Financial Controller / FD Designate

This highly entrepreneurial, family owned business has grown substantially in the last few years and is currently north of £20m turnover. Profitable and operating over five divisions across two sites, supplying materials and services to residential and large, commercial customers, they are an established, cash rich business employing over 150 staff.

Their long standing Finance Director is planning to retire at the end of the year and will be going part-time in the next 4-6 months so they are now looking to appoint an experienced Financial Controller with a view to taking over the role and if proven successful, become FD in the future. This is therefore an important appointment for the group, reporting into the CEO and acting as a key member of the senior management team. The Financial Controller will manage the company finances to drive the profitability and growth of the business and will be expected to play a major role in decision making.

Managing a small finance department you will drive greater understanding of costs and margins to improve performance whilst also making sense of complex revenue streams and high volumes of transactions. There is real scope here for someone to make improvements, modernising systems and automating processes. The key duties of the Financial Controller will be:

• Produce monthly management accounts with commentary
• Develop KPI’s and MI pack for the board
• Provide analysis of costs and process efficiency
• Create the annual budget and report variances
• Drive commercial / financial awareness in each department
• Cashflow management, banking and financial forecasting
• Managing the year end with full audit liaison
• Oversee wages, PAYE, NI and HMRC matters
• Manage and develop the transactional accounting team
• Provide advice on equipment and fleet financing options
• Maintain fixed asset register
• Reporting on inter-company trading

As a business they are always looking at commercial opportunities so you can also expect to have to react quickly and offer financial judgement on different business cases that come along. Great communication skills and credibility will be essential as you will be expected to challenge and question the current set up and make recommendations to stakeholders and colleagues that can drive change and improve processes. Experience of using SAGE would be very useful in this role, particularly exporting data for manipulation in Excel, applicants should also be very comfortable dealing with operational and business management systems.

The ideal candidate for this vacancy must preferably be CIMA or ACCA /ACA qualified or qualified by experience (QBE) with experience of managing the finance function for a growing SME. Office based this will definitely be a hands on role so will require a flexible approach, working as part of a team and taking ownership to get things done during busy periods.