Finance Manager

KINGDOM & PARTNERS

Engineering the present. Designing the future.

FINANCE MANAGER

Part time, circa 30 hours · Newport (Shropshire) or Exeter (Devon) · Permanent

Kingdom & Partners is a growing group of specialist ground engineering and geoscience consultancies, Key GeoSolutions and Red Rock GeoScience, working across the UK from offices in Newport, Exeter and Truro.

We are looking for a hands-on Finance Manager to take ownership of the day-to-day finance function, keep our numbers current and reliable, and give the directors a clear view of cash.

The role is built around fixed working times with some flexibility both ways, because we would rather have the right person every day than the wrong person full time. It can be based at either our Newport or Exeter office, with hybrid working and occasional travel to the other sites.

The role

You will be the finance function. There is no team to delegate to beyond one part-time finance support colleague, so this will suit someone as comfortable posting a journal and chasing a debtor as presenting management accounts to the board. You will report to the directors, with a non-executive Finance Director available for support on the board and year-end work.

What you will be responsible for

• Closing the month by working day ten and producing management accounts with plain-English commentary for the directors
• Building and maintaining a rolling 13-week cash forecast, updated weekly and reviewed against what actually happened
• Owning our invoice discounting facility, availability, reconciliation, disallowables, aged debt and lender reporting
• Sitting in the weekly project review with our engineers and project managers, and holding them to completion and invoicing dates. Our funding releases at invoice generation, so the invoicing calendar, not collections, is the main lever on our cash. This part of the job is central, not an add-on
• Keeping Sage current, with daily bank reconciliation and disciplined postings
• Running purchase ledger controls: purchase order matching, approval thresholds and payment runs
• Overseeing credit control and bringing debtor days down
• Preparing payroll for director approval
• VAT returns and statutory submissions
• Supplying the financial information behind our insurance renewals
• Reporting job costing, work in progress and margin by project
• Preparing the year-end file and working with our accountants and non-executive Finance Director
• Line managing and developing one part-time finance support colleague

What your first ninety days would look like

• Sage current and reconciled
• A month closed to deadline, with accounts the directors trust
• The discounting facility reconciled and reported
• Purchase order control live and supplier queries falling
• A 13-week cash forecast running weekly, with forecast-to-actual variance tracked
• Attending the project review, and invoicing lag falling

What we are looking for

Essential

• Qualified (ACCA, CIMA or ACA) or qualified by experience at management accounts level
• Proven month-end close and management accounts production in a small or medium-sized business
• Experience of an invoice finance or discounting facility
• Strong purchase and sales ledger control, including purchase order matching and approvals
• Confident on Sage and in Excel
• Genuinely hands-on, and comfortable being the only finance person in the room
• A great communicator, internal and external
• Credible with non-finance people, able to sit with engineers and project managers and push for completion and invoicing dates without it becoming a row
• Able to work with imperfect data and improve it

Desirable

• Professional services, consultancy or construction background
• Job costing and work in progress on fixed-price contracts
• Multi-entity group accounting and intercompany
• Payroll preparation experience
• Exposure to R&D tax credits and CIS

The person

• Discipline over flair. What we need is rhythm, not reinvention
• Direct with directors, and comfortable presenting the data
• Builds a process and sticks to it
• Willing to chase people for the information and the dates, week after week, without it becoming a battle
• Wants a part-time role with real ownership, not a quiet one

What we offer

• Full ownership of the finance function from day one
• Direct access to the directors, and a non-executive Finance Director to sound things off
• Hybrid working and a choice of office
• Fixed working times, with flexibility on both sides