Senior Commercial Accountant

Exciting new Senior Commercial Accountant position available at Top Law Firm, on a 12-month FTC basis.

As the Senior Commercial Accountant, you will be working alongside a broad range of practice areas in the firm including, fee earner groups, finance, business development, HR and IT in relation to commercial decisions and analysis to help drive financial improvements.

Key stakeholders include the COO, Heads of Department, the Board, Finance Partners, and the Directorate, as well as Partners in each practice area, providing financial reporting and detailed analysis and insight to improve understanding of financial performance and assist in commercial decision making. You will also lead and manage a team of Commercial Accountant and assist in the longer-term strategic planning process and drive the shorter-term annual budgeting.

Specific duties include but are not limited to:

• Partner with Heads of Departments and Finance Partners to develop, update, review and implement business plans.
• Regularly review actual performance, develop forecasts/projections, and monitor against business plans and budgets.
• Perform investment appraisal / business case analysis.
• Pro-actively identify any financial issues and efficiency opportunities to enable the practice groups to undertake profit improvement initiatives.
• Manage the production of monthly management information pack including KPI's.
• Review operating results and actual performance of the overall business as well as individual departments, practice groups, partners, and fee-earners.
• Lead the budgeting and planning cycles for fee earning departments.
• Develop and implement a cost accounting system to aid profitability analysis.
• Undertake profitability analyses at client analyses at client, matter, work type, partner and fee earner level.
• Work closely with other teams within the Finance department to help improve overall financial management of the business.
• Collaboration with HR, including recruitment plans, business plans, forecasting headcount for budgets and targets, capacity management, salary review and bonuses, space planning, promotions and ad-hoc reviews of teams and individuals.
• Integration with the Information Systems and Strategy teams in the development of new software and technology to improve financial reporting e.g. dashboards, budgeting systems, capacity tools.
• Assist the Business Developments teams with regular client reporting, pitches and cross working revenue analyses.

To be successful in your application, you will need to have had previous experience in a commercially focused finance position, within a law firm or a partnership environment and hold an accountancy qualification (CIMA/ ACCA). You will also need to demonstrate experience working with and finance business partnering with senior stakeholders across the business and have proven abilities in influencing decisions that have improved profitability through detailed analysis.