Meru Cabs - Senior Manager - Finance

Senior Manager - Finance

Direct Reports: Accounting & Controlling Staff

Purpose of this Job & Major Responsibilities

Accounting & Taxes:

- Guarantees 100% compliance with all relevant local legislation (e.g.: statutory accounting standards, tax law, civil law) and internal group guidelines.

- Ensures that the accounting is correct, transparent (within the organization and towards HQ) and complete (including appropriate accruals/deferrals). The financial statements must present a true and fair view of the financial position, financial performance and cash flows of the reported period.

- Tracks commitments and contracts in order to assess accrual postings.

- Ensures that all supporting documents are kept on file and that meaningful descriptions are maintained in the accounting system.

- Makes sure that financial information in all systems and reports is reconciling.

- Assures timely submission of accurate financial information to all stakeholders.

- Tax reports and tax declarations to authorities are submitted on time and corresponding payments are made accordingly.

- Annual financial statements to local authorities are delivered on time .

- Proactively and cost efficiently manages the year end audit process and external auditors to secure clean Early Warning Memorandums and clean Management Letters strictly avoiding an “Emphasis of Matter” or a “Qualified Opinion”.

- While maintaining quality, continuously drives efficiency by streamlining processes (within Finance and beyond Finance) and the use of available tools.

- Documents processes, sets up workflows and maintains check lists.

- Successful introduction and use of scan & archive, iverify, OCR, electronic bank statements, Excel uploads, EDIs and the use of recurring entries.

- Establishes an effective tax management in cooperation with the tax specialists and external tax advisors ensuring that all changes in tax legislation and their implications are evaluated well in advance, a regular tax risk assessment is being conducted and all day to day tax queries are handled in the most cost efficient way.

- Assesses the tax implications of contract proposals and business model changes.

- Mitigates tax risks in cooperation with the finance controller

- Selects and contracts a competent tax advisor (other than the year end auditor) at reasonable terms.

- Subscribes to a tax newsletter.

Cash Management & Treasury:

Complies with all relevant defined treasury guidelines:

- Treasury guideline

- Credit Risk guideline

- Insurance guideline

- Investment guideline

- Establishes and maintains an effective credit risk management, makes sure that payment terms are in line with industry standards, assesses customer creditworthiness on a regular basis, sets c`it limits and security requirements for all customers, implements in cooperation with the sales department an effective collection and dunning process and strictly avoids bad debts.

- Maintains credit limits.

- Streamlines the DSE outstanding tracking in cooperation with branch finance.

- Sets up an effective cash management by minimizing working capital needs and proactively transfers surplus cash to the parent company.

- Ensures that reliable liquidity forecasts are being delivered to management on time.

- Carries out a return on investment calculation for all proposed investments as per the Investment guideline and makes sure that a positive return will be achieved.

- Manages all local insurance topics (cars, claims, general internal inquiries) according to the guideline.

Internal Controls:

Assures the application of and compliance with the following:

- Code of Conduct

- Management Instructions

- Vendor Selection

- Travel & Entertainment

- Payment Controls

- Establishes and continuously re-assesses an effective Internal Control System and thus minimizes the risk of errors, misconduct or fraud by designing company processes to satisfy the 4 eyes principle, ensuring sufficient segregation of duties and creating awareness about the possibility of fraud.

- Establishes an effective signing limit procedure.

- Promotes candid business conduct and establishes a climate of honesty, trust and loyalty (= lead by example) and encourage a (confidential) culture of reporting misbehavior.

Business Partnership:

- Builds a solid relationship with branch heads based on mutual respect and trust.

- Is driven through a service mentality by sharing insights, by supporting budget reallocations, by ensuring overall budget adherence, by acting as a facilitator to achieve objectives, by highlighting risks and opportunities, by providing financial simulations and by developing business cases for new projects.

- Manages fact and knowledge based, spreads and exchanges information, translates findings into action and follows up on agreed measures.

- Knows contract terms of key customers.

- Knows contract terms of key suppliers.

- Promotes efficiency, productivity and profitability in all areas of the company by ensuring efficient use and protection of company assets and by maximizing benefits and synergies with other org activities.

- Works closely with the Management team to improve company cash flow.

- Supports the preparation for important customer and vendor negotiations by sharing beneficial contract modification proposals.

People Management:

- Builds a team of highly engaged and motivated people.

- Develops and updates regularly the job descriptions for all Finance staff.

- Ensures that each position is held by a person with the appropriate qualification.

- Agrees on annual objectives and links variable pay to the achievement levels.

- Holds bi annual performance reviews giving clear, honest and fair feedback.

- Promotes internal trainings (Finance Academies and Best Practice Workshops) to elevate knowledge levels within the team.

- Assures that all key processes are documented in writing and that checklists are being used.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

- Relevant Finance experience in the service industry and a considerable exposure to Commercial Finance.

- Strong accounting (Local Accounting Standards & IFRS) and taxation knowledge.

- Very strong leadership skills.

- Highly analytical and very skilled individual.

- Ability to quickly identify and analyze risks & impacts and able to define alternatives.

- Good communication and presentation skills.

- Capable of communicating precisely, effectively and convincingly based on facts with internal and external stakeholders.

- IT literate, excellent MS Excel knowledge, familiarity with any ERP system and any integrated business analysis tool is a strong plus (SAP BI/Cognos/Essbase/Hyperion etc).

- Flexible and a team player.

- Must be self-motivated, self directed and be able to work under pressure in a fast paced team environment.

- Strong English skills.