Senior Accountant

Summary of The Role
The Senior Accountant will take full ownership of the debtors, creditors, banking, treasury, foreign exchange, intercompany loan transactions, intercompany balances, confirmations, cash flow and reconciliation functions. The role is responsible for ensuring that customer collections, supplier payments, bank reconciliations, cash forecasting, foreign exchange administration, intercompany confirmations, clearing accounts and control accounts are managed accurately, timeously and within a strong control environment.
This is a hands-on leadership role requiring a structured, assertive and accountable finance professional who can manage people, deadlines, risk, documentation and stakeholder relationships in a high-volume environment. The incumbent must be proactive, output-driven and disciplined, with strong respect for controls, governance, audit readiness and continuous improvement.

Job Purpose
The Senior Accountant is accountable for the end-to-end management of the debtors, creditors, treasury, foreign exchange, banking, cash, clearing, intercompany loan transactions, intercompany balances, confirmations and reconciliation functions within the business. The role is responsible for safeguarding cash flow, managing working capital, maintaining strong financial controls, managing financial and operational risk, ensuring governance compliance, and delivering accurate and timely financial information to support decision-making.
The incumbent will act as a gatekeeper of controls, risk and governance within the finance function, ensuring that processes are efficient, compliant, well documented, audit-ready and continuously improved. The role requires a structured, assertive, disciplined and output-driven leader who takes accountability for the full function and operates effectively under pressure.

Key Responsibilities
Debtors Management
• Take full ownership of the debtors function, including the management, collection and control of outstanding debtor balances.
• Drive collection strategies and ensure overdue accounts are proactively followed up and escalated where required.
• Review debtor ageing reports, identify risk areas and implement action plans to reduce overdue balances and bad debt exposure. Calculation of Expected Credit Losses.
• Ensure debtor accounts are accurately maintained, reconciled regularly and supported by appropriate documentation.
• Monitor debtor trends and emerging risks, and provide meaningful commentary to management.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with customers, operational teams and internal stakeholders.

Creditors Management
• Manage the full creditors function, ensuring suppliers are paid accurately, timeously and in accordance with approved processes.
• Oversee creditor onboarding, including documentation control, compliance checks and adherence to governance requirements.
• Review creditor reconciliations, ageing analysis and payment proposals to ensure accuracy, completeness and control.
• Manage supplier queries and relationships professionally and efficiently.
• Ensure all supporting documentation is complete, accurate, approved and retained in line with company requirements.
• Manage working capital carefully through disciplined payment planning, purchase order management and supplier balance control.

Treasury, Banking, Cash Flow and Foreign Exchange
• Manage daily treasury, banking and cash management activities.
• Prepare and maintain cash flow forecasts, including short-term and medium-term funding requirements.
• Monitor liquidity requirements and optimise cash utilisation across the business.
• Manage bank administration, banking documentation, mandates, facilities and related banking processes.
• Oversee bank reconciliations and ensure all reconciling items are investigated and cleared timeously.
• Manage foreign exchange activities, including foreign currency payments, exposure monitoring, forward exchange contracts where applicable, and liaison with banking partners.
• Monitor foreign exchange gains and losses and provide analysis and commentary on the impact of exchange rate movements, forward points and related costs.
• Ensure compliance with exchange control requirements, treasury policies and internal approval processes.

Clearing Accounts, Cash Accounts and Balance Sheet Reconciliations
• Oversee reconciliations for debtors, creditors, bank accounts, cash accounts, clearing accounts, suspense accounts and related general ledger control accounts.
• Ensure reconciliations are prepared, reviewed and resolved within required deadlines.
• Drive the timely investigation and clearance of reconciling items, exceptions and unmatched transactions.
• Maintain the integrity of balance sheet accounts and ensure financial information is accurate, complete and supportable.

Intercompany Loans, Balances and Confirmations
• Manage intercompany loan transactions, balances and reconciliations, ensuring they are accurately recorded, supported and reviewed.
• Coordinate intercompany confirmations for loans, debtors and creditors, ensuring balances are agreed, differences are investigated and supporting documentation is retained.
• Monitor intercompany debtor and creditor balances and ensure ageing, recoverability, settlement and classification risks are appropriately managed.
• Ensure confirmations, reconciliations and supporting schedules are available for internal and external audit requirements.
• Liaise with related parties, group finance and internal stakeholders to resolve intercompany differences and improve alignment of balances.

