Senior Financial Accountant in Edinburgh

For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.

Job Overview

Are you an experienced Financial Accountant? We are seeking a Senior Financial Accountant to join on a permanent basis. This is a remote role (UK only). This role represents a great opportunity to join our Global General Ledger team, specializing in U.S. GAAP accounting, statutory reporting, corporate accounting activities, internal controls, and finance transformation initiatives. This role will require working closely with global Business Finance teams and key stakeholders involved in finance transformation, integration, and transition initiatives. Primary focus areas include U.S. GAAP accounting and reporting, posting local statutory adjustments versus U.S. GAAP, various reporting and analytics activities, streamlining processes, supporting finance integration, transfer and transformation projects, maintaining a strong internal control environment, and enhancing accounting and reporting support provided to business partners in our rapidly growing global organization.

What you'll be doing:

• Prepare journal entries, balance sheet reconciliations, and other accounting and reporting schedules, including analyzing and preparing entries reconciling local statutory balances to U.S. GAAP requirements.
• Serve as a key resource for U.S. GAAP accounting guidance and ensure accounting treatment is consistent with company policy and applicable accounting standards.
• Review and analyze financial results to ensure compliance with U.S. GAAP, corporate accounting policies, and reporting requirements.
• Assist with the review of general ledger details and expense run-rates to identify and record required adjustments and reclassifications.
• Assist with reporting and analysis to support global business finance leaders in forecasting and decision-making.
• Support the design, execution, documentation, and monitoring of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) controls and ensure compliance with internal control requirements.
• Perform SOX control activities, assess control effectiveness, identify control gaps, and support remediation efforts.
• Provide internal and external auditors with requested information and supporting documentation.
• Communicate effectively with business partners to ensure transactions are recorded appropriately and in a timely manner.
• Participate in finance transfer, shared service migration, integration, and transformation projects, supporting process standardization and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Assist with the identification and implementation of process improvement activities, including automation opportunities and best-practice solutions.
• Support finance transformation initiatives and other ad hoc requests as required.

Requirements and Profile:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) or equivalent in Accounting/Finance or related discipline.
• Experience: Minimum of five-year accounting experience; an equivalent combination of education and experience may be accepted as a satisfactory substitute for the specific experience.
• Strong knowledge of U.S. GAAP accounting principles and financial reporting requirements.
• Experience preparing and reviewing journal entries, reconciliations, and month-end close activities in a multinational environment.
• Experience with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) controls, internal controls documentation, and audit support.
• Experience supporting finance transformation, process improvement, shared services, or finance migration projects.
• Ability to analyze complex accounting transactions and apply appropriate U.S. GAAP treatment.
• Experience working with statutory accounting requirements and reconciling local GAAP to U.S. GAAP preferred.
• Other: Experience with Accounting Software, intermediate to advanced excel skills, strong written & verbal communication skills required.

Preferred Requirements:

• CPA, CMA, or CA preferred.
• Degree in Accounting.
• SAP, Blackline, and BPC/SAC Experience.

Workplace Requirements:

• This position may require occasional domestic / international travel.
• Candidates must have full and permanent Right to Work in the UK as we are not able to provide sponsorship for this role.

Salary range for this role is £40,000 - £45,000/annum + bonus + benefits. Please note that the salary varies within the range based on factors including, but not limited to, experience, skills, education, certifications, and location.

About Corporate Functions

The Corporate Functions provide operational support across Charles River in areas such as Human Resources, Finance, IT, Legal, Sales, Quality Assurance, Marketing, and Corporate Development. They partner with their colleagues across the company to develop and drive strategies and to set global standards. The functions are essential to providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness, to ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.

About Charles River

Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market. With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly supported the development of 80% of the drugs approved by the FDA in the last five years. At Charles River Laboratories, we recognize and recruit all talent. We are a company committed to fostering a sense of belonging and work daily in this direction.