context (commercial, residential, mixed‑use), including annual budgets, year-end reconciliations & stakeholder queries.
Experience working across both residential and commercial service charge regimes (or a mixed‑use portfolio), including understanding how differences in lease structures, statutory processes and reporting expectations affect budgets, demands and year-end statements.
Strong working knowledge of how service charge costs are captured, allocated, and reconciled (accruals, prepayments, journals, balancing charges/credits, & funds statements where applicable).
Ability to interpret leases/tenancy documentation to determine service charge recoverability, caps/floors, apportionments and disclosure requirements.
Experience partnering with property and facilities teams to improve coding discipline and ensure expenditure is accurately captured against budgets.
Advanced Excel skills and confidence working with large datasets and reconciliations; able to explain variances clearly to non-finance colleagues.
Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to think laterally.
Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, including management and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with colleagues across multiple business functions.
Highly detail-oriented with a strong control mindset and commitment to accuracy.
Pragmatic and improvement-focused, able to simplify and standardise processes (‘adopt, not adapt’) while maintaining compliance.
Comfortable working in an environment with mixed change maturity levels.
Able to balance assurance with delivery pragmatism. while remaining constructive and business‑
Collaborative, curious and proactive, with interest in learning and continuous improvement.

Nice To Haves

Professional accounting qualification - qualified, part-qualified or qualified by experience.
Knowledge of professional standards and technical releases relevant to service charge reporting (commercial and/or residential), and experience preparing audit/review packs.
Experience with property management accounting systems (e.g., MRI or similar) and supporting ERP or finance transformation projects.
Experience of VAT considerations within service charges & VAT position reconciliations.
Experience supporting service charge aspects of acquisitions/disposals (handover packs, balancing statements, and true-up processes).
Exposure to change programmes, systems replacement, structured process improvement, or data transformation work.
Familiarity with structured testing / readiness concepts (e.g., SIT/UAT, cutover, hypercare), even if not previously owned as a specialist.
Interest in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, autonomous agents, and automation.

Responsibilities

Lead requirements definition for service charge set‑up, budgeting, on‑account demands, expense capture, apportionment, caps/floors, & year‑end reconciliation (balancing statements & postings).
Translate lease provisions and service charge regimes into clear system requirements, controls and data models (including audit trails and evidencing).
Define and validate service charge reporting outputs needed by Finance, Property Management and Asset Management for decision‑making and tenant/leaseholder communications.
Support standardisation of coding and allocation approaches to improve consistency and management information quality across the portfolio.
Support standardisation of accrual reporting basis for service charge accounts.
Apply knowledge of relevant professional standards and guidance for service charges in commercial and/or residential contexts, to inform design decisions.
Ensure the future design supports both residential and commercial service charge regimes, including mixed‑use buildings with distinct schedules, differing consultation/disclosure expectations, and clear, defensible apportionment methods.
Apply knowledge of relevant UK service charge legislation and statutory processes (e.g., consultation requirements for qualifying works/long-term agreements, and information/disclosure expectations for service charge statements) to inform system requirements and controls.
Ensure future processes support appropriate transparency, timeliness, and dispute‑reduction measures through clear documentation, tenant/leaseholder information and consistent reporting.
Advise on how independent review / audit requirements (where required by lease or policy) should be supported by data, controls and reporting packs.
Define the minimum viable service charge data model for go‑live (properties/units, schedules, cost categories, apportionments, caps/floors, reserve/sinking funds where applicable).
Support data cleansing and validation activities to ensure balances, budgets and apportionments are accurate and fit for migration.
Work with stakeholders to ensure service charge expenditure coding and workflow approvals are aligned to the budget structures and recoverability rules.
Support integration and reporting needs (e.g., ensuring data can be extracted for audit/review and management reporting, and that document evidencing can be linked where required).
Support planning and execution of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for service charge scenarios, including test data set‑up, reconciliation checks and defect triage.
Review and sign‑off service charge process designs and key outputs as part of go‑live readiness.
Support training content and ‘how we do service charges’ guidance for Finance and operational colleagues, including practical examples and controls.
Support decision‑making by helping stakeholders distinguish between essential requirements / true differentiators and preferences rooted in historic ways of working that should be addressed through process change, data improvements, or training.
Where deviation from standard is proposed, ensure the rationale is evidence‑based and aligned to long‑term maintainability.
Support review, cleansing and standardisation of datasets (properties, units, leases, occupiers/customers, service charge and planned works data), recognising that improved data quality underpins a successful go‑
Participate in data validation exercises and help confirm data definitions and reporting outputs relevant to commercial property and asset management.
Support testing and readiness activities and provide practical support to colleagues through training, UAT preparation and early life support as needed.
Provide hypercare for service charge processes, ensuring issues are resolved quickly and controls are maintained.

Benefits

25 days holiday per year, plus statutory holidays and 3 discretionary days to cover the Christmas office closure.
Private medical insurance with Bupa.
Defined contribution pension scheme with 12.5% employer contributions.
Life assurance at 7x salary.
Group income protection scheme.
Interest free season ticket loan.
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and wellbeing app “Help@hand”.
Cycle to work scheme.
Onsite gym with 7 weekly classes and 2 Wattbikes.
Regular staff socials and an annual company away day.
Free fruit and breakfast cereals.
Enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave policies (12-month qualifying period).
Hybrid working arrangements -minimum of 155 days in the office per year with minimum of 2 days (not fixed) per week in the office.