An established services business is seeking an experienced Interim Financial Controller to support it through an important period of financial and operational improvement.
This is a hands-on and business-critical assignment with a strong emphasis on cash-flow forecasting, liquidity and working-capital management. The successful interim will provide accurate visibility over the company’s short-term cash position and help the leadership team make well-informed decisions regarding expenditure and supplier payments.
Working closely with senior finance and operational directors, you will identify business-critical suppliers, establish payment priorities and ensure available cash is used effectively without unnecessarily disrupting operations.
The role
Key responsibilities will include:
- Producing and maintaining regular, reliable cash-flow forecasts
- Providing clear updates on cash requirements, risks and available funding
- Managing short-term liquidity and supporting the effective use of external funding facilities
- Working closely with operational directors to understand upcoming expenditure and business requirements
- Identifying business-critical suppliers and establishing clear payment priorities
- Overseeing supplier payments and ensuring decisions are communicated appropriately
- Improving visibility over debtors, billing and expected cash receipts
- Working with operational and commercial colleagues to accelerate invoicing and cash collection
- Challenging spending, commitments and cash requirements where necessary
- Identifying immediate opportunities to release cash and improve working capital
- Producing scenario analysis to support short-term decision-making
- Providing clear, accurate and timely information to the senior leadership team
- Supporting wider financial control, reporting and process-improvement activity
- Leaving behind a robust and sustainable cash-forecasting process
The successful candidate
We are looking for a qualified accountant with previous experience as an Interim Financial Controller, Finance Director or senior finance leader.
You must be:
- Highly experienced in cash-flow forecasting and working-capital management
- Comfortable operating in a business experiencing financial and operational pressure
- Resilient, pragmatic and able to remain effective when handling difficult situations
- Confident having challenging conversations with senior stakeholders and suppliers
- Able to build strong relationships with operational directors while maintaining appropriate financial control
- Decisive when prioritising payments and allocating limited resources
- Willing to get into the detail rather than operating solely at a strategic level
- Commercially aware, with a strong understanding of how finance decisions affect day-to-day operations
- Able to produce reliable information quickly, even where existing processes or data require improvement
- Available to start at short notice
Previous experience within a project-led, operational, engineering, construction, infrastructure or industrial environment would be useful. However, strong cash-flow, turnaround and working-capital experience is more important than an exact sector match.
This assignment is expected to run for a minimum of three months and requires somebody who can make an immediate impact.