The Management Accountant will play a key role in supporting the financial and commercial performance of the business, working alongside the Finance Manager and partnering closely with departments across the organisation.
The role will be responsible for budgeting, forecasting, management reporting, financial analysis and performance insight, helping the business understand key financial and operational drivers and supporting informed commercial decision-making.
The Management Accountant will also play a key role, alongside the finance manager, in major finance projects, including acting as a key Finance contact for the ERP implementation, supporting its successful delivery and ensuring financial processes, controls and reporting are accurately reflected within the system.
Duties and Responsibilities (Include but not limited to)
Budgeting & Forecasting
- Support and co-ordinate the annual budgeting process, working closely with departmental managers to develop accurate and achievable budgets.
- Prepare and maintain regular financial forecasts, providing insight into expected business performance and future financial requirements.
- Monitor actual financial performance against budgets and forecasts and provide detailed variance analysis.
- Investigate significant variances with relevant departments, identifying underlying causes and agreeing appropriate actions.
- Develop a strong understanding of departmental cost bases, revenue drivers and operational performance.
- Work with departmental managers to challenge assumptions and ensure accountability for agreed budgets and forecasts.
- Proactively identify opportunities to reduce costs, eliminate financial waste and improve value for money across the business.
- Identify financial risks and opportunities and communicate these clearly to management.
Cash Management:
Day-to-day ownership of cash management will remain with the Finance Manager. The Management Accountant will support this process through accurate forecasting, analysis and reconciliation.
- Support the Finance Manager with cash-flow forecasting and monitoring of expected receipts and payments.
- Reconcile budget and forecast balance sheets to the cash-flow forecast, providing an additional control over the forecasting process.
- Provide financial analysis to identify potential cash-flow pressures and opportunities.
- Support analysis of working-capital performance where required.
- Assist with ensuring financial forecasts accurately reflect expected cash.
Financial Analysis:
- Provide financial analysis and insight to support operational and strategic decision-making.
- Analyse financial performance at both overall business and departmental level.
- Review and analyse key variable costs, including advertising, transport, customer credits, selling fees and other operational expenditure.
- Evaluate the financial impact of short- and long-term business decisions, projects and investments.
- Develop financial models and analysis to support business cases and management decisions.
- Identify trends, opportunities for improvement and areas of financial risk.
- Translate financial information into clear and commercially relevant recommendations for non-finance stakeholders.
Capital Management:
- Support the Finance Manager and Directors with capital investment and financing decisions.
- Provide financial analysis to assess the potential return, cost and risk associated with capital investments.
- Support analysis of financing options where required.
- Work closely with the Stock Purchasing team to support effective stock purchasing and optimise stock-holding levels.
- Analyse stock and working-capital performance and identify opportunities to improve cash utilisation.
- Provide financial insight into purchasing decisions to ensure stock levels remain commercially and financially appropriate.
Pricing
The Management Accountant will provide analytical support to the pricing process rather than owning the overall pricing strategy.
- Work with relevant departments to provide pricing and profitability analysis.
- Analyse the full product cost stack, including product, operational, selling and distribution costs.
- Review pricing assumptions against actual costs and realised margins.
- Identify margin erosion and investigate the underlying causes.
- Provide recommendations and financial insight to support improvements in pricing, profitability and contribution margin.
- Provide departments with accurate financial information to support commercially sound pricing decisions.
Strategic Partnerships:
- Support Directors and senior management by collating and preparing relevant financial information and materials for key meetings and business decisions.
- Prepare clear and concise financial analysis and summaries to support management discussions and decision-making.
- Work across departments to gather relevant information, ensuring financial materials are accurate, complete and delivered on time.
- Support the preparation of financial information and materials required for external stakeholders, including banks, auditors and other financial partners.
- Provide clear and commercially focused financial information to both finance and non-finance stakeholders.
Management Reporting
- Prepare accurate and timely management information to support business performance reviews.
- Develop and maintain appropriate financial reports, dashboards and analysis.
- Present key financial trends, variances, risks and opportunities to management.
- Ensure management information is accurate, consistent and provides meaningful insight into business performance.
- Continuously improve reporting processes, identifying opportunities to automate, simplify and streamline financial analysis.
- Work with stakeholders to ensure management reporting remains relevant to the needs of the business.
Projects – ERP Implementation
The Management Accountant will, alongside the Finance Manager, play a key Finance role in the successful implementation and ongoing development of the new ERP system.
- Act as a Finance point of contact for the ERP implementation and support its successful delivery and go-live in 2027.
- Maintain a close working relationship with the Tech Team and ERP solution provider to support effective implementation and ongoing value from the system.
- Coordinate and complete Finance UAT, ensuring key financial processes, controls and requirements are thoroughly tested ahead of go-live.
- Support data migration, validation and reconciliation to ensure the accuracy and integrity of financial information.
- Develop strong system knowledge and support the Finance team with training, documentation and adoption.
- Post go-live, work with the Tech Team and the ERP provider to optimise the system, improve financial processes and reporting, and ensure ongoing value for money.
Finance Team Resilience & Wider Department Support
- Work flexibly across the wider Finance function, providing support and cross-cover where required.
- Develop a strong working knowledge of key Finance processes to reduce reliance on individual team members and strengthen departmental resilience.
- Step into critical Finance activities during periods of absence, peak workload or changing business priorities to maintain continuity and timely delivery.
- Support other members of the Finance team with key processes, reporting and analysis where additional capacity is required.
- Work collaboratively across the department to identify areas where processes, knowledge sharing and documentation can be improved to strengthen overall team capability.
- Provide financial support to wider departments where required, helping teams understand financial information, resolve issues and make commercially informed decisions.
What do we need from you?
Key Skills & Experience
- Qualified accountant with a minimum 5 years post-qualification experience ideally in the e-commerce sector.
- Strong understanding of budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis.
- Strong analytical and numerical skills with the ability to interpret complex financial information.
- Commercially minded with an understanding of how operational decisions impact financial performance.
- Strong Excel skills and experience working with financial systems and management reporting tools.
- Excellent attention to detail and a high level of accuracy.
- Ability to communicate financial information clearly to non-financial stakeholders.
- Confident challenging assumptions and providing constructive financial insight.
- Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with colleagues across the business.
- Strong organisational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines.
Key Attributes
- Commercially focused – understands the relationship between operational activity, revenue, costs and profitability.
- Analytical – able to identify trends, investigate variances and turn data into meaningful insight.
- Proactive – identifies risks and opportunities rather than simply reporting historical performance.
- Collaborative – works effectively with departments across the business.
- Challenging – able to constructively challenge budgets, forecasts, costs and commercial assumptions.
- Results focused – maintains accountability for delivering accurate and timely financial information.
- Strong communicator – able to explain financial information clearly and confidently to stakeholders at all levels.
Job Type: Full-time
Benefits:
- Additional leave
- Company events
- Company pension
- Employee discount
- Sick pay
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Warminster, Wiltshire: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (preferred)
Experience:
- Qualified Accountant : 5 years (preferred)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (preferred)
Location:
- Warminster, Wiltshire (preferred)
Work Location: In person
