The Role

Management Accountant – with particular focus on factory / operations

(Interim support during system upgrade)

Contract term 9 months (potential for role to be made permanent)

This is a hybrid role providing additional support in finance during our business system upgrade to Business Central. The role will help embed the system change and ensure finance processes are efficient, robust controls are in operation and the new technology & functionality is properly utilised. The candidate will also support day to day finance tasks relating to month-end and year end and have a particular focus on stock and factory accounting. The period covered by the role includes both the annual budget process and year-end and is therefore expected to provide finance support in these areas too.

The role will report to the Finance Director but also provide backup for the Financial Controller who is project managing the system change.

The System upgrade has moved the business from Sage (finance ledgers only) to Business Central where we have successfully implemented Phase 1 (the finance ledgers). There are two further phases, Manufacturing and Factory Planning, which are due to be complete by the end of the year. The system upgrade changes the way in which we work and many of these processes need to be re-established and embedded.

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape how we maximise the use of the new system and build insightful reporting.

At the same time we are continually improving the Business Intelligence (BI) tool which integrates with Business Central and enables us to build insightful real-time reporting, maximising the benefits of the new system.

The successful candidate will be a key member of the finance team and will be able to work effectively within this team as well as quickly develop strong and mutually supportive relationships with the relevant business areas (in-particular finance and operations).

Key responsibilities

Factory accounting will include:

• Assisting with process change to ensure stock recording is accurate and in real-time
• Job costing – part of phase 2 system upgrade – reviewing outputs, variances and establishing insightful reporting for the factory
• Working closely with the factory operations team to understand the new system and deliver insightful reporting on job performance
• Maintaining standard costs to ensure accurate stock valuation and absorption of overheads
• Monthly stock reconciliations – investigating differences between system and count
• Supporting roll out of cycle counting
• KPI reporting – including stock accuracy, stock holding, purchase price variances and factory variances relating to production jobs

Other responsibilities will include:

• Improve and embed processes that support the system change – for example, rolling out purchase order and approval workflow, automating bank payment upload.
• Month end processes with particular focus on stock but also a team player to support the finance team to deliver monthly reporting on time.
• Year-end preparation ahead of audit – team player helping to pull together the audit file and directing more junior members of the team.
• Support the annual budget process as required – collating budget reports and providing review
• Using the BI tool to generate insightful reports for the business – operations focused