Financial & Management Accountant in Birmingham

Why This Role Exists

Absolute Collagen has strong commercial momentum and a leadership team that is increasingly data-driven in how it makes decisions.

The business needs a commercially minded Management Accountant who can produce accurate, well-structured monthly reporting with clarity and pace, and who has the commercial curiosity to go beyond the numbers and help the business understand what is driving performance.

This role has been created to strengthen the analytical and reporting capability of the finance team.

The Financial Controller holds strategic oversight of the function; this role exists to own the management accounts process end to end, contribute meaningfully to budgeting and forecasting, and build the financial insight infrastructure that a PE-backed, high-growth consumer brand needs to scale with discipline.

About the Role

As Financial & Management Accountant, you will take ownership of the monthly management accounts process, producing accurate P&L, balance sheet and cash flow reporting with clear, commercially relevant commentary that goes beyond variance explanation to tell the business what is actually happening and why it matters.

You will work closely with the Financial Controller on budgeting, reforecasting and ad hoc financial analysis.

You will build relationships with commercial, marketing and operations stakeholders, supporting budget holders and non-finance stakeholders in understanding and managing financial performance.

You will also play a role in strengthening financial controls and month-end disciplines as the business continues to scale.

This is a role that requires equal measures of technical competence and interpersonal confidence.

You will need to be rigorous in the numbers and clear in how you communicate them, comfortable communicating financial information clearly to both finance and non-finance stakeholders.

• Role Impact
• Deliver accurate, timely and commercially intelligent management accounts that give the leadership team clear visibility of business performance and the confidence to act on what they see.
• Build a more structured and reliable budgeting and forecasting process, moving the business from reactive financial reporting to proactive, forward-looking analysis that actively informs planning.
• Build effective working relationships with stakeholders across the business, supporting stronger financial understanding and decision-making.
• Strengthen month-end processes and financial controls, so that growth does not outpace governance and the finance function retains credibility as the business scales.
• Support the CFO and Financial Controller in developing the reporting and insight infrastructure that a PE-backed business at this stage of growth requires, including the dashboards, KPI frameworks and analytical tools that make finance genuinely useful to the leadership team.
• What Success Looks Like
• Management accounts are produced accurately and on time each month, with commentary that provides genuine commercial context, not just numbers with explanations attached.
• The budget and reforecast process is better structured, more collaborative and more useful to the leadership team than when you joined, with improved accuracy and faster turnaround.
• You have established strong working relationships with key commercial and operational stakeholders who seek your input proactively, not just when they need a number from finance.
• Month-end close runs consistently and reliably, with your ownership of the process reducing pressure on the Financial Controller and giving the team greater confidence in its outputs.
• Financial controls are stronger and better documented, and the audit process runs more smoothly as a result of improved reconciliation discipline and process clarity.
• You have introduced at least one meaningful improvement to how the business tracks and reports financial performance: whether in the management accounts pack, the forecasting model or the commercial KPI framework.
• Where qualification studies are ongoing, you are progressing positively and applying that learning in practice

Key Responsibilities

• Management Accounts & Month-End Close
• Prepare monthly management accounts including P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement, with clear and commercially meaningful variance commentary.
• Own the month-end close process, including preparation of accruals, prepayments, depreciation charges and intercompany reconciliations.
• Maintain accurate balance sheet reconciliations and ensure all control accounts are reviewed and signed off on a monthly basis.
• Manage the month-end timetable, co-ordinating with the Assistant and Financial Controller to ensure deadlines are met consistently.
• Business partnering with budget holders to provide support and to gather better information on the numbers.
• Budgeting & Forecasting
• Support the annual budget process, working with budget holders across the business to build accurate, well-challenged cost and revenue plans.
• Assist in maintaining and updating rolling re-forecasts, incorporating the latest commercial and operational intelligence from across the business.
• Provide clear and timely budget vs. actual reporting to budget holders, helping them understand variances and manage their cost bases effectively.
• Financial Analysis & Commercial Insight
• Assist in producing ad hoc financial analysis to support commercial decisions, including product and channel profitability analysis, margin review and cost deep-dives.
• Support the CFO and Financial Controller with monthly reporting and ad hoc financial analysis where required.
• Assist in the development and maintenance of KPI dashboards and management reporting tools that give the leadership team clear, consistent visibility of business performance.
• Identify trends, risks and opportunities within the financial data and proactively communicate findings to the CFO and relevant stakeholders.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Commercial Partnership
• Build effective working relationships with commercial, marketing and operations teams, acting as the function's day-to-day point of contact for analytical queries and financial planning support.
• Translate financial complexity into plain-language insight for non-finance audiences, helping colleagues understand the financial consequences of their decisions.
• Challenge assumptions constructively and bring a commercial perspective to cross-functional discussions, adding value beyond financial reporting.
• Controls, Compliance & Audit Support
• Support the maintenance and documentation of effective financial controls across the business.
• Contribute to the year-end audit process, preparing supporting schedules, responding to auditor queries and ensuring documentation is complete and well-organised.
• Identify gaps or weaknesses in financial controls and recommend improvements to the Financial Controller.
• Support monthly payroll oversight and reconciliation processes in partnership with payroll providers and internal stakeholders.
• Support VAT, PAYE and wider financial compliance activities, ensuring deadlines and reporting obligations are met accurately and on time.

Experience & Capability

• Part-qualified/qualified (ACCA or CIMA), with a clear and credible progression trajectory and a commitment to completing professional qualification where study is ongoing.
• Demonstrable experience in a management accounts or similar analytical finance role, with direct ownership of monthly reporting and month-end close processes.
• Advanced Excel skills, comfortable building financial models, interrogating large data sets, constructing P&L and balance sheet workings from scratch and maintaining rolling forecasting tools.
• Strong commercial curiosity: a genuine interest in understanding what drives business performance, not just an ability to record and report it accurately.
• Clear and confident communicator able to present financial insight to non-finance stakeholders without losing rigour, and to hold constructive conversations with senior leaders when the numbers challenge prevailing assumptions.
• Able to operate with pace and a degree of ambiguity, you are comfortable making sensible judgement calls when data is incomplete, escalating where appropriate, and getting the job done without wfaiting for perfect information.
• Self-directed and proactive, you identify what needs doing and take ownership of it, rather than waiting to be directed.

Desirable

• Experience in a direct-to-consumer, subscription or e-commerce business environment, with exposure to the specific commercial dynamics of a high-growth consumer brand.
• Familiarity with BI or data visualisation tools — Power BI, Tableau, Looker or equivalent — and an appetite to develop reporting infrastructure beyond Excel.
• Exposure to ERP systems such as Xero, Net Suite or equivalent.
• Experience working in a PE-backed or investor-reported business, with an understanding of the financial discipline and reporting cadence that comes with that environment.
• An interest in the wellness, beauty or consumer health sector and an appreciation of the brand dynamics that shape commercial decision-making.
• Ways of Working & Location Expectations

This role is based at Absolute Collagen’s Birmingham HQ, operating within a hybrid working model.

Given the level of stakeholder engagement the role requires — with commercial, marketing and operations colleagues, as well as direct collaboration with the Financial Controller — a meaningful and regular office presence is expected.

The business moves at pace and values finance professionals who are visible, accessible and commercially engaged.

Remote working flexibility will be discussed and agreed based on the rhythm of the role, month-end requirements and the needs of the wider team.