Finance Manager

Overview

Location:
Hybrid, Hook (3 days per week office-based however this can increase during month end). Regular visits to group operational sites are also required

Working Hours:
Monday to Friday 37.5 hours per week (8:30am – 5:00pm)

Job Status:
Permanent

At cinch our mission is simple - to remove the faff from buying and owning cars, giving customers more choice, with more ease (not to mention a free 90-day warranty on all cars...)

Already the UK’s largest online used car retailer, we’re expanding our offering with an exciting roadmap of online and physical retail solutions - including faff-free car servicing at over 100 locations across the country.

We’re part of Constellation Automotive Group - a family of brands that also includes We Buy Any Car, British Car Auctions (BCA) and Marshall Motor Group. Together, cinch and Marshall operate as Constellation Retail - bringing together 100+ years of motoring know-how at 130+ stores (Marshall) with a market-leading digital experience from a much-admired brand (cinch).

The road ahead for you is clear. Join us and you’ll get a unique opportunity to grow your career across two leading automotive brands that are really going places. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Reporting into the cinch Financial Controller, you will play a key part in shaping and developing cinch’s financial reporting capabilities, processes & procedures and control.

Cinch owns significant amounts of vehicle inventory, which is stored and prepared at a number of group operating sites around the UK. Alongside other responsibilities, this finance manager’s key area of focus will be to lead the finance team members responsible for management of cinch’s inventory of vehicles. Good management of this inventory, which represents the most significant individual item in the cinch balance sheet, is critical to the efficient operation of the business and our management of working capital.

• Ensuring that processes, procedures and transactional accounting in respect of inventory is fit for purpose and that accounting and reporting is timely and accurate
• Overview and responsibility for end-to-end inventory balance sheet reconciliations and reviews; monitoring controls and reconciliations to ensure that underlying processes and financial reporting are well managed and tightly controlled
• Ensuring month end reporting for your areas of responsibility are error free and on time
• Identifying areas for improvement and managing the team to make them happen
• Stock counts: ensuring that adequate stock count instructions are in place and agreed between Finance and Operations; that stock counts proceed in line with instructions (this will require regular attendance of stock counts at operating sites); that reconciliations are performed and documented timely and to a high quality; and that any adjustments required to correct discrepancies identified during the count are reflected in the accounts
• Ensuring that the team’s accounting for purchases of inventory from multiple sources (auctions, lease companies, customers and other parties) and sales of inventory (to customers or to trade) are adequate and that all transactions are recorded accurately and timely
• Identifying situations where new operational or commercial arrangements require new or changed transactional flows, designing processes to capture these, and implementing with the Finance and Ops teams
• Outside of inventory, you will have responsibility for accounting and reporting for other areas of the P&L and balance sheet
• Period end reporting including management accounts and other deliverables for the cinch Management Team and other stakeholders
• Overseeing / performing testing of Business Central, our ERP system, following development work (e.g. implementation of new workflows, development of new import files and bank export files, transactions relating to new products)
• Working with colleagues across the business to understand new products & services which are proposed, ensure that finance requirements are scoped into the development plan, and that the correct transactions are captured
• Working closely with Customer Experience and Product teams…