Finance Manager in Hampshire, Hook

This fast-paced, highly dynamic, consumer-facing e-commerce company operates a market-leading business model. As part of its ongoing appetite to scale, it is recruiting a critical role to help shape and develop financial reporting capabilities, controls and processes.

The company owns significant amounts of Inventory which is stored and prepared at various group UK operating sites. Representing the most significant individual item in the company balance sheet, Inventory is critical to the efficient operation of the business and the management of working capital.

Leading the team responsible for inventory management, the role includes:

• Ensure that all processes, procedures and transactional accounting in relation to inventory are fit for purpose.
• Own end-to-end inventory balance sheet reconciliations and reviews; monitoring controls and reconciliations to ensure underlying processes.
• Deliver month end reporting.
• Identify areas for improvement and manage the team to execute the appropriate changes.
• Stock count: Ensure that adequate stock count instructions are in place and agreed between Finance and Operations; that stock counts proceed in line with instructions (this will require regular attendance of stock counts at operating sites); that reconciliations are performed and documented timely and to a high quality; and that any adjustments required to correct discrepancies identified during the count are reflected in the accounts.
• Ensure that the team's accounting for purchases of inventory from multiple sources and sales of inventory are robust.
• Identify situations where new operational or commercial arrangements require new or changed transactional flows, design processes to capture these, and implement with the Finance and Ops teams.

In addition to Inventory, you will have responsibility for accounting and reporting for other areas of the P&L and balance sheet:

• Period-end reporting, including management accounts and other deliverables for the Management Team and other stakeholders.
• Oversee/perform testing of the ERP system, following development work (e.g. implementation of new workflows, development of new import files and bank export files, transactions relating to new products).
• Partner with colleagues across the business to understand new products & services, ensuring that finance requirements are scoped into the development plan, and that the correct transactions are captured.
• Work closely with Customer Experience and Product teams, ensuring that operational and administrative activities which touch on finance are appropriately controlled.

The successful candidate will have a profile that includes:

• Track record of managing and developing finance team members.
• Strong and up-to-date technical accounting skills, and a background in financial control & financial reporting.
• A passion for finding solutions to enhance performance.
• Experience of managing complicated accounting processes and controls, ideally in companies with significant levels of inventory located at multiple locations.
• Desire to improve financial and operational processes, and experience of having done so.
• Well-organised with excellent attention to detail and the ability to multitask.
• Ability to take ownership of tasks and see them through to completion whilst working under pressure to meet deadlines.
• Flexible, able to work in a fast-paced environment, employing pragmatism where necessary.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and leadership skills.
• Articulate, persuasive, confident, possessing sound intellect; a self-starter with the ability to combine professional rigour with practical business requirements.
• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics Business Central or Navision accounting systems is preferred, but not essential.