Junior Commercial Finance Analyst

We are a premium chocolate manufacturer established in 1845 operating in over 86 countries around the world. Guided by our Global purpose to Enchant the World with Chocolate and UK vision of Creating Moments to Make Everyone Feel Special, we have around 400 team members in the UK across our Head Office, Retail, and Field Sales divisions. We are a Top 20 Great Place to Work and proud of our values-led culture and iconic market leading brands such as LINDOR & GOLD BUNNY. We are also proud to be one of the few bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the world, where we control every step of our chocolate production.

This role is based in Richmond Upon Thames, London (Hybrid Working: in the office 60% and WFH 40%).

• Pricing
  • Support the pricing process, leading file creation and setup of any key price changes.
  • Preparation and first review of Net Net Pricing files.
  • Review Gross Profit of pricing for loading and escalate to CF Business Partners where appropriate.
  • Review and communicate pricing claims to the business and work collaboratively with Finance/Sales to how these can be reduced.
  • Create reporting processes to enable insight on current pricing set up to ensure accuracy in both our forecasting and actuals, reviewing and highlighting issue areas with CF Business Partners.
• Trade Spend Activities, Promotional and Residual Funding; and Year End Rebates
  • Post monthly trade spend accruals, ensure promotional and residual accruals are timely and correctly set up in SAP and update balance sheet reconciliations.
  • Ensure year-end rebate terms set up in SAP reflect the latest trade agreements with customers, process invoices and update balance sheet reconciliations.
  • In month review of % accruals in forecast versus actuals, ensuring no areas of under-accrual or material differences versus forecast.
• Rebate Management Process
  • Manage the interface of rebates from Visual Fabriq to SAP, ensuring proactive management of issues that need to be resolved and escalation to business partners where necessary.
  • Support month end balance sheet process and system reconciliation between Visual Fabriq and SAP.
  • Lead management of daily rebate interface errors, resolving issues and involving CF Business Partners where appropriate.
  • Retrospectively challenge sales where rebates allocated to invoices do not match.
  • Lead Rebate risk meetings with CF Business Partners, highlighting areas of under-accruals, proposals for alternative rebates and flagging any concerns on assumptions to be considered on Year To Go accruals.
  • Preparation of seasonal Sell Through trackers working closely with CF Business Partners and Sales Account Managers.
• Reporting
  • Send out key monthly reporting around business performance for actuals and forecast, providing insight where appropriate.
  • Always look to find opportunities to automate and improve reporting.
• Month end
  • Ownership of month end calendar update and task allocation, sending out key month end reports, supporting the Senior CF Business Partner on the Working Day 2 submission and running the month end comment and BI tables.
• Account Management
  • Lead the account review process for a key account, business partnering with the Sales National Account Manager to ensure the actuals and forecast are accurate and robust, and supporting in driving margin improvements.
• Commercial Finance Support Cover
  • Collaborate within your team, working together on key shared tasks and ensuring between you that key tasks are completed when one of you is out of the office.

• Looking to start or studying towards an accounting qualification, CIMA preferred. We would expect study to begin after 6 months in role.
• Graduate with a finance related degree and a placement year, or finance professional with up to 2 years’ experience in an FMCG / Retail or Financial / Consultancy environment.
• Strong communication/presentation skills – should be able to communicate effectively with people from both financial and non-financial backgrounds.
• Be performance driven, tenacious and goal orientated.
• Excellent planning and organisation skills, with good attention to detail.
• Able to build solid relationships.
• Good presentation skills.
• Good knowledge of Excel, experience of accounting systems not expected but useful – SAP S/4HANA, TPM and BI.

For the Junior Commercial Finance Analyst position, the salary range is £28,000 - £36,000 pro-rated. In addition, you will receive a benefits package including; bonus, pension, life cover, chocolate allowance; chocolate give-aways, chocolate discount, birthday day off and so much more!

We want everyone at Lindt feel safe to be themselves, ensuring they are empowered, represented, celebrated and included in our workplace. You’ll notice this throughout the recruitment process; in our ‘dress for your day’ policy and through our proactive DE&I strategy.

At Lindt UK, our values guide us in everything we do. Being Passionately Lindt, Always Evolving, Building Real Relationships, Acting Responsibly and Making An Impact are an integral part of life here at Lindt.

In return for everything that you’ll bring, we can offer you an exciting role in a fast-growing organisation, where we’ll provide an environment where you will thrive, feel supported and fulfil your career aspirations, all while supporting your physical and mental wellbeing.