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.

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, with this role specializing in the accounting of compensation and benefits as well as corporate based transactions. This role will require working closely with our Payroll and Human Resources and global Business Finance teams.

You’ll be a self-starter, willing to learn and a strong team player with excellent problem solving skills and a desire to contribute to delivering strategic financial objectives.

Primary focus areas include the following:

• General ledger accounting of compensation and benefits plans, posting local statutory adjustments versus U.S. GAAP, various reporting and analytics activities, stream-lining processes, 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. This includes analyzing and preparing entries reconciling U.S. GAAP balances to local statutory requirements.
• Assist with the review of general ledger details and expense run-rates to identify and record required adjustments and reclassifications.
• Assist with reporting as well as analysis to be used by global business finance leaders for forecasting purposes.
• Assist with creation, documentation and monitoring of systems controls, procedures, and forms. This includes understanding U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley controls.
• Provide internal and external auditors with requested information.
• Communicate effectively with other departments to ensure transactions are recorded appropriately and in a timely manner.
• Assist with identification and implementation of process improvement activities as well as any ad hoc requests.

Requirements and Profile:

• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) or equivalent in Accounting/Finance or related discipline.
• CPA, CMA, or CA qualification preferred (full/part qualified).
• Significant industry-led accounting experience, ideally at other organisations that have global sites/teams.
• Strong understanding and awareness of US GAAP framework and regulations.
• Hands-on experience with Accounting Software (Blackline), Oracle, SAP (BPC/SAC) preferred.
• Intermediate to advanced skills with Microsoft Office Suite, PowerBI essential.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills essential.
• Demonstrable attention to detail, able to build and foster strong working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Candidates must have full and permanent Right to Work in the UK as we are not able to provide sponsorship for this role.

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.

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.