Venue Finance Manager / Senior Management Accountant - Theatre / Live Events

Lead, mentor and develop the venues finance team to maximise performance.

• Assign tasks and set performance objectives to ensure deadlines are met.
• Maintain regular communication to ensure the team fully understand the tasks allocated to them and to ensure that the tasks are being completed to deadlines.
• Conduct weekly team meetings to ensure clarity for the venues team of what is coming up and expected of them. Discuss financial performance, give updates and discuss challenges.
• Support the team, whilst ensuring that they take ownership of their workload and don’t become over reliant on you to solve all queries – helping to develop their problem solving skills.
• Provide training, support and guidance to improve team members’ performance. Improved performance includes the team being more robust in questioning and challenging the TD’s/venues explanations.
• Ensure the team maintain good attendance, punctuality and a strong quality of work, managing any underperformance.
• Training all new members of the venues finance team on the financial accounting software, financial systems and finance processes, including month end procedures.
• Review key tasks ensuring segregation of duties where appropriate.
• Work with the Head of Venues Finance to agree the correct split and allocation of venues and workload across the venues finance team.
• Identify areas for improvement and encourage initiatives to resolve issues and reduce areas of risk.
• Preparation of monthly management accounts (full Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and cashflow, including relevant journals), variance analysis & commentary, for initial review with Head of Venues Finance before distribution to senior managers and theatre directors.
• Review draft monthly management accounts with Head of Venues Finance and Group Finance Director.
• Take direct ownership of the financial reporting of at least 3 theatre venues, including building relationships with key stakeholders at each of these venues.
• Balance sheet reconciliations – perform reconciliations for your own venues and review other team members’ monthly balance sheet reconciliations, investigating and resolving any discrepancies to ensure that every balance sheet item for all venues reconciles every month.
• Manage 2 key month end finance processes across all venues (examples of which include hospitality trackers and associated costs of sale and margins, settlements, fixed assets, new systems, deferred income, credit cards/expense management).
• Assist with the migration of accounting system from Sage X3 to Microsoft Business Central, including testing of the new system and implementation of new processes and reporting within venues finance due to the system change.
• Key contact for the year end Audit process for Venues Finance, responding to audit queries that come in from our auditors, Moore Kingston Smith, on a timely basis to deadlines.
• Manage the cash flow process, including the preparation of a 12 week cash flow reporting cash requirements to Trafalgar Entertainment group.
• Work with venues finance team and AP to ensure the smooth running of the sales and payment cycles. Authorise payments and payrolls on HSBC and ensure payments are made accurately and on time and sales receipts are received promptly.
• Assist the Head of Venues Finance with the integration of new venue acquisitions.
• Manage intercompany with venues and ensure that all intercompany balances reconcile and are accurate each month.
• Prepare VAT returns.
• Help with preparation of annual budgets and forecasts and assist in the review of management accounts versus budgets/reforecasts.
• Understand the financial processes, make recommendations for improvements to processes to ensure a tight internal control environment and best practise to reduce financial risk.
• Take ownership of the accounting processes on X3 and be a master-user of X3/ SEI/ Microsoft Business Central and associated systems, for Venues finance.
• Holiday and sickness cover for Venues finance team.
• Respond to ad-hoc data and analysis requests in a timely and effective manner.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management

• Create and maintain close working relationships across all departments including Group finance, Hospitality, Programming, Operations, Marketing, HR & payroll, Systems and IT.
• Regularly liaise and build strong relationships with the rest of the Venues Finance team, Regional Directors, Theatre Directors, Theatre Administrators and Venues management teams.
• Regularly liaise with venues theatre directors (TDs) including arranging and leading monthly meetings to discuss prior and current month financial performance at the venue and any issues arising that could impact financial performance.
• Circulate draft and final monthly management accounts on a timely basis to TD’s and regional directors for commentary.

Skills, Experience and Qualifications

• A minimum of 3 years’ experience working as a senior management accountant with management responsibilities.
• Qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA).
• Experience in managing and developing a finance team.
• Advanced Excel and IT skills. Experience with a complex accounting system, ideally Sage X3/Microsoft Business Central.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; committed and enthusiastic.
• The ability to work calmly, effectively and professionally in a fast-paced environment.
• Dynamic, enthusiastic, self-starter and willing to go the extra distance to make a difference.
• Ideally knowledge of and/or experience in live theatre, entertainment or hospitality.