Head of Management Accounting

• As Head of Management Accounting you own the group’s month-end and year-end close, and the management accounts we publish from it: the timetable, the quality of the numbers, and the team that delivers them
• You also own the transactional finance engine that feeds the ledger — Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll — and the controls that sit around it
• This is the role the rest of the Finance function depends on. FP&A cannot produce insight, the Head of Financial Reporting cannot produce statutory accounts, and the Board cannot make decisions until the management accounts are closed accurately and on time
• You will lead a team to deliver exactly that, month after month, while systematically shortening the close and strengthening the controls around it
• You will also design, build and publish a comprehensive set of management accounts for the group, for each legal entity and for every cost centre owner
• Because AP, AR and Payroll sit in your team, you own the quality of the data at the point it enters the ledger, not only at the point it is reported
• Reporting to the Group Finance Director, this is a mid-senior leadership role for a qualified accountant who takes personal pride in a clean, fast, well-controlled close and in transactional processes that pay suppliers correctly, collect from customers promptly and pay colleagues accurately

Month-End Close:

• Own the group month-end close end-to-end: set the timetable, allocate ownership, and hold the team and the wider business to the deadlines
• Deliver draft management accounts by working day 3, and close and publish by working day 5, every month, without exception. Allocation detail may continue to be added after publication to enrich the data warehouse, but the published numbers do not change
• Design, build and publish a comprehensive and quality assured management accounts pack for the group and for each legal entity, covering P&L, balance sheet and cashflow against budget, latest forecast and prior year, with written commentary on every material variance
• Publish a granular monthly P&L to every cost centre owner, showing the full cost line detail they own against budget and forecast — not a small number of summary lines they cannot act on
• Work with FP&A and the Head of Finance Projects to load budgets and forecasts into the general ledger, including the roll-up account structure needed so that actuals reported in detail can be compared to budgets set at a higher level
• Reconcile, review and challenge the numbers before they are released - accruals, prepayments, provisions, revenue recognition, intercompany and cost allocations all held to a consistent standard
• Own the balance sheet: ensure every account is reconciled, reviewed and substantiated, with ageing and unreconciled items reported and cleared
• Provide clear variance analysis and commentary on performance against budget, forecast and prior period, giving FP&A a reliable platform for insight
• Ensure the general ledger and NetSuite are maintained to a high standard, including chart of accounts integrity, the dimensions and roll-ups needed to report by entity, cost centre and product, a clean separation of normalised trading from one-off items, correct posting discipline and consistent treatment across entities

Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable & Payroll:

• Own Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll as part of the Management Accounting team, holding each to the same standards of accuracy, timeliness and control as the close itself
• Accounts Payable — no PO, no payment. Enforce purchase order discipline and approval thresholds so that commitments are captured when they are made, spend is approved before it is incurred, and there is no off-system spend
• Accounts Payable — treat supplier onboarding and any change to supplier bank details as an anti-fraud control, with independent verification, segregation of duties and dual authorisation of every payment run
• Accounts Payable — run payment runs to agreed supplier terms, neither early nor late, and manage creditor days as a reported KPI rather than an accident of processing
• Accounts Payable — ensure the AP ledger drives the accruals: goods received not invoiced and unprocessed invoices identified and posted at each close, so that costs land in the period they belong to
• Accounts Receivable — invoice accurately and immediately. Revenue that is earned should be billed in the same period it is earned, with no backlog of unraised invoices
• Accounts Receivable — run a disciplined weekly collections cycle with clear escalation on aged debt, and manage debtor days as a reported KPI
• Accounts Receivable — set credit control at the point of customer onboarding, with credit limits and payment terms agreed before exposure is taken rather than after it has gone wrong
• Accounts Receivable — apply the expected credit loss provisioning policy consistently, agreed with the Head of Financial Reporting, so that the debtor position in the management accounts is the position the statutory accounts will support
• Payroll — right pay, right day, every time. Own the payroll timetable, the checking process before submission and the review of every exception before it is paid
• Payroll — control starters, leavers and changes jointly with the People team, so that no one is paid who should not be and no change is missed
• Payroll — reconcile payroll to the general ledger and to HMRC every month, covering PAYE, National Insurance, pension contributions and benefits, with liabilities cleared on time
• Payroll — account fully for bonus, commission, holiday pay and share incentive costs, working with the Head of Financial Reporting on the technical treatment
• Payroll — confidential by design. Restrict access, separate preparation from approval, and protect colleague data as a matter of course

Financial Reporting:

• Report AP, AR and Payroll performance monthly — creditor days, debtor days, aged debt, ageing of unprocessed invoices, payroll accuracy and error rates — so that transactional performance is managed on evidence
• Work with Treasury so that the payments and collections cycles are visible in the cash forecast, and with FP&A so that working capital movements are understood and explained

Year-End Delivery:

• Own the Finance function’s delivery of year-end close, ensuring the ledgers are closed accurately and to timetable
• Work closely with the Head of Financial Reporting to provide the schedules, reconciliations and supporting evidence required for statutory accounts and the external audit
• Resolve accounting queries and audit requests promptly, and pre-empt likely areas of auditor focus so they are addressed before fieldwork begins
• Ensure consistency of accounting treatment between management and statutory reporting, identifying and explaining any differences clearly
• Support the Head of Financial Reporting in delivering interim audit work in the fourth quarter, including preparing a full set of accounts on an 8+4 forecast basis

