Location:                    London

Reports to:                 Director of Finance (DoF)

Grade:                        6

Duration:                    12 months

About Us:       

We are The Royal College of Pharmacy (RCPharm), the professional leadership body for pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists. Our mission is to put pharmacy at the forefront of patient care.

As a royal college, incorporated by Royal Charter, it is a registered charity with a public benefit purpose while remaining focused on supporting its members to deliver great patient care, develop their capability through education, assessment and credentialling and advancement in the science, research and practice of pharmacy.

Our mission is to put pharmacy at the forefront of patient care.

Our vision is to become the world leader in the safe and effective use of medicines.

We empower pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists to deliver excellence in practice and the advancement of safe and effective medicines usage across Great Britain and beyond.

We work to develop professional standards, guidance, learning and credentialing to support pharmacists and the wider pharmacy team to deliver safe, effective and patient-centered care.

Our values:

At the core of our culture, our Values Focus, Agility, Quality, Collaboration and Respect describe the way we work to achieve our organisational goals.

We believe people don’t need to be fixed to their desk to achieve great things, so we offer flexibility to our people in how they do their work wherever possible, to bring out the best in everyone and provide an inclusive working environment. 

Our governance and leadership:  

Our Trustee board and Senate provide overall governance and strategic direction for the College. Our three National Pharmacy Boards provide advocacy, support and strategic leadership for pharmacy practice and developments within England, Scotland and Wales. The Pharmaceutical Press (PhP) Board advises the Assembly on the direction and approach of Publishing, while our Executive Team look after every aspect of our operations.

Central Services:

We support the organisation to achieve its goals by providing people, technology, facilities and financial services. 

 The organisation has recently gone through a significant change, moving from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to the Royal College of Pharmacy (RCPharm), a registered charity with trading subsidiaries.  

 Consequently, a key focus for the Finance Department and this new role will be to strengthen the new charity’s financial control environment, implement new charitable requirements, and in partnership with senior stakeholders to transform financial processes, systems and controls throughout the new charitable group.

The Role Profile:       

The Interim Financial Controller will manage the finance function for the new charity and its trading subsidiaries, ensuring that appropriate controls are in place, key deadlines are met and that accurate and compliant financial information is produced.

Specific Accountabilities:

Financial Control and Compliance

• Oversee all transactional and financial accounting areas and systems for the charity and its subsidiaries, ensuring that appropriate procedures, controls and systems are in place or are introduced as appropriate throughout the group:

  • Sales Ledger and invoicing

  • Credit Control

  • Purchase Ledger and PO system

  • General Ledger

• Manage all transactional finance and accounting staff (see Job Context below).

• Review and approve supplier pay runs and other payments prior to authorisation.

• Oversee the treasury function including all banking, investment and payment systems and work with the DoF to implement the treasury strategy for the group.

• Develop, implement and maintain robust financial policies and procedures and internal controls and systems where appropriate, ensuring clarity, consistency and accountability across the organisation.

• Manage the application of the delegated authorities that relate to the Finance Department, including Financial Authorisation levels for expenditure.

• Co-ordinate the preparation of the new Finance Manual, ensuring that it complies with internal and external accounting requirements.

• Work with the DoF to improve the financial discipline of the organisation by embedding new processes, systems and other requirements across the business and challenging actions where appropriate.

Financial Accounting:

• Manage the month end process and the preparation of month end accounts for the charity, its subsidiaries and the consolidated group according to requirements (Charities SORP, FRS 102) and the agreed timetable.

• Review and approve all general ledger journals.

• Review and approve the monthly trial balance and accounts files (P&L and B/S) for the charity, its subsidiaries and the consolidated group.

• Review and approve all Balance Sheet reconciliations.

• Review and approve any regular or ad hoc analysis and reports prepared by the

• financial accounting or transactional teams.

• Manage the year end accounting and annual audit processes according to deadlines.

• Manage the production of the group and subsidiary statutory accounts and the financial statements section of the group Annual Report.

• Keep up to date with accounting standards and legislation relevant to the charitable group and its subsidiaries, ensuring that they are understood, communicated and appropriately applied.

