Senior Accountant - Job Description
Location: Grabouw (hybrid working model to be discussed)
Industry: Manufacturing / Agriculture
Reports to: Managing Director / Finance leadership structure to be confirmed
Primary focus: Accurate accounting, management reporting, controls and profitability insight for HGSA
Role Purpose
The Senior Accountant is responsible for maintaining accurate accounting practices for Haygrove South Africa (HGSA) and converting financial data into useful management information. The role is deliberately positioned below a Finance & Commercial Manager level: it is not primarily an Exco, people-management or high-level strategy position. However, it is also not a narrow processing or compliance-only role. The Senior Accountant must understand the detail behind the management accounts, identify problems early and provide practical analysis that helps the Managing Director and heads of department improve profitability, cash flow and operational decision-making.
Core Accountabilities
- Accurate accounting and month-end discipline
- Own the quality and accuracy of the general ledger and month-end close process.
- Prepare and review journals, accruals, provisions, reconciliations and supporting schedules.
- Ensure debtors, creditors, stock, cost of sales, cashbook, capex and intercompany accounts are complete, accurate and timeously reconciled.
- Ensure transactions are allocated to the correct department, product, project, cost centre and account.
- Management accounts, reporting and insight
- Prepare monthly management accounts that are reliable, consistent and easy to interpret.
- Investigate variances, unusual movements, accounting errors and business trends before reports are issued.
- Produce practical report packs for heads of department, highlighting the information each person needs to manage their area.
- Track agreed KPIs and explain what is driving performance, not only what happened historically.
- Profitability, margin and cost analysis
- Analyse gross margin, project profitability, product profitability, landed costs, freight, duties, installation costs and operational overheads.
- Identify margin leakage, pricing/costing errors, unprofitable work, stock variances, process weaknesses and avoidable costs.
- Work with sales, operations, procurement, stores and installation teams to understand root causes and recommend practical improvements.
- Support the business in finding ways to improve profitability and cash conversion.
- Cash flow, working capital and debtors support
- Assist with cash-flow forecasting and working-capital reporting.
- Monitor debtors, deposits, customer payment terms, overdue balances and collection risks.
- Provide management with clear reporting on cash pressure points and likely timing of inflows/outflows.
- Support debtor recovery and procurement/payment planning through accurate information.
- Controls, compliance and audit
- Maintain strong internal controls and ensure financial processes are followed consistently.
- Ensure VAT, tax, statutory, audit and other compliance requirements are met accurately and on time.
- Prepare audit files, supporting schedules and responses to audit queries.
- Support sound financial governance without creating unnecessary administrative burden for the business.
- Systems, processes and data quality
- Improve finance processes, month-end checklists, reporting templates and data-quality checks.
- Promote disciplined use of Navision/ERP and Excel reporting tools.
- Identify where poor data capture is weakening reporting accuracy and work with the relevant teams to fix it.
- Develop practical tools that reduce manual work and make reporting more reliable.
Requirements
- Minimum 5 years’ accounting or management accounting experience, preferably in manufacturing, agriculture, trading, import/export or project-based operations.
- Strong technical accounting skills, month-end discipline and reconciliation ability.
- Experience preparing and interrogating monthly management accounts.
- Strong Excel capability and confidence working with accounting/ERP systems. Navision or Business Central experience is advantageous.
- Understanding of stock, cost of sales, landed cost, duties, freight, VAT, audit and internal controls.
- Accounting degree, diploma or relevant professional qualification. SAIPA/CIMA/SAICA articles or equivalent experience would be advantageous.
- Ability to communicate financial information clearly and practically to non-financial managers.
Personal Attributes
- Highly accurate, organised and deadline-driven.
- Analytical and curious; willing to dig into the detail until the reason behind the numbers is understood.
- Commercially aware and interested in improving business performance.
- Practical, solutions-focused and able to work across departments without needing formal authority.
- Confident enough to challenge poor data, weak processes or unexplained results in a constructive way.
What success looks like
- Management accounts are accurate, timely and trusted by the MD and heads of department.
- Reporting highlights the real issues behind profitability, cash flow, margins, stock and working capital.
- Heads of department receive information they can use to make better decisions.
- Accounting processes and reconciliations are clean, disciplined and audit-ready.
- The business has better visibility of where money is being made, lost or tied up.
Please send your CV and covering letter to Michelle@fluidsearch.co.za
