Finance Analyst - Manufacturing - 6 month FTC

Reed Finance are working exclusively with a Manufacturing business in the Wakefield area in the search for an Accountant with strong analytical skills to undertake a six month fixed term contract. You will work with the Finance Manager to provide relevant insights into business performance and support effective financial planning and analysis. SAP experience is essential.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct business performance analysis to identify, investigate and understand operational business unit results (e. margins, costs, profitability by client) and recommend improvement opportunities.
• Prepare, challenge and explain accomplishment of budgets and forecasts in coordination with Operations and Commercial teams, and recommend and help implement actions to bring performance back to budget if performance deviates.
• Provide ad-hoc analysis and insights on specific issues (e. develop business cases for new business opportunities)
• Prepare reports including rationale for the investment and calculation of expected financial return
• Ensure accuracy of period-end financial closings by providing business expertise into the financial control team and reviewing final output

Experience required:

• Experience in dealing with manufacturing accounting, variance analysis, plant operations and managing multiple projects
• Demonstrated ability to "get behind the numbers" and understand key drivers within a business
• Demonstrated ability to identify business cases for new opportunities, and the ability to prepare planning models and/or implementation plans for those opportunities with senior management.
• Experience in implementation and use of financial dashboards/analysis tools
• Experience building strong working relationships across different seniority grades
• Ability to represent finance with the business and the business with finance
• SAP knowledge and advanced Excel user