Plant Controller
CC Hydrosonics Ltd (Crest Ultrasonics Group)
Cambridge · Full time · Permanent · circa £70,000
About CC Hydrosonics
CC Hydrosonics manufactures ultrasonic cleaning and processing equipment from our site in Essex/Cambridge. We are part of the Crest Ultrasonics Group, a US-based, private-equity owned industrial group with operations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
We are a compact business — around £4 million of revenue — which makes this an unusually broad finance role. As part of a US group we report on a US GAAP basis to our parent alongside our UK statutory obligations, and we work to the reporting rhythm, transparency and control standards expected in a private-equity backed environment.
Purpose of the role
You are the finance function for CC Hydrosonics. This is a standalone role: you own the books, the statutory accounts, the audit and the reporting to our US parent, and at the same time you are the finance business partner to the manufacturing site.
Two things matter most. First, inventory and work in progress — at a manufacturer of our size this is the largest item on the balance sheet and the area of greatest audit risk. Its valuation, and your ability to evidence it, is central to this role.
Second, explaining the numbers rather than only producing them. About half of what we make is series product costed on standards; the other half is built to customer specification and costed by job. That means two costing disciplines running side by side, and we need someone who can handle both — taking a standard cost variance apart on one side, and comparing quoted against actual cost on a one-off build on the other. In each case we want the operational reason behind the number, explained to the production and commercial teams in language they can act on. A report that lists deviations without explaining them is of little use to us.
You are also the person who challenges business decisions: pricing and quotations, product and customer profitability, make-or-buy, stock commitments, capital expenditure and headcount. You are expected to test the assumptions behind them and to say so when the numbers do not support the argument, including when that is unwelcome. This is a constructive challenge function, not a veto — you bring the quantified alternative, not only the objection.
Day-to-day transactional processing — purchase ledger and sales ledger — is not part of this role. It is handled separately, and you are not expected to process invoices. Your accountability is for the integrity, interpretation and reporting of the resulting figures, and for the controls around them: payment approval, credit decisions, journal review and balance sheet reconciliation review.
Reporting lines
You report on a solid line to the Head of Finance Europe, who sets your objectives and is responsible for your performance and development. Two dotted lines complete the picture:
- Group Controller, based in the United States — accounting policy and US GAAP application, the Group reporting calendar and standards, the internal control framework and consolidation requirements. This is a functional line across a five-hour time difference, and much of the exchange is written and asynchronous.
- Managing Director, CC Hydrosonics — day-to-day business partnering and site priorities. You sit at the local leadership table as a full participant, not as a reporting service to it.
Because your solid line runs into Finance rather than into the site, you have the independence to challenge local decisions on their merits while remaining a close and constructive partner to the business.
Key responsibilitiesEntity control, UK statutory and US GAAP reporting (~45%)
- Month-end close and US GAAP reporting: ownership of the monthly close and preparation of the reporting package under US GAAP and the Crest Ultrasonics Group accounting manual, within the Group closing calendar.
- UK statutory accounts under FRS 102, filing with Companies House, and ownership of the reconciliation between the UK statutory position and US GAAP.
- Audit: you are the main point of contact for the statutory audit and for any group audit instructions issued by the Group's auditors. You prepare the year-end file, respond to queries, and are expected to run the audit largely without external support.
- UK tax and VAT: corporation tax computations and returns with our advisors, VAT returns under Making Tax Digital, PAYE and payroll oversight, pension auto-enrolment compliance, and P11D reporting.
- Planning and forecasting: the annual budget, rolling forecasts and mid-term plan for the entity — profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow — submitted to the Group in its format and calendar.
- Cash and working capital: rolling cash forecast, working capital targets and actions (debtor days, creditor days, stock turns), FX exposure, intercompany settlements and banking relationships.
- Revenue recognition for customer contracts: application of the Group's US GAAP revenue policy (ASC 606) — contract assets and liabilities, customer deposits, variable consideration and contract modifications — together with support for any future review of the basis of recognition applied to our contract types.
- Internal control: maintenance of the Group's control requirements and of appropriate segregation of duties across the finance processes, and support of internal audit and any reporting or diligence requests from our owners.
Cost and operational controlling (~40%)
- Inventory and work in progress: valuation and its supporting evidence, overhead absorption, stocktake and cycle count governance, cut-off, and provisions for slow-moving and obsolete stock. This is the area your auditors will focus on and where your working papers must stand up.
