Finance Business Partner

Heyland Recruitment are delighted to be exclusively partnering our client, a large FMCG business based close to the Chester area as they look for an experienced Financial Planning & Analysis Manager / Finance Business Partner to join them on a permanent basis in a newly created role.

Reporting to the Finance Director, the Finance Business Partner will work closely with the Operations Manager and will challenge all areas of production, focusing on variables and driving efficiency around cost, materials, yield and wastage. You will also provide support to the Finance Director in partnering with all members of the company leadership team to enable good decision making and understanding of company performance.

Main Responsibilities include;

• Act as business partner for the Operations Director and site Managers to support decision making and understanding of financial parameters of the operation.
• Analysis of product sales; analysis of manufacturing costs, indirect and direct costs.
• Working closely with the factory manager and department heads to identify areas of improvement and increase efficiency within the manufacturing process
• Lead top level budgeting process and detailed quarterly reforecasting of the business
• Performance Reporting - To manage the periodic reporting process, ensuring that the information generated is used to challenge performance and drive action. To generate ad-hoc information (normally commercial, purchasing, or operational related) to support the analysis of business performance.
• Ensuring that overall budgeting and forecasting process runs smoothly and reflects reality of business
• Rolling Forecast - To co-ordinate the generation of the commercial, purchasing or operational elements of the rolling forecast, and review the results to ensure they are robust and supported by sound assumptions.
• Control Environment - To review and develop the commercial and operational control systems (e. NPD, Promo's, DWOR, Variances), ensuring they are adequate and are being consistently applied.
• Month End - To contribute to an efficient and robust month end process. Ensure that sales and margin balance sheet accounts are understood, and balances are justified.
• Ensuring that actual costs are recovered within reported product costs and that variances are identified, analysed for trends etc.
• Provision of detailed KPI reports for the site, review of KPI data with operations to identify performance and process improvement opportunities.
• Report on variances including year on year variance analysis
• Stock management and reporting including stock reconciliations and control of slow-moving stock.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a commercially focused Manufacturing finance professional to make a difference to the manufacturing process, identifying areas for improvement and working with the senior managers and department heads to implement change.

The ideal candidate will be an ACA, ACCA, CIMA Qualified Management Accountant or equivalent who has previous experience of working within a challenging manufacturing environment. Experience of stock control and implementing standard costing is essential along with having the confidence to challenge senior management and drive performance. The successful candidate must also possess strong MS office skills, Data Warehouse and Power BI would be particularly beneficial.

Experience of implementing Lean Manufacturing practices would also be beneficial not essential.