Finance Business Partner

A leading Magic circle Law firm based in the City are currently recruiting for a Finance Business Partner role for their Business Improvement team. The purpose of the role is to provide analysis and advice to support the Business Improvement (BI) team in the financial management of the process improvement projects for which they are responsible. You will be the financial contact for the Business Improvement team controlling the Function's budget and liaising with the Central Finance team.

Key responsibilities and challenges

Financial Analysis
The Business Improvement Analyst will be responsible for the review and analysis of the key financial drivers on matters and process projects.

• Responsible for monitoring financial performance against budget on matters, producing variance analysis and highlighting any trends or issues with the Project Managers. Requires developing good working relationships with the Project Managers, Process team and Partners in order to gain a thorough understanding of project and matters.
• Demonstrate the financial benefit to partners of alternative resourcing e.g. MTN updates process mapping initiative
• Work with the Business Managers and practice groups to identify areas of analysis with scope for efficiency gains.
• Provide historical trend analysis by product and model future potential scenarios.
• Independently challenge assumptions made by BI functional management to ensure accuracy of all financial outputs of the BI team whilst enhancing the sophistication of analysis e.g. quarterly reporting on AR profitability including how this impacts the practice
• Support the BI team in dealing with ad hoc financial queries from partners and fee earners. Assistance in the preparation of presentations and reports for management meetings.

Planning and Budgeting
In conjunction with London Finance, control the BI budget and income projections for Budgets and Reforecasts.

Project Work

• Assist the BI team in project-related work driven by specific strategic objectives and business development initiatives.
• Support the configuration of the financial information required in an Enterprise Project Management tool.

Reporting

• Working closely with Business Intelligence & Analysis in order to make continual improvements to existing reports, such as the deal debriefs, as well as shaping the development of new reports to support business needs.
• Seek opportunities to standardise and automated reports where appropriate.

Network

• Knowledge share and own relationships with key Finance teams including Practice Analysis, Business Intelligence & Analysis, Revenue Control, pricing and Group Reporting. Share experience and knowledge globally through BI teams and Finance.
• Support the Alternative Resourcing Team with financial needs and evolution of reporting.
• Cross divisional contact for Project Management related queries evolving from the Business Manager community.

Continuous Improvement
Own and deliver on continuous improvements shared with global finance teams such as billing and pricing

The successful candidate will need to be a fully qualified Accountant (ACA, ACMA, ACCA or equivalent) and have experience working in a Project environment.