join our team – office manager / bookkeeper

about us

NOTE: APPLICATIONS CLOSE ON THURSDAY 26TH MARCH AT 12 NOON.

Hillhouse Farm is a working farm and diversified rural enterprise with operations near Oxton and Lauder in the Scottish Borders and near Fala in Midlothian. Across our 2,000 acres we run a livestock and arable farming operation, the popular Soutra Café, a portfolio of holiday cottages under Hillhouse Farm Escapes, and Lauderdale Engineering, a steel fabrication business. We’re a family business and have been farming here for nearly 100 years. We’re growing, with ambitious new agritourism plans in the pipeline.

the opportunity

Our long-standing bookkeeper is retiring after many years of valued service, and we’re taking the opportunity to modernise our systems and bring the role in-house in a broader form. We’re moving to Xero for our financial administration, and we’re looking for someone who can take on not just the bookkeeping, but the day-to-day office management and guest-facing administration that keeps a multi-business enterprise running.

This is a role for someone who is equally at home posting invoices in Xero and responding to a wedding enquiry, or coordinating a contractor to fix a boiler in one of the cottages. You’ll need to be organised, self-directed, and comfortable working largely on your own in the farm office.

We’re also open-minded about whether this is one role or two. If you have strong skills on one side (finance, or office / property coordination), we’d still welcome a conversation.

what the role involves

The role covers four main areas:

Financial administration

• Day-to-day bookkeeping in Xero across our four business entities: transaction entry, bank reconciliation, and invoice processing via Hubdoc
• VAT returns for each entity under Making Tax Digital (staggered quarter-ends)
• Monthly management accounts for the café; quarterly accounts for the other entities
• Payroll coordination across three payrolls (café, farm, and engineering)
• Year-end preparation and liaison with our accountants

Cottage, events & visitor administration

• Handling direct booking enquiries for our holiday cottages, raising invoices, and managing guest communications
• Responding to wedding and events enquiries for our farm venue
• Maintaining our bookings CRM and enquiry records
• Showing prospective guests or event clients around the site when needed

Property coordination

• Coordinating routine maintenance for the holiday cottages as needed (e.g. testing fire alarms, taking meter readings, arranging for a tradesperson to fix an issue)
• Energy supplier management
• Maintaining health and safety records for the cottages and event spaces

General office management

• Processing incoming post, filing, supplier correspondence
• Supporting invoicing for the engineering business
• General administration as it arises across the group

who we’re looking for

We’re not after a perfect CV; we’re after the right person. That said, here’s what matters most:

You’ll need to be:

• Organised and self-directed. You’ll manage your own time across multiple entities
• A clear, confident communicator. You’ll be dealing with the management team, our accountants, tradespeople, and guests
• Comfortable with numbers. Understanding what they mean, not just recording them
• Personable and professional. You’ll be one of several points of contact for guests and event enquirers
• A driver with your own transport. The farm is not accessible by public transport

If the role includes bookkeeping, you’ll also need:

• Solid Xero experience (you’re not learning from scratch, though we’re building a new setup so you’re not inheriting anyone else’s either)
• Confident bookkeeping knowledge: double-entry, VAT including zero-rating and reverse charges, bank reconciliation
• The ability to produce management accounts you understand and can discuss

Desirable but not essential:

• Experience with Hubdoc or similar receipt capture tools
• Payroll experience (Xero Payroll or similar)
• Background in farming, hospitality, or rural businesses
• Experience with holiday letting administration or event coordination
• Making Tax Digital familiarity
• Comfort with technology and digital tools. We’re an increasingly digitally-enabled business and that direction of travel will only continue

what we offer

• A genuinely varied role in a beautiful working farm setting in the Scottish Borders
• Part-time to start (2–4 days per week), with real scope to grow as the business expands
• Flexibility on which days and hours you work. We care about the work getting done, not clock-watching
• A modern Xero setup being built from scratch. You won’t be inheriting a mess
• A supportive team: the management are on-site or easily accessible, and we have strong accountant support at year-end
• Workplace pension (Now Pensions)
• The chance to grow with a growing business. Agritourism is a real and expanding part of what we do
• Employers who are friendly and enthusiastic, have a positive attitude towards healthy living, understand the need for work-life balance, strive to give guests an incredible experience, and who genuinely care for our landscape, nature and farming.

how to apply

Please apply via our Indeed listing for this job. You will need a CV and a short covering note telling us why this role appeals to you, and which aspects you feel strongest in.

Applications close: Thursday 26th March at 12 noon.

We’d also welcome an informal conversation before you apply, please get in touch!