Taxation:

• Manage all taxation requirements (VAT, Gift Aid, PAYE/NI, Corporation Tax) and processes for the organisation (charity and subsidiaries), ensuring that necessary reports and payments are submitted according to deadlines.

• Review and approve all tax computations including quarterly VAT reconciliations, returns and payments, application of PESM, gift aid calculations.

• Liaise with external tax advisors as required.

• Support the DoF with taxation planning for the charitable group.

• Keep up to date with taxation legislation relevant to the organisation and ensure that it is suitably communicated and applied.

Other:

• Deputise for the DoF and represent the Finance Department at cross departmental meetings as required.

• Oversee the management of relevant systems (see Job Context below) ensuring continuous improvement and development.

• Manage or support relationships with third party advisors as required (e.g. external accountants and tax advisors, finance system support)

• Manage responses to National Statistics Enquiries and similar requests, ensuring that they are appropriately reviewed and meet required deadlines.

• Provide accurate and timely information to support the DoF and FBPs with financial planning, reporting and analysis, including:

  • monthly individual (charity and subsidiaries) and consolidated P&L and balance sheet reporting for the group.

  • monthly management accounts for budget holders.

  • group business plans and annual budgets.

  • regular forecast updates.

  • other business reporting requirements.

• Build/maintain strong working relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.

• Ensure that finance and non-finance staff receive appropriate financial training.

• Identify opportunities for efficiencies across finance operations.

• Attend meetings with the Executive, Boards, Committees or other stakeholders to support the DoF, as required.

**This list is a summary of the main accountabilities of this role and is not exhaustive. The role holder may be required to undertake other reasonable duties from time to time.

Success Measures:

• Key internal and external deadlines and deliverables are achieved.

• Group and subsidiary statutory accounts produced in appropriate format.

  • Clean 2026 audit report with minimal adjustments or queries.

• Builds strong working relationships with stakeholders (see Relationships below)

• Delivers a confident and competent financial service.

  • Positive feedback from stakeholders.

• Creates gap analysis for current financial procedures, controls and systems, documents requirements and obtains cross functional agreement of changes.

• Implements and embeds improved financial procedures, controls and systems across the organisation resulting in improved efficiencies and accuracy.

• Communicates financial policies and procedures effectively and ensures they are being followed within the organisation.

  • Delivery of the draft Finance Manual.

  • Positive feedback from stakeholders on usability and effectiveness of new procedures and systems.

Job Context, Dimensions and Key Relationships:

• The job holder reports to the DoF and has the following direct reports:

  • Accounts Supervisor (team of three)

• The job holder has responsibility for the following systems in the organization:

  • Accounting (MS Business Central):

    • General Ledger, Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger, PO system

  • Expense management (Continia)

  • Banking (NatWest, BACs)

• Key internal relationships:

  • Finance Business Partners (FBPs)

  • Director of Finance & Operations, Pharmaceutical Press

  • People Partnering Lead

  • Other key stakeholders – CEO, Executive Directors, budget holders

• Key external relationships:

  • Auditors

  • Tax advisors

  • Bank

  • Customers, suppliers

Knowledge & Skills for this job

Essential:

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or equivalent).

• Proven post qualification experience in a similar role in a charity.

• Strong financial management experience including transactional areas (sales ledger/credit control, purchase ledger, treasury/cashflow) and general ledger.

• Strong technical accounting (FRS 102, Charities SORP, group consolidations) and taxation (VAT/PESM, Gift Aid) knowledge.

• Experience managing the year end audit for a charitable group and preparing year-end financial statements and the annual report under the Charities SORP.

• Proven experience developing and implementing improved financial controls, systems and processes in the charity sector.

• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communications skills.

• Ability to manage own and team workloads to meet deadlines and able to deal with changing priorities.

• Hands on experience using and optimising the use of financial accounting software.

• Competent user of MS Word/Excel and/or other relevant software packages.

Desirable:

• Sound staff management experience, particularly with financial accounting, taxation and small transactional teams.

• Hands on experience using, managing and developing MS Dynamics 365 Business Central and related systems.

• Proficient user of Microsoft PowerBI.

• Experience working with a similar Royal College or membership organization.

Date Job Description Agreed: May 26