Reports to: Finance Manager
Role Overview:
The Senior Accountant is responsible for the integrity of the general ledger, the month-end and year end close process, and balance sheet reconciliations for the South African business, while providing day-to-day supervision of the transactional finance team. The role acts as the key link between transactional processing and management/financial reporting, ensuring that the company's books are accurate, complete, and compliant with IFRS, Group accounting policy and South African statutory requirements, and that the Finance Manager and Global Finance function can rely on timeous, well supported numbers.
This is a qualified accountant role combining hands-on financial accounting with direct people leadership of transactional staff, and regular interface with Group Finance, external auditors and operational stakeholders at the Middelburg plant.
Responsibilities:
Financial Accounting & Reporting:
Own and drive the month-end close timetable, ensuring all deadlines set are met
Prepare and review journal entries, accruals, prepayments and provisions in line with IFRS and Group accounting policy
Prepare monthly trial balance review and support preparation of management accounts
Load & reconcile monthly accounts into the group consolidation tool (IDL)
Prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations across all general ledger accounts, ensuring reconciling items are cleared timeously
Support year-end close and statutory financial statement preparation schedules
Involvement in preparation of annual budgets and forecast submissions
Involvement in Accurate and timely cash flow forecasts
Monitoring and control of working capital
Custodian of standard costing models and bringing in efficiencies
Creditors Oversight:
Supervise the Creditors Clerk, overseeing invoice processing, payment runs and supplier account reconciliations
Review the creditors age analysis and ensure timeous resolution of queries and disputed invoices
Enforce three-way matching (purchase order/goods received / supplier invoice) and appropriate authorisation levels
Oversee intercompany creditor balances and cross-charges between the company and other Group entities, ensuring these reconcile to counterpart balances
Debtors Oversight:
Review the debtors age analysis, drive credit control follow-up, and assess the provision for doubtful debts
Reconcile intercompany sales and debtor balances between the company and other Group entities
Escalate credit risk or collection concerns on a timely basis
Team Leadership & People Management:
Provide day-to-day supervision, coaching and performance management to team members
Allocate workload across the transactional team and maintain appropriate segregation of duties
Review efficiencies and automation would could be brought in
Act as first point of escalation for transactional queries
Compliance Tax & Audit Support:
Review VAT reconciliations and support submission of VAT returns to SARS
Act as the primary preparer of schedules and reconciliations requested by external and internal audit, and manage audit queries through to resolution
Take ownership of maintaining the appropriate BBBEE level of certification required
Ensuring ESOP structure compliance is maintained
Ensure financial processes and controls comply with IFRS, the Companies Act, and Group accounting/transfer pricing policy
Maintenance of a strong internal control environment over company transactions, assets and resources.
Support preparation of related-party transaction documentation and management fee/transfer pricing schedules as required by Group Finance
System Control & Process Improvement:
Maintain the integrity of Sage ERP data within the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Stock and Manufacturing modules amongst others
Identify and implement opportunities to improve or automate transactional finance processes
Maintain and enforce internal financial controls across different processes, flagging control weaknesses proactively
Reporting & Group Interface:
Prepare and submit the monthly company reporting pack to Group Finance within the required deadlines
Respond to Group Finance queries on reconciliations, variances and intercompany balances
Provide transactional and balance sheet data as input to budgeting and forecasting cycles
Special Challenges:
The Company requires strong financial leadership to ensure complex business operations are optimised and accounted for correctly, opportunities to improve cost efficiency are identified, management of working capital is optimised, and reporting is on-time, accurate and insightful.
The individual must be a strong confident leader, unafraid to challenge embedded practices and implement change where required to deliver improvement. A robust understanding costing methodologies is critical, as is the key requirements for BBBEE compliance and reporting. The expectation is that the individual will have the ambition and capacity to provide the necessary support, with a “can do” and proactive approach to work.