Group Finance Associate at LifeBank

Role Summary

• The Finance Manager will report directly to the CEO and be responsible for maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the company's financial records, overseeing accounts receivable, managing financial reconciliations, and preparing timely and accurate management accounts.
• The role requires a hands-on, analytical, and detail-oriented professional who can independently manage financial processes, identify and resolve discrepancies, and ensure that financial information is complete, reliable, and available for management decision-making.
• The successful candidate will take ownership of financial reporting deadlines, monitor outstanding receivables, maintain accurate accounting records across the company's business units, and provide the CEO with regular updates on financial performance, collections, and outstanding financial issues.
• Experience in financial forecasting, budgeting, and financial modelling will be an added advantage.

Key Responsibilities

Accounts Receivable and Collections Management:

• Oversee the accounts receivable process, ensuring that invoices are accurately raised, recorded, and tracked.
• Maintain an up-to-date record of customer balances, outstanding invoices, and overdue receivables.
• Prepare and regularly update accounts receivable ageing reports, highlighting overdue balances and collection risks.
• Monitor collections against outstanding invoices and ensure that payments received are promptly and accurately allocated to the appropriate customer accounts.
• Reconcile customer accounts and investigate discrepancies between invoices, payments, credit notes, and outstanding balances.
• Work with the Sales and Operations teams to follow up on outstanding payments, resolve billing issues, and improve collection performance.
• Identify long-outstanding receivables and high-risk customer accounts and escalate significant issues to the CEO.
• Maintain accurate records of customer transactions, payment commitments, and collection activities.
• Provide regular reports on collections, outstanding receivables, and expected inflows to support cash flow planning.

Financial Reconciliation:

• Perform and oversee regular bank, customer, supplier, general ledger, and intercompany reconciliations.
• Ensure that all financial transactions are properly recorded and that account balances agree with supporting documents and external statements.
• Investigate discrepancies, identify their root causes, and ensure timely resolution.
• Maintain a reconciliation tracker showing outstanding items, responsible persons, resolution status, and expected completion dates.
• Ensure that reconciling items are properly documented, monitored, and cleared within agreed timelines.
• Review financial postings to identify duplicate entries, omissions, incorrect classifications, and unsupported transactions.
• Ensure consistency between accounting records, bank statements, customer accounts, and management reports.
• Maintain complete supporting documentation and audit trails for all reconciliations.

Management Accounts and Financial Reporting:

• Prepare and submit accurate and complete monthly management accounts within the company's approved reporting timeline.
• Prepare profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, and other relevant financial statements.
• Ensure that all financial transactions are correctly posted, classified, and recorded in the appropriate accounting periods.
• Review general ledger balances and supporting schedules to ensure the accuracy and completeness of financial reports.
• Analyse financial performance across business units, identifying significant variances, unusual transactions, and emerging financial risks.
• Provide explanations for material variances and highlight issues requiring management attention.
• Ensure that management accounts reconcile with the underlying accounting records and supporting schedules.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date financial records across the company's business units.