Financial Controller – SJS/12515

This long established business occupies a specialist niche in the manufacturing and assembly of complex electrical equipment. They have a loyal and worldwide customer base who rely on their products for their own machinery, R&D and innovation are therefore at the heart of their core values required to meet the needs of their clients. The business is privately owned by shareholders living in the USA but has recently established a new base in Blackburn with a view to creating a UK hub for their manufacturing and assembly operations which are in the process of being transferred from another location in the South. They currently have a small technical team on site (circa 5 staff) but this is projected to grow quite quickly as they build momentum.

A key part of this carefully planned expansion will be the appointment of an experienced Financial Controller to oversee the UK operation and report to the owners in the states. This will be an extremely varied role, covering all aspects of finance and general office management ensuring all site activities run smoothly. It therefore requires a candidate with strong accounting skills who is also a pro-active self-starter able to implement monitoring and control systems to ensure the technical and operational team have the resources available to perform their duties in an efficient and cost effective manner. The main responsibilities of this role will be:

• Preparing monthly management accounts
• Developing budgets and forecast models
• Balance sheet reconciliation
• Journal entries, accruals & prepayments etc.
• Weekly and monthly reporting
• Management of fixed asset register
• Cashflow management, AP, AR and credit control
• Payroll and maintenance of employee records
• Monitoring stock and labour activities
• Establishing product costing information
• Recording intercompany transactions

This role will involve monitoring and reporting on all site activities, implementing and improving existing processes where necessary. The ideal candidate must therefore have a breadth of experience ideally gained in a manufacturing / assembly type environment. The company also sells world-wide, with their equipment being returned for service and re-calibration annually so knowledge of import / export, in particular IPR would be very attractive. This opportunity would be great for someone who would relish some independence and a broad, very hands on finance role. Previous experience as a Finance Manager / Financial Controller managing a small SME (£5-10m) finance department will be essential along with good IT skills and a sense of humour to deal with the expected challenges as they go through this exciting growth phase.