[Hiring] Interim Senior Accountant @Vira Health

Role Description

Our Head of Finance is going on maternity leave, and we are looking for an experienced finance professional to run our day-to-day finance function while she is away. You will be the main point of contact for finance:

• Keeping the books accurate
• Making sure suppliers and payroll are paid on time
• Getting clear monthly numbers to the leadership team

You will work independently, with our external accountants and Senior Leadership on hand for any issues.

Qualifications

• Based in the UK, with the right to work in the UK
• Proven experience running day-to-day finance, ideally as a senior bookkeeper, assistant accountant or finance manager
• Strong Xero skills, including bank reconciliations, multi-currency and month-end close
• Confident with UK tax: VAT returns and PAYE payroll
• Advanced Excel
• Comfortable using AI tools (Claude) in your daily work, and keen to use them to work faster
• Accurate, organised and able to work independently to deadlines, and explain the numbers clearly to non-finance colleagues

Requirements

• Contractor, up to 2 days a week (days to be agreed, with availability for month-end, payroll and VAT deadlines)
• Duration: 6 months, with the possibility of extension
• Location: Remote, UK-based
• Start date: December 2026, including a handover period with the Head of Finance
• Competitive day rate
• Flexible scheduling

Responsibilities

• Bookkeeping and accounting
  • Code and post transactions in Xero accurately and on time
  • Reconcile bank accounts, cards and payment platforms across all entities and currencies
  • Maintain prepayments, accruals, fixed assets and intercompany balances, and hit the month-end close deadlines
• Sales invoicing and credit control
  • Raise customer and partner invoices in line with contract terms, and check them against agreed pricing and usage data
  • Maintain supporting files in excel to be sent with invoices
  • Allocate cash receipts, chase overdue invoices and report on debtors and cash collection
• Supplier payments and expenses
  • Process supplier bills, run payment batches and answer supplier queries
  • Review and approve employee expense claims against policy, and reconcile company cards (Pleo) including account coding and VAT codes
• Payroll
  • Run monthly UK payroll through our payroll provider, including starters, leavers, changes, pensions and benefits
  • Submit payment to the payroll provider on time
• VAT and tax compliance
  • Prepare and submit VAT returns through Xero, including reverse charge and overseas sales treatment
  • Comfortable calculating partial claims
  • Spot and flag VAT issues early, and raise anything unusual
  • Provide information to our external accountants for year-end accounts and corporation tax
• Management accounts and reporting
  • Prepare monthly management accounts (P&L, balance sheet and cash flow) with clear variance commentary against budget if needed
  • Consolidate multi-currency into group accounts
  • Update the cash flow forecast and highlight cash risks to the leadership team
• Ad hoc and wider finance support
  • Respond to finance queries and data requests from colleagues, customers, partners and suppliers (for example supplier forms, VAT certificates and bank letters)
  • Work with external accounts to prepare year end accounts and tax returns

Benefits