Control & Quality:

• Maintain and strengthen the control environment around the close – quality assure all the numbers, review evidence, segregation of duties, approval thresholds and a documented close checklist
• Ensure processes and key controls are documented, current and capable of being operated by more than one person
• Own the anti-fraud controls around outbound payments and payroll, including supplier and employee bank detail verification, dual authorisation, and prompt investigation of any attempted or suspected payment fraud
• Own the Chart of Accounts, ensuring there is a named owner and a regular review for each and every account code
• Ensure financial data released into the data warehouse has been approved by Finance and reconciled to the general ledger before the wider business relies on it
• Support the Head of Financial Reporting and Chief Internal Auditor on financial risk assessment, control testing and remediation across management accounting processes

Team Leadership:

• Lead, develop and hold accountable your team, setting clear expectations on quality, timeliness and ownership
• Lead the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll teams alongside the management accounts team, holding them to the same standards and giving them the same visibility of how their work affects the group’s results
• Allocate work sensibly across the close, building resilience and cross-cover so that the timetable is not dependent on any one individual
• Manage the transfer of management accounting activities into this team over time, as those activities are automated and move across from the entity finance teams, ensuring process, knowledge and controls transfer cleanly
• Coach and develop the team technically and professionally, supporting study, progression and the transition of activity into the team as the structure evolves
• Set the tone for the team’s engagement with the rest of the business - responsive, constructive and commercially aware

Continuous Improvement:

• Systematically shorten and de-risk the close, targeting manual journals, spreadsheet dependency and late adjustments
• Work with the Head of Finance Projects to specify, test and embed automation and system improvements affecting management accounting
• Standardise process and accounting treatment across entities as the group continues to integrate
• Embrace automation and agentic AI within the close — automated feeds into NetSuite, automated reconciliation and machine-prepared first-cut reporting — so that the team’s time goes into review, explanation and insight rather than assembly
• Extend that automation into transactional finance — invoice capture and coding, automated matching and cash allocation, and payroll checking — so that the team spends its time on exceptions and control rather than on keying

Key relationships:

• The role is primarily Finance-facing. Day to day you will work with the Group Finance Director, your own team, and the Head of Financial Reporting on year-end and audit
• You will partner closely with the Head of FP&A and the business finance team, who rely on your outputs, and with the Directors of Financial Control on entity-level reporting
• Beyond Finance, you will work with budget holders across the business on cost recognition, accruals and month-end inputs, and with the Head of Finance Projects on improvement work
• You will work closely with the People team on payroll, starters, leavers and reward, and with Commercial and Operations on customer billing, credit terms and collections
• Externally you will hold the relationships with our suppliers, our payroll provider and our customers’ finance teams on billing and payment
• You will also support the external audit relationship through the Head of Financial Reporting

A publisher, not just a preparer - you believe numbers only create value once they are in the hands of the people who can act on themExperience leading and developing a team, including managing performance and building capabilityExperience in payments, e-money or financial services is desirable but not essentialYou treat the Balance Sheet and Cashflow as just as important if not more important than the P&LDemonstrable experience of improving a close process - shortening timetables, reducing manual effort or strengthening controlsExperience of designing and launching a management reporting pack, including cost centre reporting against budget, is a strong advantageA capable manager - you get work done through your team rather than doing it all yourselfAdvanced Excel and confident use of an ERP-based general ledger; NetSuite experience is a meaningful advantageDeadline-driven - you treat the close timetable as a commitment, not an aspirationStrong technical grounding in IFRS as they apply to management reporting, with the judgement to apply them consistentlyExperience of owning transactional finance — Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll — including the controls, KPIs and supplier, customer and colleague relationships that go with themYou highlight trends and identify opportunities to drive revenue or reduce costs from the details you see in your ledgersDiscreet and trustworthy - you handle payroll and colleague data with the care it deservesA working understanding of UK payroll obligations, including PAYE, National Insurance, pensions and benefits, and the controls needed to run payroll accurately and confidentiallyClear communicator - you can explain a movement in the numbers to a non-finance budget holder as easily as to the CFORigorous - you complete all reconciliations, review properly, ask the awkward question, and do not sign off on numbers you cannot explain. You produce numbers and explanations that people trust and act uponA custodian of working capital - you understand that how quickly we bill and collect, and how well we manage what we owe, matters as much to the group as the profit we reportImprovement-minded - you are not content to run the same close next year that you ran this yearQualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with solid post-qualification experience in a management accounting or financial control roleProven ownership of a multi-entity month-end close, delivered accurately and to a demanding timetable

Benefits

• Contributory pension
• Life assurance
• Health insurance through BUPA
• Our Employee Assistance Programme offers a 24/7 confidential advice line for health, bereavement and other areas of support
• 25 days holiday per year + your birthday off
• We are members of the cycle to work scheme
• We offer Season Ticket Loans
• Free onsite Nuffield Health gym & pool (London) and discounted gym membership elsewhere
• Interbank currency rates on travel money and international transfers
• Opportunities for progression, development and learning new skills