Financial Controller

Financial Controller - Coventry, offering a competitive salary plus great benefits including pension, life cover.

Based in the West Midlands, as Financial Controller in this newly created position you will face a number of challenges. Managing a small, diverse team, how you drive improvement in the timeliness and accuracy of their work will ultimately define your success. It is as much a people management role as it is a reporting and process driven one: not necessarily in the number of people that you will manage, more in how you motivate, coach, up-skill and lead your people.

The business is successful: profitable, with a first class reputation and as a result of some recent investment, growing. So why, in that case, the need for this position? In short, because there is room for further improvement, both in turnover and contribution. More robust working capital management, strong controls and processes and a dedicated team who can multi-task will all play a key part in this and you would take responsibility for all of these aspects. How you drive your own agenda and indeed that of the Group, through robust management of standards, expectations, deadlines and KPI’s are all of great importance in the role. If these are delivered in the right manner, your development within an acquisitive, ambitious Group will accelerate. How you look to drive improvements in the timeliness and consistency of monthly processes, outputs and reporting cycles will be the cornerstone of your role; how you demonstrate an understanding of the business and your people will determine your ability to thrive and in time progress.

The successful applicant for this West Midlands based role will be a fully qualified accountant (CIMA / ACA / ACCA) with a strong passion for people, control, process, deadlines and the basic fundamentals of working capital management. A strong control background, the ability and desire to delve beneath the surface and the confidence to deal with a variety of levels of stakeholder in either direction are all key requirements.

You will have the ability to work autonomously and indeed thrive upon that, though at the same time be able to manage your relationship with Group accordingly. Satisfying the balance between the Group’s needs and those of your division will be key, hence prior exposure to a Divisional role within a bigger Group structure would be a distinct advantage. Support, loyalty and trust will all be in abundance from day one; the obvious expectation is that this works both ways.

The Financial Controller will act as a lead responsible for monitoring workload in the department and assigning responsibilities and tasks. As well as ensuring work is completed to deadlines, resolve problems where they arise making interventions where required to resolve any problems including working directly on areas which are particularly busy.

The Financial Controller will be responsible for the smooth running of the transactional side of the business as well as fulfilling many of the tasks involved in the management accounting side of the function.

Core Responsibilities:

• To lead all the transactional aspects of the department through their expertise in areas of Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Treasury.
• Forecasting, monitoring and management of cash flow within the business.
• Preparation of inter-company reconciliations.
• Manage and reconcile key balance sheet control accounts and bank reconciliations.
• Weekly activity reporting - KPIs for management

Key Business Priorities for Role (incl. KPI and Targets)

• Effective management of cash through control of the payables and receivables functions. Recognised by business partners as being paid to agreed terms.
• Provide relevant information to facilitate periodical financial reporting.
• Ensure Invoice queries are kept to a minimum and develop measures to show improvements.

Supervisory Requirements:

• Supervisory responsibility to Accounts Payable, Receivable and Cash management         
• Provides leadership or training to other employees        
• Has direct supervisory responsibility for 5 number of employees              

Please apply in writing with a covering letter to explain why you have applied for this role and what you feel you can add to the business.  Please provide salary expectations.