Accountant to Set Up Departmental Budgets in FreeAgent

We are looking for an experienced accountant or management accountant to help us set up accurate departmental budgeting and reporting within FreeAgent, and to support the allocation of costs and revenue across our departments.

Our current accounting setup needs to be improved so that salary costs and departmental performance can be reported correctly. At present, salaries have been posted as simple staff payments, while our accountant has managed the full payroll breakdown separately. We now want to go back over the last two years and post the correct journal entries into FreeAgent so that our budgets reflect the full employment cost, including pension, tax, National Insurance, and related payroll elements.

The departments involved are Business, Client, Sales, Product, and Innovation. We also need a practical and reliable method for assigning both revenue and cost journal entries to the correct department. This information will then feed into a system called Evidence, which departmental managers will use for access to reporting.

Scope of the role
The successful freelancer will be responsible for three main areas of work.

First, you will review the historical salary postings and enter the required salary journal entries into FreeAgent for the past two years so that departmental budgets include the correct payroll costs.

Second, you will help us design and set up a workable process with our developers so that costs and revenue can be transferred or allocated between departments in a structured and consistent way.

Third, you will test the Evidence system to make sure the data flows through correctly and that the departmental reporting works as expected.

Key responsibilities

Area Responsibility
Historical salary journals
Review payroll-related data and post accurate journal entries in FreeAgent for the last two years
Payroll cost allocation
Ensure salaries include pension, tax, NI, and other relevant payroll costs for budgeting purposes
Departmental budgeting
Help structure departmental budgets across Business, Client, Sales, Product, and Innovation
Revenue and cost allocation
Work with our developers to create a method for assigning journal entries to departments
Systems testing
Test the Evidence reporting setup and confirm outputs are accurate and usable


Ideal experience

We are looking for someone with strong practical experience in management accounting, payroll journals, budgeting, and chart-of-accounts design. You should be confident working in FreeAgent and comfortable dealing with historical corrections, journal postings, and departmental reporting structures.

Experience working with developers or technical teams would be highly valuable, because part of this role involves helping define a process that can be implemented consistently between accounting data and the Evidence system.

Essential requirements

Requirement
Details
Accounting expertise
Strong background in management accounts, journals, departmental budgeting, and payroll cost allocation
FreeAgent experience
Hands-on experience using FreeAgent, including journal entries and reporting structures
Payroll understanding
Good understanding of salary breakdowns including pension, PAYE tax, NI, and related payroll costs
Analytical approach
Ability to review historic transactions and correct them accurately
Collaboration
Comfortable working with both finance stakeholders and developers
Testing mindset
Able to validate outputs and ensure reporting works as expected in Evidence


Deliverables

The expected outcome of this project is:

1. Accurate historical salary journal entries entered into FreeAgent for the past two years.
2. A clear and workable method for assigning revenue and costs to departments.
3. A tested and functioning flow of departmental data into Evidence.
4. Confidence that departmental managers can use the reporting output effectively.