Role Responsibility
Role Purpose
The Finance Manager is required to lead and develop the UK & ROI management accounting team, overseeing all day-to-day activities and ensuring the timely completion of objectives. This includes timely and accurate completion of monthly accounts, cost centre reviews and analysis, a centre of excellence for financial control, balance sheet reconciliations etc. In addition, the Finance Manager is expected to act as a key finance contact and business partner for various stakeholders across the organisation, providing ad hoc guidance and project management as required.
Key Responsibilities
- Oversee all working areas of the UK & ROI finance team including accounting for Retail, Central & Warehouse business units, fixed assets, property costs, payroll, sales targets, expenses, cash and banking
- Lead the Month End close, reviewing all ledgers and ensuring accuracy across ERP and reporting systems
- Prepare monthly management accounts, ensuring accuracy of P&L, balance sheet and cashflow statements, and providing detailed analysis of performance, costs and revenues against the budget and prior years
- Complete & review monthly reconciliations including balance sheet, intercompany and bank
- Co-ordinate planning cycles for Retail, Central & Warehouse business units, including budgets and forecasts supported by sufficiently detailed analysis and financial modelling, and present budget for board level review
- Act as primary contact for external auditors with respect to management accounting queries, including the co-ordination of deliverables, disclosure packs, tax packs and ad hoc requests
- Review monthly bonus & commission files, ensuring accurate calculations across a variety of complex regular and ad hoc incentive schemes, within tight submission deadlines
- Carry out ad hoc financial modelling to support restructuring, projects and initiatives as required
- Oversee the preparation and distribution of daily cash flow forecasts and ad hoc liquidity planning
- Supervise the day-to-day running of multiple expenses & travel systems including the authorisation and payment of claims, resolution of queries and accurate posting of costs to the ledgers
- Ensure the completion of monthly sales targets for UK & ROI Retail business units, using a variety of modelling techniques in consultation with the Retail team and business partners
- Lead the progression of changes and upgrades to the ERP system (Microsoft Dynamics 365) relating to all areas of the UK & ROI finance team, including fixed assets, banking and financial reporting
- Oversee the preparation of PSA returns, VAT returns for several territories and assist in P11d reporting
- Ensure the completion of other statutory reporting including national statistics submissions, gender pay gap and environmental reporting obligations
- Act as principle finance contact for various areas of the business by building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders, assisting with projects, progressing operational issues and dealing with ad hoc financial queries as required
- Lead the UK & ROI finance team, providing day-to-day guidance and encouraging professional growth through continuous monitoring of performance against agreed objectives
Person Specification
Qualifications and Experience
- Fully qualified accountant (ACA/CIMA/ACCA) with 5+ years of post-qualification experience - essential
- Prior experience of managing and developing a team, ideally throughout periods of change - essential
- Experience of co-ordinating budgets, forecasts and audit deliverables - essential
- Advanced Excel and PowerPoint capabilities - essential
- Educated to at least Bachelor degree level or equivalent - desirable
- Experience of a multi-site retail/FMCG environment – desirable
Personal Qualities
- Inspirational leader, able to challenge and motivate team members
- Ability to deliver results within tight deadlines in a dynamic environment
- Highly analytical with keen attention to detail
- Pro-active and confident in managing multiple projects, able to prioritise and delegate accordingly
- Can-do attitude and approachable to a diverse range of stakeholders
- Strong verbal & written communicator, able to give clearly defined instructions
- Ability to deliver complex financial data in an concise and understandable format
Measures of success
- Timely and accurate submission of monthly management accounts for UK & ROI and all associated balance sheet, intercompany and bank reconciliations to Group Finance
- Preparation of detailed budgets and forecasts within agreed timelines
- Delivery of accurate payroll calculations, VAT returns, expenses payments and cashflow forecasts within expected deadlines
- Completion of objective review cycles for all team members throughout the year