About us
Finance is organised into a series of teams. Find out about each of our teams and services below:
- Who we are and what we do
- How to access our service
- Our commitment to service users
- What we need from our service users
- Managing our service
- Reporting and resolving problems with our service
- Providing feedback on our service
Who we are, what we do and our Partnership Agreement
Finance provides financial services across the whole of the University, its subsidiaries and trusts. These services are provided through three groups:
-
Financial Planning and Strategy
- Specialist Accounting
- Transactional Services
We also provide support for the finance software through the Financial Systems team.
The principal users of our services are:
- The University Executive Board and its individual members
Schools and their Heads - Functions and their Heads
- Strategy and Finance Committee
- Council
- University subsidiaries and related bodies
- Students
- External stakeholders including funding bodies, research councils and monitoring bodies
This Agreement is valid until 31st July 2018
How to access our service
When we're available
We are available from 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Thursday and until 16.30 on Friday. Outside of these hours any requests or queries should be forwarded to the relevant email address below and these will be responded to and dealt with as soon as possible.
How to contact us
Finance is located in Whiteknights House.
If you know which area you need to contact, please see contact details below. Otherwise, you may call our general help desk on extension 6130. This number will operate as a first enquiry and, in the event that the query cannot be dealt with, your call will be referred to other colleagues for a response.
Business Partners can also be contacted by a School or Function and will be pleased to assist on budgets, forecasts, management accounts, costing and pricing. Their contact details together with the areas they are responsible for are below.
Finance Team members are happy to meet users at their own offices, especially as this may allow other colleagues to participate more easily in any meetings. They are also willing to attend any local management meetings that are held to explain any of the financial statements or similar. Alternatively, meetings can be held in Finance.
| Queries | Contact |
| Receipts queries | receipts@reading.ac.uk |
| Invoice queries | invoices@reading.ac.uk |
| Financial Systems | financial-systems@reading.ac.uk |
| General accounts queries, BIFs etc | finance-help@reading.ac.uk |
| Student Credit Control | studentcreditcontrol@reading.ac.uk |
| Non - student Credit Control | creditcontrol@reading.ac.uk |
| Tax and VAT queries | vat@reading.ac.uk |
| Employment status queries | esq@reading.ac.uk |
| Purchase Cards | purchasecards@reading.ac.uk |
| New Suppliers and Amendments | newsupplierandamendments@reading.ac.uk |
| Campus Card systems | campuscard@reading.ac.uk |
| Payment systems |
ecommerce@reading.ac.uk |
Our commitment to service users
In delivering our services, we commit to the following principles and practices:
- Ensuring we fully understand the activities undertaken by your School or Function, recognising that there will be differences between them all
- Respecting the trust you place in us as one of your key professional advisers
- Working in partnership with you to maximise the benefits for your School or Function where these do not conflict with the University's aims
- Giving timely and accurate advice that takes account of relevant good business practice statutory accounting principles and the University's strategy
- Building effective working relationships with you and our wider stakeholders
- Taking care to understand factors and needs unique to your School, Function or Area of Responsibility
- Engaging in continuous professional development to maintain and enhance our expertise
- Delivering an efficient and effective service in all transactional activities
- Ensuring all specialist areas deliver expert, up to date advice on a timely basis
What we need from our service users
In order to deliver an effective service, we require our service users to do the following:
- Provide us with a clear brief on the support you require from us and the timescale in which it needs to be delivered, letting us know a reasonable time in advance should complex work be required
- Provide us with sufficient time of budget holders and other relevant colleagues within your School or Function as we may reasonably require in order to perform our work for you
- Provide us with information and explanations where we cannot obtain these easily ourselves
- Follow the processes laid down in the relevant financial system on a timely basis in order that workflows operate effectively
- Make use wherever possible of all automated and self-service systems
- Ensure compliance with the Financial Regulations
- Advise us promptly of any changes in staff that will need workflows to be changed in the financial systems
Managing our service
| Andrew Grice Director of Finance |
Ext 8839 |
| Emma Ashley Financial Controller |
Ext 6964 |
| Darren Francis Head of Transactional Services |
Ext 8838 |
|
Marie Misselbrook Head of Finance Planning and Strategy |
Ext 5201 |
Reporting and resolving problems with our service
Users experiencing problems with our service should in the first instance contact the relevant person for that area in Finance as shown above. If the problem is not resolved satisfactorily the user should then contact the Director of Finance.
The Finance Helpdesk can also be contacted to report any problem and this will be escalated to the extent needed in order to resolve the problem.
Providing feedback on our service
We welcome constructive feedback on our services. Compliments and complaints, and suggestions for additions and improvements to our standard services, should be sent to the Director of Finance in the first instance. Periodically, we will request this information as part of the on-going review of our services and their provision.