This is a full-time role based near Orpington, Kent

Background

Prestige Cars Kent is one of Kent’s leading and fastest growing prestige car dealerships.

The business has an innovative fresh approach to the motor trade and has led to rapid expansion over 4-5 years into a circa £10m turnover business.

Overview of the Role

The business has until now relied on book keeping support with annual accounting performed by their external accountants.

However, the business has grown so rapidly since 2015 that full-time qualified finance resource is needed to lead the accounting and reporting and work closely day-to-day with the Managing Director.

This is an excellent opportunity to work with a business that is destined to grow further as a strategic plan is developed with part-time FD resource from the FD Centre. The role will report jointly to the Managing Director and external FD resource as the business and finance continues to develop and grow.

The accounts are maintained Sage Line 50 and supported with Dragon2000 business system for processing of vehicle sales and invoicing.

The accounting transactions are quite complex for a typical sale in that cars are usually financed with add-on income generated, part-exchanged cars usually have finance that needs to be settled.

A bookkeeper is responsible for generating trading transactions and recent contractor support has cleaned-up the day-to-day car sales transaction processes.

The Role

This will primarily focus on establishing and developing a tight month-end close process and reporting pack that combines both monthly management accounts and commercial MI and KPIs with the Managing Director.

The role will be responsible for the full integrity of the Sage accounting system
Preparation of month-end P&L account and Balance Sheet
Establishing month-end balance sheet reconciliation processes, especially for financing arrangements and loan providers
Able to recognise appropriate best practice accounting from new agreements and contracts that are entered into as the business develops
Establishment of financial controls around credit/debit card expenses, online miscellaneous purchases of sundries for vehicles
Review and sign-off the accounts assistants’ reconciliations
Establishment of bank reconciliation process monthly that is filed and signed-off
Formation of appropriate physical security and control around cheque and card payments and purchases
Development of Sage Chart of Accounts for growing business including perhaps establishing cost centres/branches at an appropriate time
Oversee monthly payroll accounting and processes
Ensure good finance admin mechanisms exist and adapt to the growing business
Developing accounting and reporting processes to cater for more sale or return business
Oversight of 2 weekly stocktake process and month-end stock accounting

The Candidate & Key Skills

Qualified accountant or qualified by experience with a hands-on approach
Likes the challenge of building processes for a successful and growing business
Strong Excel skills, e.g. pivot tables, VLOOKUP’s, graphs, charts etc. able to trend and manipulate transactional-level data for trends etc. from business system as well as sage accounting system
Good broad generalist financial control skill set
Knowledge of motor industry not essential, more important are candidates who have a can-do attitude and proven process improvement and control skills ideally from small business asset-focused trading environment
Flexible approach is key, as this is a new role, plus someone who enjoys a fast-paced environment

STRICTLY NO AGENCIES