POSITION: Accounts Administrator

REPORTING TO: The Financial Manager

LOCATION: The Hope Foundation Office, Ballinlough, Cork
Working from home 1 day per week negotiable.

START DATE: May – June 2025

SALARY: €35K DOE

HOURS: Full-Time: Mon-Fri, 9am – 5pm

DURATION: Permanent Position (subject to a 6-month probationary period)

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: Fri. 16 May

CVs and COVER LETTERS TO: Sinead Hurley - Email: sineadh@hopefoundation.ie

ABOUT HOPE:

The HOPE Foundation was established in 1999 and is dedicated to promoting the protection of street and slum-connected children primarily in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India. HOPE currently operates 52 projects in the areas of: healthcare, education, child protection and vocational training. We work with some of the most vulnerable and underprivileged children and communities in Kolkata, with the objective of bringing about lasting positive changes in their lives. HOPE has a vision of “a world where it should never hurt to be a child”.

HOPE’s Cork Office is the Head Office of The Hope Foundation and functions as a fundraising and key administrative office for the organisation.

Primary Responsibility: Accounts for the HOPE Schools Programme

The HOPE Schools Programme operates Immersion Trips to Kolkata on a yearly basis where secondary school students, teachers and chaperones visit HOPE’s projects in Kolkata and undertake cultural and educational activities there. Each trip participant fundraises for HOPE. 

This role of Accounts Administrator involves:

• Maintaining individual Excel spreadsheet records for all students and chaperones fundraising for HOPE;
• Liaising with secondary school students, parents, teachers and trip chaperones on all matters and queries relating to the students’ and chaperones’ fundraising accounts;
• Monitoring and recording trip participants’ funds submitted through various income sources and platforms e.g. Bank, Stripe, iDonate, other fundraising platforms;
• Entering the relevant schools’ accounts information into QuickBooks and ensuring that Excel records are matching QuickBooks entries;
• Management of HOPE’s charity chocolate bars which are used as a fundraising tool by trip participants and other HOPE supporters. This includes bars ordering, stock maintenance, creation of sales receipts, invoices etc. as required, recording of all chocolate sales and orders in QuickBooks and in the relevant Excel records;
• Liaising closely with the Schools Programmes Manager and the Schools Team on all matters related to the funds raised by Programme participants.

Other Responsibilities

• Daily inputting into QuickBooks of all categories of Stripe and Global Payments income (HOPE’s online donation payment providers) plus income received through other fundraising platforms as these funds are dispersed to HOPE (eg. iDonate, Benevity etc);
• Communicating with donors and supporters by letter or email to receipt and acknowledge donations as required;
• Notifying relevant staff of income related to their programme or fundraising areas and creating reports as needed;
• Weekly bank lodgements of all cash and cheques submitted to the HOPE office (own car needed);
• Other ad hoc accounts duties including providing the Accounts Team with additional bookkeeping support as needed.

Person Specification

• At least 2 years’ experience in an Accounts Assistant or Accounts Administration role.
• Experience of QuickBooks or similar accounting package.
• Good knowledge of Excel.
• Good knowledge of MS Office 365, ideally cloud-based version.
• Very strong attention to detail.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to work as part of a small, tight-knit team and with the public.
• Full, clean driver’s licence and own car required.
• An Accounting Technician qualification is an advantage, along with any other related qualifications.
• Experience of working with an NGO an advantage.

Note
The duties listed in this job description are not exhaustive and may be subject to change at the discretion of the HOPE Financial Manager, as circumstances dictate.