Compliance and Accounts Assistant

Help shape the future of intellectual property

Marks & Clerk LLP is the leading and largest firm of Patent and Trade Mark attorneys in the UK with over 50 partners and 350 employees. Our attorneys are highly skilled in all technical fields.  We have 8 offices in the UK: London, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. 

Role purpose

The Compliance and Accounts Assistant is a dual role, split broadly equally depending on workload for any given week, based in the Group finance team.

The Compliance and Accounts Assistant (during the compliance component of the role) will work with the key stakeholders to ensure an excellent client experience during the client take-on process and to ensure that the firm’s policies are strictly adhered to. Having direct interaction with clients and professional staff, the Compliance and Accounts Assistant will be responsible for providing full administrative support in the engagement of new clients for all offices and undertaking due diligence on a risk sensitive basis as required to ensure compliance with money laundering regulations.                                                                                           
The Compliance and Accounts Assistant (during the accounts component of the role) is also responsible for providing administrative and bookkeeping support within the Group Finance team, and will work closely with the Financial and Management accounts teams. This includes (but is not limited to) running and distributing monthly budget holder expense reports, performing specific balance sheet reconciliations, raising intercompany invoices, and assisting with the month end close process.  

Principal responsibilities

• Liaising with fee earning staff and clients to ensure that all new clients receive an excellent client experience during the acceptance process.
• Determining the required client acceptance checks based upon client characteristics and the firm’s processes.
• Completing the required client acceptance checks including reviewing certified documents and conducting database searches.
• Liaising with the credit management team to obtain credit status reports and to determine credit risk.
• Proactively identifying and solving issues, which arise during the client acceptance process.
• Issuing appropriate letters of engagement and terms of business for e-signature.
• Alerting relevant stakeholders of failure to meet deadlines for completion of client take on procedures and ensuring that the system credit status is updated in line with strict compliance requirements.
• Managing the re-issue of Terms of Business to existing clients, in accordance with targeted mailing lists, and recording/tracking details in the document management system (DMS); issuing reminders requesting return of signed documents where required and keeping the relevant  fee earners and Credit Managers updated.
• Investigating unidentified incoming monies, ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering regulations and researching credit note balances on debtor and sundry accounts to facilitate prompt resolution.
• Producing and maintaining balance sheet reconciliations for a range of financial balances, including the intercompany billing accounts.
• Running and distributing monthly budget holder expense reports.
• Raising quarterly invoices to M&C Associated firms
• Assisting the Management Accountant with preparation of the Management Accounts for the UK firm and for the international group of companies (MCI), including responsibility for posting basic month end journals and collation of management information to be included.
• Attending quarterly meetings with budget holders
• Providing ad-hoc support to the Financial Accountant
• Assisting with client money cash postings

Technical knowledge, professional qualifications and experience

The successful candidate will have:

• A minimum of 2 years’ experience in a similar role – with client facing experience – within a professional services environment (a broad legal knowledge and experience of AML would be a distinct advantage).
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills - both written and verbal.
• The ability to manage a varied workload and prioritise tasks to meet deadlines.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft office products, in particular Excel and Word.
• An understanding of Finance and Accounting including journal postings, budgets and reporting.   

In addition, the successful candidate will be able to demonstrate:

• The ability to deal with internal and external stakeholders and a commitment to the provision of excellent service to internal and external clients.  
• A methodical approach to work with excellent attention to detail and honed research skills.
• A self -motivated working style with the ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team.

Remuneration and benefits

• Competitive salary dependent on qualification and experience
• 26 days’ annual holiday plus statutory holidays
• Hybrid working
• Contributory pension scheme
• Life assurance
• Private medical insurance (after 12 months)
• Permanent health insurance (after 12 months)
• Reimbursement of membership fees to professional bodies required for the role