Finance Analyst

Finance Analyst

Closing date: 28 January 2016

Salary: £33,000 - £42,000 – depending on experience

About us
We’re the UK’s leading sugar supplier and one of the most efficient manufacturers in Europe. You will find our sugar on supermarket shelves as Silver Spoon, one of the UK’s leading food brands. We’re part of AB Sugar, which is wholly owned by the international food, ingredients and retail group, Associated British Foods plc.

We’re much more than a sugar company:

In addition to producing over one million tonnes of sugar every year, we also produce 500,000 tonnes of animal feed from sugar beet pulp. We recycle stones for building, lime for soil conditioning and soil for landscaping. Using our Combined Heat & Power plants, we export enough electricity to power 160,000 homes. We take the CO2 and water from the sugar manufacturing process to grow around 140 million tomatoes a year. We invested in the UK’s first Bioethanol plant, producing 70 million litres of renewable fuel annually.

It’s down to our people
We run a huge operation and people are often struck by our sheer size, scale and success. That success is certainly down to our people. With over 900 employees, from Engineers to Agriculturists and Service Managers to Financial Accountants, they’re all committed to improvement and to challenging themselves.

The Finance department in British Sugar plays a vital role in supporting the business.

What we do

We support the other functions within the business around decision making and performance management, in order to ensure the best overall value is delivered. We facilitate the financial planning processes which provide us with a view on future performance. We ensure the strategic plans for the business will deliver long-term, sustainable returns. We act as the custodians of our assets and business controls. We also ensure all our statutory responsibilities are fulfilled. In doing this, we challenge and support the business in equal measure.

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team at British sugar in the role of Finance Analyst.

The scope of the role is far reaching and stretches from analysis of incoming sugar beet, through to factory operations, finishing processes and sale of our sugar and non-sugar products to external customers. FP&A is intrinsic to our tactical decision making process – Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP) and as Finance Analyst you would be providing decision making information and analysis which contributes to very real action in the business. You’ll be involved in producing budgets and forecasts, working closely with internal customers and budget holders to drive a cost focussed mentality and you’ll have the opportunity to improve our existing processes and reporting in order to provide true insight to the business.

The Finance department challenges and supports the business and you can expect the same in this role, you will be challenged to deliver but will absolutely be supported such that you can thrive in role.

For the right candidate succeeding in this role, there is ample opportunity within British Sugar, AB Sugar and the wider the ABF group to further your career in the future.

Success Factors

• Period end reporting delivered accurately, with appropriate commentary, to agreed deadlines.
• Forecasts and budgets reported accurately, with appropriate analysis to ensure no material anomalies, to agreed deadlines
• Balance sheet reconciliations complete prior to period end submission with all reconciling items understood and cleared within one period.
• Business partner of choice

Person Spec

• The role would suit a newly qualified accountant (CIMA, ACA, ACCA), or indeed someone with 1-2 years of PQE.
• You should be master of your own destiny, interested in developing your career and self and taking a proactive approach to this.
• Thrives in an environment of challenge
• Excited by the prospect of bringing financial concepts to life in a business context
• Enjoys interacting with people and building strong relationships
• Expertise in MS Excel and an appreciation of databases and their flexibility in delivering insightful reporting