Financial Controls, Risk and Governance
• Act as the gatekeeper of financial controls, governance and compliance across the relevant finance functions.
• Design, implement, maintain and enhance internal controls to support accuracy, accountability and risk mitigation.
• Ensure adherence to company policies, approval frameworks, documentation standards and financial procedures.
• Identify control weaknesses, operational risks and process gaps, and implement corrective actions.
• Promote a culture of discipline, control awareness, accountability and ethical conduct within the team.
• Ensure work is performed consistently, proactively and within required timelines.

Financial Reporting, Expense Analysis and Cost Control
• Assist with monthly financial reporting and management reporting requirements.
• Prepare expense analyses, variance explanations and commentary for management review.
• Support the preparation and review of management accounts, balance sheet substantiation and financial reporting packs.
• Monitor costs carefully and drive cost awareness across relevant departments.
• Manage budgets, variance controls and departmental cost reporting.
• Prepare departmental budgets and assist with forecasting and planning processes.

Audit Management and Compliance
• Manage internal and external audit requirements relating to debtors, creditors, bank, cash, treasury, VAT, foreign exchange, intercompany loans, debtor and creditor confirmations, reconciliations and control accounts.
• Coordinate and provide accurate audit information, schedules and supporting documentation within required deadlines.
• Ensure audit findings are addressed timeously through practical and sustainable corrective actions.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation and support a strong control environment.
• Assist with VAT administration, banking compliance and related regulatory information requests.

Stakeholder and Relationship Management
• Manage relationships with banks, suppliers, customers, auditors, senior managers, group finance and internal business stakeholders.
• Collaborate effectively with peers and operational teams to resolve issues and improve processes.
• Manage upwards by providing clear, timely and accurate updates, risks, escalations and recommendations.
• Delegate appropriately while maintaining oversight, ownership and accountability for outcomes.

People Management and Leadership
• Lead, coach, mentor and develop the finance team responsible for debtors, creditors, reconciliations and related functions.
• Set clear expectations, deadlines and performance standards.
• Manage workloads, priorities and deliverables in a high-volume environment.
• Hold team members accountable for accuracy, discipline, timeliness and adherence to controls.
• Demonstrate assertive, structured and professional leadership while supporting collaboration and continuous improvement.

Process Improvement and Efficiency
• Identify opportunities to enhance controls, reduce manual effort, improve turnaround times and increase processing efficiency.
• Drive process improvements, standardisation and better documentation across finance processes.
• Use technology, reporting tools and strong Excel capability to improve analysis, monitoring and control.
• Support ad hoc duties and finance projects as required by senior finance leadership.

Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, Commerce or a related field.
• CA(SA) qualification or equivalent professional finance qualification will be advantageous.

Experience Required
• Minimum 5 years’ relevant finance experience in a finance operations, working capital, treasury, accounting or financial control environment.
• At least 3 years’ experience managing people and leading finance teams.
• Proven experience in debtors management, creditor management, banking, cash flow forecasting, bank reconciliations and balance sheet reconciliations.
• Experience managing high-volume transaction processing in a pressured, deadline-driven environment.
• Experience in internal controls, documentation control, governance, internal audit and external audit support.
• Experience in foreign currency payments, foreign exchange exposure management and bank administration would be advantageous.
• Experience managing intercompany loan transactions, intercompany balances, debtor confirmations and creditor confirmations.
• Experience assisting with monthly financial reporting, expense analysis, budgets and variance reporting.

Technical Skills and Systems Knowledge
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including strong analysis, reconciliation and reporting capability.
• Strong understanding of debtors, creditors, banking, treasury, foreign exchange, intercompany loans, confirmations, VAT and control account processes.
• Sound understanding of internal controls, audit requirements, governance and risk management.
• Strong financial reporting, budgeting, variance analysis and expense review skills.
• Experience with Autoline and Hyperion will be advantageous.
• Efficient and accurate processing ability, with strong attention to detail.

Ad Hoc Duties
• Perform additional finance, reporting, analysis, audit, compliance, banking, treasury, intercompany or operational duties as required by senior finance leadership.
• Support business priorities, special projects and process improvement initiatives from time to time.