We’re Hiring: Finance Officer

Contract:        Fixed Term – 1 year (extension expected but subject to funding)

Hours: 14 Hours per week (option to split over 3 days)

Salary:            £32, 000 FTE pro rata (£12,800 pa for pro rata for 2 days / 14 hours)

Place of work: Office based with some hybrid working. Office based at Held in Our Hearts head office (Craiglockhart, Edinburgh)

Reporting to: Chief Operating Officer

About the role

The Finance Officer will play a key role in ensuring the smooth and accurate financial management of Held in Our Hearts, working closely with and under the guidance of the Finance Director. The postholder will manage day-to-day financial operations, maintain accurate financial records, support budget monitoring and reporting, and help ensure compliance with charity finance regulations.

What you’ll do

Key responsibilities

Financial Administration & Record Keeping

• Maintain accurate financial records using SAGE or similar accounting software.
• Process income and expenditure transactions, ensuring correct coding to budget lines and funding streams.
• Reconcile bank accounts and credit card statements.
• Oversee and process staff and volunteer expense claims.
• Support the preparation and submission of Gift Aid claims.
• Record, update, and maintain accurate financial information on the organisation’s CRM system (Beacon), including grant awards, budgets, income, and associated financial reports.

Payroll and Payments

• Manage supplier invoices and payment runs, ensuring authorisation procedures are followed.
• Maintain accurate records of staff costs and pension contributions.

Budgeting and Reporting

• Support the finance director, COO and SLT with preparation of annual budgets and forecasts.
• Produce monthly management budgets accounts and variance reports for review by the Finance Director, CEO and Board.
• Assist with financial reporting requirements for funders, including restricted and unrestricted income tracking.
• Support year-end processes and preparation of information for the external audit and independent examination.

Compliance and Systems

• Ensure compliance with financial policies, procedures, and charity finance regulations.
• Support implementation and ongoing improvement of financial systems and processes.
• Work with the COO, finance director and auditors to ensure strong financial controls are maintained.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of working in a finance or bookkeeping role, ideally within a charity, third sector, or small organisation.
• Strong bookkeeping skills, with experience maintaining accurate financial records and using financial systems and/or CRM databases for reporting.
• Knowledge of fundraising income streams, including restricted and unrestricted income, and experience of processing or supporting Gift Aid claims.
• Understanding of budgets, management accounts, and routine financial reporting, with the ability to support budget monitoring and funder reporting.
• Excellent attention to detail and strong organisational skills, with the ability to maintain accurate records and meet deadlines.
• Ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and use initiative to resolve routine finance queries.
• Good communication skills, with the ability to explain financial information clearly and confidently to non-financial colleagues.

Desirable Criteria:

• Knowledge of charity accounting principles, including restricted and unrestricted funds, and funder compliance requirements.
• Experience supporting audits or liaising with external auditors, including preparing documentation and responding to audit queries.
• Familiarity with accounting, payroll, and basic payroll administration.
• An AAT qualification or equivalent accountancy qualification, or equivalent practical experience in a finance role.
• Experience with Gift Aid claims, payroll, and statutory returns.
• Experience working with finance software used in the charity sector (e.g. Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, or similar).
• Understanding of financial controls and procedures within small organisations.
• Experience producing or contributing to funder financial reports.

Key relationships:

• Finance Director/CEO/Chief Operational Officer
• Treasurer and Board of Trustees
• External accountant/auditor
• SLT and fundraising teams

What you’ll gain

Staff Benefits:

• Immediate entry to the company’s group life assurance benefit scheme of 4 x your basic annual salary.
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Following 3 months’ service you will (subject to eligibility) be entitled to opt into the company pension scheme. The company will pay a contribution of 3% of your salary. You may be required to make a personal contribution, as required under auto enrolment legislation, which will be deducted from salary.
• Flexible working available.
• Public holidays not given, but extended holidays gifted over Christmas and New Year
• 35 days of annual leave pro rata

About the charity:

• Held In Our Hearts is a Scottish charity with over 40 years of experience providing baby loss counselling and support to families in the community. Our mission is to ensure that no one is alone after the loss of a pregnancy, baby or infant. We do this by providing free, specialist, trauma-informed, early-intervention Hospital to Home support, specialist counselling and long-term peer support.
• Baby loss is an incredibly isolating experience, families often feel overwhelmed and alone in their grief, and struggle to find others who understand. Our trained peer supporters are all bereaved parents themselves, so can support families from a place of shared experience, understanding and true empathy.
• With Held In Our Hearts’ support families can build resilience and adjust to life after loss, so much so that they can begin to socialise again, communicate openly about their grief and return to daily routines. From the earliest days of loss to the months and years that follow, we walk alongside families with empathy, connection, and love.
• Our mission is to ensure no one in Scotland faces baby loss alone. Our work is rooted by our values of empathy, connection and love. If you share these values and believe in our mission, this could be a role where you make a meaningful difference every day.

GDPR Information

• If you apply for this role, we would like to keep this data until our open role is filled. We cannot estimate the exact time period, but we will consider this period over when a candidate accepts our job offer for the position for which we are considering you. When that period is over, we will either delete your data or inform you that we will keep it in our database for future roles.
• Here’s a link to our privacy policy – https://heldinourhearts.org.uk/privacy-policy/ In this policy, you will find information about our compliance with GDPR. You can find how to send us a request to let you access your data that we have collected, request us to delete your data, correct any inaccuracies or restrict our processing of your data.
• You have the right to lodge a complaint about the way we handle your data, and you can contact us on info@heldinourhearts.org.uk or on 0131 622 6263 for more information or concerns.
• Alternatively, you can make contact with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is the independent regulatory authority who exist to uphold information rights in the UK. For more information, visit their website or call their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

To apply, please send your CV and Cover Letter to our Chief Operating Officer, Rossi Craig: info@heldinourhearts.org.uk

Closing Date: Friday, 23rd January 2026; 12.00 noon

Interviews: W/C 2nd February 2026