- Ownership of the costing model across both sides of the business: maintenance of the cost accounting framework — cost centre structure, overhead allocation, labour and machine hour rates — and the judgement of which costing method is appropriate for which product family. Both methods draw on the same rates, and keeping them consistent is your responsibility.
- Standard costing for series product: maintenance of the standard cost model, the annual standard cost roll and roll-forward, and product cost calculations for new and changed products.
- Job costing for custom builds: the quotation costing used to price bespoke work, monitoring cost against estimate while a job is still running, and post-job review of quoted versus actual cost by cost element — feeding what you learn back into the next quotation so the same estimating error is not priced twice.
- Change and scope discipline on custom work: ensuring that specification changes and customer-driven additions are identified, costed and, where contractually possible, invoiced — rather than absorbed silently into the job margin.
- Variance and deviation analysis: monthly analysis of purchase price, material usage, labour and absorption variances on the series side, and quoted-versus-actual deviations on the custom side. You do not stop at quantifying the gap: you identify the operational root cause, separate one-off effects from structural ones, quantify the profit impact, and agree corrective actions with the operations team — then track whether those actions worked.
- Margin and profitability analysis: gross margin by product line and customer, profitability by job on custom work, quotation and pricing support, discount discipline, and make-or-buy analysis.
- Capital expenditure: business cases and investment appraisal, Group approval submissions, the fixed asset register, and post-implementation review.
Business partnering and challenge (~15%)
- Monthly performance reporting to the site leadership team and to Group: results, KPIs, forecast and the story behind the numbers.
- Commercial and operational partnering with production, purchasing, engineering and sales — quantifying options, testing assumptions and holding a position when the analysis does not support the proposal.
- Continuous improvement of finance processes and reporting, including the systems and controls that support them.
Your profileEssential
- ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified. Given that you will own the statutory accounts and manage the audit alone, a recognised qualification is a firm requirement.
- Manufacturing experience is mandatory: several years in a finance role within a manufacturing business, gained on site and close to production. Experience from services, trade or practice alone will not be sufficient.
- Hands-on costing experience covering both methods: you have owned a standard cost model for repeat product and costed one-off or made-to-order work by job, including quotation costing and post-job review. Experience confined to series production alone is not sufficient for this role.
- Inventory and work in progress experience: you have valued stock and WIP, run or supervised a stocktake, and defended a stock valuation to auditors.
- UK statutory reporting: preparation of FRS 102 financial statements and the ability to run a UK year-end and audit independently, including the year-end file and auditor liaison.
- UK tax and compliance: VAT under Making Tax Digital, corporation tax in cooperation with advisors, and payroll and pension compliance oversight.
- Reporting to a parent company, ideally under US GAAP. You will be the only finance professional on site, with technical support available from the US across a limited daily overlap, so you must be able to resolve routine questions independently.
- A working understanding of revenue recognition for customer contracts under US GAAP (ASC 606) or IFRS 15: you know the available bases of recognition, what determines which one applies, and what each means for reported results. Deep hands-on application is welcome but is not a precondition.
- Strong ERP and Excel skills, including the ability to work with production data — bills of material, routings and works orders using Sage 50.
- Comfortable being the only finance person in the building: self-sufficient, well organised, and able to move between a stock valuation, a VAT return and a shop-floor conversation in the same day.
Desirable
- Experience in a private-equity owned or US-owned group: Board and lender reporting, tight month-end deadlines, and working across the Europe–US time difference.
- Experience as the sole finance lead of a small subsidiary within a larger international group.
- Experience in a mixed-mode manufacturing environment running repeat and made-to-order production side by side.
- Lean or continuous improvement exposure in a production environment.
How you work
- Hands-on and curious about the product: comfortable walking onto the shop floor to find out why a variance arose, rather than inferring it from a report.
- Independent-minded, with the personal authority to hold a position against seniority when the numbers require it — and the judgement to do so without becoming an obstacle.
- A clear communicator, able to explain a cost variance to a production supervisor without accounting jargon, and to a US parent company in its own reporting language.
- Self-sufficient across time zones: able to plan around a limited daily overlap with the United States, to raise issues early rather than at the deadline, and to keep working without waiting for an answer.
What we offer
- Genuine breadth. In most businesses this scope is split across three or four jobs — here it is one role, and you own all of it.
- Real ownership: you are the finance function for a UK company, with the statutory accounts, the audit and the reporting to a US parent all yours.
- Exposure to an international industrial group and its private-equity ownership, with visibility to Group Finance in Europe and the United States
Pay: £70,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Free parking
- On-site parking
Work Location: In person
