Senior Commercial Accountant

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Duties / Responsibilities (Including Objectives of the role):

This is a newly created role in a fast growing and exciting area of the business. With the significant growth plans coming in the future this role will allow more focus on business partnering, insight into the current operations and to be part of the front line as the business transforms itself. The Senior Commercial Accountant will be at the heart of the team that can help push profitability, control a significant budget to ensure value for money (VFM) and act as gatekeeper to the internal and external frameworks within finance and Lotus.

As the company continues to grow, this role will naturally evolve to be ever more encompassing and with greater responsibility to allow the right person a huge amount of scope to improve and develop. The role is to support the Commercial Controller in all areas of the business:

  • Revenue/Gross Margin for Vehicles
  • Aftersales revenue and gross margin
  • Licensing and Merchandising
  • Marketing
  • PR
  • Product Strategy
  • Commercial Projects
  • Sales Operations
  • Subsidiary (CN/US) consolidation

This is a hands on role that will provide the accounting and analysis to both the senior finance team as well as to the wider business partners. The position would also covering the mentoring and training of the marketing and sales analysts in the team and to able to keep abreast of the workloads on a day to day basis

The role will be expected to:

  • Deliver the final month end pack to support the Commercial team in decision making
  • Responsible for managing the balance sheet of the UK, China and the US in line with expectations
  • First point of call for the US and China finance teams to ensure they are delivering the results
  • Provide the analytics software and tools that allows both the Commercial team and the Controller the day to day information needed to run the business
  • Act as a number 2 to the Commercial Controller and to be the delegate when needed
  • Responsible for the delivery of the budget and forecast packs and then analysis and insight into variances 
  • Mentor the rest of the Commercial team to get the required data and insight out to the wider group
  • Provide support to the Sales, Marketing and PR business partners on a day to day basis 
  • Look for new insights, opportunities and risks surrounding the commercial operations and follow these through with the right people
  • Provide financial data in a suitable way for non-financial people to understand
  • Manage the commercial elements of the new and existing projects by providing pricing, implementation and profitability support
  • Be the gatekeeper for the Commercial areas of all systems (SAP, Qlik etc)                                                          

Qualifications and Experience (Essential & Desirable criteria)

Essential 

  • Recognised Accounting qualification
  • Significant post qualified experience, working within a mid to large sized business, good knowledge of UK and international accounting standards, some group consolidation experience
  • Excellent communication skills with non-financial people, strong analytical tools such as excel, databases, BI etc, knowledge of large ERP systems i,e.SAP
  • Ideally a commercial background with good exposure to sales and margins
  • Clear and confident communicator 
  • Adaptable to change

Desirable 

  • Manufacturing experience ideal but not essential

Other information

  • Potentially some travel to the US/China 
  • Time pressure of monthly end close and the need to work independently at time