Bookkeeping Team Leader

Gro Profit First Accountants
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Oct 07, 2026

Full time Banking

Job Description

You're already good at this. You're just doing it somewhere that's stopped noticing.

We're looking for someone to lead our entire bookkeeping service - running a small bookkeeping team, keeping your own portfolio, and ultimately raising the standard of everything we do. Here, the deadline is the floor, not the target.

You close the books cleanly. You spot the messy reconciliation before it becomes a problem. You've trained more clients on Xero than you can count, and you quietly fix processes nobody else thought to question.

The work is solid - but the role around it has gone flat. No room to lead. No one really watching the standard. No path that points anywhere new.

This is that path.

You want to see where your potential can go, and you don't want to limit what's possible in the next chapter of your life.

You feel like you've got so much more to give - and you're excited by what comes next.

Who you'd be joining

We're Gro - and we think like ambitious business owners.

Because we are ones ourselves. You get all the rigour and experience you'd expect from a chartered-certified accountancy practice - but with a modern approach that goes well beyond what traditional accountants do.

We don't stop at compliance. We add real value, build long term relationships, and genuinely set out to change the lives of the people we work with - the owners, their teams, and the customers they serve.

And that includes our own team. If we're helping clients build better businesses and better lives, we should be doing exactly the same for the people who make Gro what it is.

The role

Lead our entire bookkeeping service.

This is your time to shine.

Around 80 regular monthly clients, a team of two or three bookkeepers - two in the Philippines, one local AAT technician - and the standard everything's held to. You'll keep your own portfolio and step in on the complex, trickier work where it counts.

But the real job is bigger than clean ledgers. Bookkeeping done properly is the foundation a business stands on - it's how an owner finally gets the clarity, the tools and the real numbers to make confident decisions instead of guessing.

And that ripples outward. When an owner can see their business clearly, their life changes - which changes life for their team, and for every customer those teams look after. You'd be the person making sure that foundation is rock solid: the right work, done to the right standard, comfortably ahead of every deadline.

80 Regular monthly clients in your function 2-3 Bookkeepers you'll lead, UK & Philippines 28th VAT filed by - a week clear of HMRC

Day to day

What that actually looks like

Less reconciling and moving on. More owning the standard, the workflow and the people.

Own the workflow in Karbon

Plan the jobs, prioritise the team, and spot what's drifting before it slips.

Treat the deadline as the floor

Every VAT return filed by month end - ideally the 28th - giving clients a week to ten days' breathing room.

Review & quality control

Sense check the P&L, review balance sheets, and take things through to draft trial balance where needed.

Make life easy downstream

Hand the accounts team clean, sense checked work - not just reconciled and moved on.

Talk to clients like a human

Pick up the phone, run a bit of Xero training, keep the relationship warm.

Ask the question we love

How could this be automated, streamlined, made better? Then go make it so.

You'll keep everyone in sync through our weekly production meeting and the daily 10am huddle - fifteen minutes, no drama, just everyone on the same page.

The toolkit The stack you will run

A modern, automated practice - we tool up to do great work, not tick boxes.

Xero The books Apron Receipts Karbon Practice management TaxCalc Year end Xenon Connect Quality Syft Client reporting

Payroll experience (BrightPay) is a lovely to have for emergency cover - we've a dedicated payroll manager, so it's a bonus, not a requirement.

What we stand for Our core values

Four things we genuinely live by - not a poster on the wall, but how we hire, how we work, and how we show up for each other and our clients every day.

Bring the energy

Batteries included

We show up with genuine enthusiasm. Being around us should lift you - energising and real, never fake positive or flat.

Above the line

Ownership & accountability

No blame, no excuses, no denial. When something goes wrong we look at ourselves first and focus on what we can actually do about it.

Kaizen

Continuous improvement

Always learning, always 1% better. We never stand still - for our clients, our team, or ourselves.

Bring the magic

The extra bit of wow

We go above and beyond. There's always a little extra wow we can add for the people we're lucky enough to serve.

Who this is for

You, if this rings true

At least four years in practice. AAT qualified ideally - but qualified by experience is absolutely fine. We care more about what you can do than what's framed on the wall.

A natural organiser who genuinely enjoys untangling problems and bringing order to a workload.

Independent and self motivated, but a real communicator - confident managing a remote team and talking to clients like a human being.

Curious about technology and AI in this industry. We don't think it replaces good people - we think it makes good people brilliant.

Who this isn't for

Probably not your move if

You want to keep your head down, do exactly your job description and nothing more.

You treat "above the line" as jargon rather than how you actually work.

You reach for excuses before ownership when something goes wrong.

We look for ownership, not excuses. We look at ourselves first when something goes wrong. And we look for the small chance to bring a bit of magic to a client - the unexpected bit of wow.

A day in the role

What a typical day could look like