The position of Accounts Manager will be involved majorly in helping to set up systems/processes/controls for our under construction greenfield factory in China, expected to start production early 2025. The role will also involve active coordination and supervision with 4 overseas Consumer Pack oil distribution subsidiaries towards their Accounts, Tax and financial control activities. Two of the subsidiaries with senior finance resources on ground need less intensive guidance but more HQ based review related work. For the other two subsidiaries it will involve very active and detailed guidance and supervision in addition to the review responsibility. The role is a very critical HQ Accounts role to oversee these overseas business operations with Key Responsibilities as below:
Accounts, Tax and Compliance
- Oversee all accounting functions for these overseas subsidiaries, ensuring accurate maintenance of full-set accounts, including timely review of financial statements.
- Ensure the timely and correct preparation of financial and group reporting, budgeting, and management reporting, including forecasting and year-end projections as needed, with reconciliation across all different sets of local, financial, group and management reporting.
- Work closely with other stakeholders to validate costing accuracy on interest, forex, insurance, and reconcile operational performance metrics/results to management reporting.
- Get familiar with ERPs being used and have active involvement in system enhancements/ implementations.
- Participate in adhoc assignments as and when needed for business expansion projects, capital expenditure budgeting, return-on-investment (ROI) analyses, and working capital efficiency assessments, including inventory and receivables management.
- Ensure timely and error-free statutory and internal/external audits by doing timely and effective reviews, maintaining strict adherence to audit standards.
- Ensure statutory compliance, focusing on direct and indirect taxation, transfer pricing (with full documentation), cross-border taxation issues. Provide suggestions to have efficient effective tax rates.
- Monitor and leverage tax incentives and grants available to overseas entities.
Financial Controls
- Ensure required controls over assets, including stocks, receivables, payables, and cash and bank operations, adequacy of insurance coverage for all risks, ensuring alignment with FRS and group policy/internal control requirements. Review existing processes and SOPs and come up with recommendations for improvements.
- Review and monitor payment processes for accuracy and timeliness, including recurring trade expenses and staff claims. Role may require to be reviewer or approver and certain times as a back preparer in urgency.
- The role encompasses HQ responsibility of managing the resources involved in review and approval process for all payments being made by these subsidiaries. Acitvely have to ensure correctness and timeliness.
- Review and verify nontrade contracts, agreements, and power of attorney documents to protect Organisation’s interests. These documents may be in languages other than English which will require ability to use online translation tools, when needed.
- Co-ordinate with other HQ Functions such as Group Accounts & Tax, Corporate Secretarial, Group Risk, Group IT, Treasury etc for fast execution of various work related to these overseas subsidiaries.
- Prepare, maintain and update financial modelling on China factory project, including validating the sales quantity and price projections, raw material costs and manufacturing costs projections, product mix, overheads etc. The work involves very active coordination with different stakeholders to get the required information and making presentations to senior leadership.
- Develop and implement controls in partnership with China factory departments and commercial heads to support effective internal control systems before the factory starts production.
- Validate manufacturing standard cost accuracy for goods produced at the China factory, providing commercial heads with timely costing updates to factor in their sales offer
Banking and Treasury Coordination
- Support the HQ Consumer Pack Treasury team for various work at these overseas subsidiaries such as new bank account setup, cash flow projection, forex exposure management etc.
Other Responsibilities
- Assist Management with operational analysis to drive informed decision-making.
- Lead information system improvements to enhance departmental efficiency.
- Travel to overseas subsidiaries as and when the work requires
Job Requirements
- Qualifications: ACCA / CA / CPA with a degree in accounting or finance.
- Experience: Minimum 8-10 years of relevant experience, with at least 2-4 years in the trading or commodities manufacturing/ processing industry.
- Skills:
- Leadership, communication, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills.
- Knowledge of IFRS, local accounting standards, and company law.
- Transfer pricing and cross-border supply chain tax understanding.
- Well versed in Microsoft excel tools for financial modelling
- Detail-oriented, proactive, and able to work in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to add value to operations.
- Preferences:
- Experience with large audit firms 3-5 years with audit exposure of trading and / or large manufacturing operations industry
- Knowledge of Microsoft Navision systems.
- Understanding of Chinese local accounting systems, manufacturing operations, and compliance, as some subsidiaries are based in China.
- Familiarity with foreign exchange exposure, hedging, and financial modeling (ROI, ROIC, IRR, Payback).
- Exposure to commercial and operational finance activities.
