Finance Manager

This expanding business in Congleton is looking for a Finance Manager to lead a small team.andnbsp;

Please see the details below:

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Role purpose

The Finance Manager will take ownership of the day-to-day finance function and provide the Managing Director with accurate, timely and commercially useful financial information. This is a hands-on position in a small finance team, combining transaction-level oversight with management accounts, cash-flow control and process improvement.andnbsp;

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Key responsibilities:

Financial operations and control

• Lead the day-to-day finance function while remaining actively involved in bookkeeping, reconciliations and transaction processing.


• Maintain accurate accounting records, ensuring information is complete, consistent and up to date.


• Oversee sales ledger, purchase ledger, bank reconciliations, expense processing, VAT returns, payroll inputs and payment runs.


• Ensure sales invoices are raised promptly, supplier invoices are correctly authorised and all balance sheet control accounts are regularly reconciled.


• Manage credit control proactively, resolving queries quickly and escalating overdue or high-risk balances.


• Maintain an effective month-end timetable and provide accurate information to the company''s external accountants for statutory accounts and tax compliance.


• Maintain clear project-by-project records of purchase orders, client receipts, supplier commitments, payments, fees and outstanding balances.


• Work with the team to prepare, monitor and reconcile client budgets, highlighting overspends, missing costs, timing risks and variations promptly.


• Prepare short-term cash-flow forecasts that distinguish operating cash from amounts held or committed for client projects.


• Ensure suppliers are paid accurately and on time without exposing the business to avoidable working-capital risk.


• Produce a reliable monthly management accounts pack, including profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, aged debt, aged creditors and relevant commentary.


• Develop practical reporting by client, project, service line or event where the underlying systems and data allow.


• Provide the Managing Director with concise explanations of performance, cash requirements, risks and actions needed.


• Support budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis, maintaining clear assumptions and following up agreed actions.


• Supervise, support and develop the Accounts Assistant, setting clear priorities, checking work and maintaining appropriate segregation of duties.


• Create and maintain documented workflows, standard operating procedures, checklists and a finance calendar so key activities can continue during absence or staff changes.


• Identify capacity constraints and provide evidence-based recommendations when additional resource or external support is required.


• Lead the practical digitalisation of finance processes, reducing manual work and duplication while improving control, visibility and data quality.


• Promote a responsive, service-focused finance culture that works constructively with the wider business.


• Maintain appropriate financial controls, approval limits and audit trails for banking, payments, supplier changes, client receipts and journal entries.


• Protect against fraud and error through independent verification of bank-detail changes and secure payment processes.


• Ensure compliance with VAT, payroll, record-keeping and other routine