Freelance Job: 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.