Head of Finance
Cheltenham | Full-time | Up to £50,000
This role is designed to grow. As the business scales, so does the finance function, and the person in this seat will be well-placed to step into a Finance Director position over time.
About the business
Blushes is a hair salon group with five sites, around 100 stylists, and over £4M in annual revenue. It started as a single salon and has been built over time into a structured, systems-driven operation.
Shair is a newer, smaller extension of the group that applies the same commercial systems to support independent salon owners. It is at an early stage with a small number of partner sites, but it is a genuine part of the business and this role covers it.
The finance function has been run as an overseas operation. The business is now bringing it in-house and migrating from Sage to Xero. This role is responsible for building that function properly: the systems, the processes, the controls, and the ways of working.
A finance administrator reports into this role and handles day-to-day transaction processing. A dedicated in-house specialist builds and maintains automation within Xero. This role is not about data entry. It is about ownership, judgement, and getting the operation to a standard the business can scale with. That means being genuinely open to modern, automated ways of working and comfortable leading a function where technology does a lot of the heavy lifting.
What you will be responsible for
Reporting and production
- Full month-end close: P&L, balance sheet, accruals, prepayments, control account reconciliations and journals
- Annual budget and operational P&L budget
- Weekly cashflow, including managing the timing of payments
- Intercompany and consolidation entries across the group
Compliance
- VAT returns and HMRC correspondence
- Co-worker payment compliance, including self-billing documentation
- Year-end liaison with external accountants
Control and ownership
- Bank ownership, including authorisation controls and segregation of duties
- Full ownership of Xero
- Calculation of co-worker payments
- Supplier relationships, terms and negotiation
Shair
- The Shair P&L and partner billing
- Per-partner profit-share calculations
- Upfront financial analysis of prospective partner salons, working from bank statements to produce a P&L and budget
What we are looking for
- Experience building a finance department from the ground up. We are moving away from an established set-up and this is a genuine opportunity to put your own stamp on the operation. You need the confidence to do that.
- Qualified or qualified by experience (ACCA, CIMA or ACA)
- Multi-entity accounting and consolidation experience
- Experience designing and implementing finance systems, processes and automation, ideally including a Sage to Xero migration or similar
- Background across more than one business model, ideally including both a retail or product element and a service or B2B element
- Genuinely open to modern ways of working. We have a specialist who builds and maintains automation within Xero, and this role needs someone who will embrace that, not work around it. If you are used to doing things manually and prefer it that way, this is probably not the right fit.
- Able to adapt when priorities shift
- Confident implementing change in a business that is still evolving
- Someone who wants to grow with the role, not just fill it
The detail
Salary: Up to £50,000 per annum
Location: Cheltenham
Hours: Full-time
Reports to: Founder. Fractional Finance Director oversight is in place initially while you find your feet, but the expectation is that you will not need it for long.
Direct report: Finance Administrator
Pay: Up to £50,000.00 per year
Application question(s):
- Do you live within a one hour commute from Cheltenham?
Education:
- A-Level or equivalent (preferred)
Licence/Certification:
- ACCA, CIMA or ACA (required)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Work Location: In person
