Financial Controller
Patisserie Valerie Production Ltd
Total years of experience :4 years, 9 Months
Annual revenue c£10.2m. Producers of hand-made patisserie products.
Reporting to the CFO:
• Production of timely monthly management accounts pack for the manufacturing business within the group.
• Reconciliation of all balance sheet lines implementing new processes to speed up verification of the numbers for the month end process.
• Ensure regulatory compliance on Vat returns, payroll taxes and reporting on government statistics.
• Weekly review of creditors and payments to the bank.
• Provide analysis and support of all month end variances.
• Engaged with departments within the business, including meetings to build relationships between departments.
• Forecast the material and labour spend each week, review and report on labour and material variances to budget.
• Preparation of business KPIs to measure and monitor performance across the sales channels.
• Production of the standard costings and labour rates for implementation into recipes across all produced goods.
• Implement controls within finance to ensure all costs are owned and approved by budget holders.
• Assist with the annual budgets and forecasts as required by the business.
• Support on provision of data and evidence for auditors and lead meetings to resolve issues.
• Provide support and development of the team to improve processes and team knowledge on coding costs to the correct categories and departments.
Specific Achievements
• Investigated and created control documentation for all balance sheet items including Vat entries, fixed assets register, accruals, prepayments, PAYE, pensions and key debtor balances for the online channel offerings.
• Corrected the stock valuation methods to ensure the balance sheet reflected the true operational environment.
• Ensured the warehouse team understand the value of counting stock, support on key data to include such as supplier codes and units of measure.
Annual revenue c£23m. Manufacturers of chocolate and confectionery products.
Reporting to the Finance Director and work closely with Managing Director.
• Preparation of key financial statements, reporting on variances and maintained strong balance sheet control.
• Responsible for budgeting and forecasting.
• Completed regulatory government reporting such as vat returns, ONS surveys, annual business surveys, Packaging recycling obligations, climate change agreement emissions reporting.
• Lead the year-end audit process, preparing relevant schedules and supporting evidence.
• Coordinated the annual stock take, advised the business on the process improvements, reconciled stock to system and maintained accurate records of changes.
• Managed the cashflow forecast to tight budgets.
• Reviewed payment proposals and approved bank payments that needed to be made to suppliers on a weekly basis.
• Lead my team’s recruitment needs with ongoing training and development of the staff.
• Oversaw AP and AR, ensured transactions were accurately recorded.
• Liaised with the external consultants to prepare research and development claims for innovation projects within the business drawing c£1m of cash into the business.
• Experience in driving improvement and managing change, lead contact during Sage implementation within the business.
• Strong business partnering with all manufacturing departments to review processes and translate into a mathematical model with what if analysis on optimum costs, margins and output.
• Developed a cost model that calculated the optimal pricing for tender submissions and budgeting process.
• Carried out gross margin reviews by product advising the board on poor performing products.
• Significant experience in working with budget holders across departments and partnering with non-finance colleagues to support delivery of sound financial information.
• Identify and deliver financial analysis with summarised findings to support business decision making.
• Manage relations with external auditors, banks, suppliers and government bodies.
• Financial Modelling to report on material forecast based on sales budgets.
Specific Achievements
• Developed a new product costing model for each product type, now the master copy used for all calculations of the standard cost per unit manufactured in the business check point when verifying any new costs.
• Solely developed the BOM models for all products made by the business into a format that would be supported by the new IT system. Verified calculations in a test environment and built a template that was subsequently uploaded and successfully used ahead of the go live date.
• Identified CCL charges on utility bills not claimed correctly over last 4 years, expect further £200k from the claim.
• Streamlined month end process and prepare pack with commentary on variances by WD5.
Passed all of the online and written papers and worked in the business areas that were required to be awarded the certificate of CIMA. Completion of the final paper which was a complete business case that tested the professional competence, I achieved an grading classification equivalent to excellent.