Sr. Accountant – Inventory

Job Description

The Senior Accountant - Inventory is a key position within our Financial Controlling department, overseeing the accounting process for all stocks purchased by the company. Your expertise will ensure that inventory is accurately recognized and valued, adhering to STEP policies and international accounting standards. This role involves managing a team, providing guidance, and maintaining financial integrity.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for accounting for all stocks purchased by the business and ensure they are properly recognized and valued for inclusion in the financial ledgers in accordance with the STEP policies and international accounting standards.

Key responsibilities

• Ensure inventory is aged accurately for all the stock points.
• Consolidate the listing of obsolete and slow-moving stock items for provisioning or write-off.
• Undertaking regular physical verification of the stocks to compare quantities and values against the inventory records and ledger amounts and prepare variances reports to explain differences between expected and physically stocks.
• Monitoring and accounting for spares to ensure they are correctly accounted for in the books; and maintaining a complete spares catalogue in the stock ledger for all spares and ensuring the receipts and issues of spares are processed through Oracle for complete accountability.
• Review all spares in oracle and compare this with reports provided by supply chain and any third-party managing spares ensuring there are no leakages or exposures.
• Facilitate any disposals of inventory at the warehouse ensuring proper documentation and recording of the process is done in the system.
• Review and approval of kitting transactions that emanate from supply chain and ensure kitting charge is loaded to the kitted items.
• Reconciliation of the inventory accounts. Reconcile stock balances in the stock ledger to the control account in the general ledger on an on-going basis and specifically at month end.
• Review of inventory account mapping. In liaison with financial systems team, review and approve all item codes being created in the systems for reporting purposes. Recommend the right accounts for each item in line with reporting requirements.
• End month account preparations including inventory supporting schedules and preparing a stock movement report by quantity, cost and revenues on a monthly basis for the purpose of monthly accounts per stock category.
• Computation of correct cost of sales and match to revenues generated in defined periods. This includes reviewing stock valuation module on an ongoing basis ensuring that all relevant cost elements are captured to guarantee fair stock valuation for all stock items.
• Provide accurate values for reporting in the balance sheet.
• Provide accurate values for insurance purpose.
• Reconciliations of transactions interface from POS to oracle and circulating a report of any variance on the same day, including follow up of recommended issue resolution.
• Guiding and monitoring the activities of retail outlets on financial aspects of inventory such as merchandise sales, requisition, and reconciliations. Providing quick solutions to issues raised by the retail teams to ensure merchandise is availed to customers appropriately.
• Review monthly stock take reports by warehouse/care center managers and follow up on the variances

Core competencies and knowledge

• Keen knowledge of international financial reporting standards.
• Strong ability to interpret and apply accounting and reporting standards.
• Ability to quickly identify risks and capture accounting implications.
• Hands on experience working with accounting systems e.g., Oracle, Hyperion, SAP, etc.
• Proficiency in data analytics and visualization tools.
• Strong analytical skills and a keen attention to details.
• Experience and strong understanding of internal controls.
• Self-driven, results oriented, proactive and an ability to work without supervisionKey performance indicators:
• Accurate movement report in stock ledger synchronizing purchase ledger and sales ledger movements.
• Accurate reconciliations between stock ledger and general ledger at the end of each month by 4th working day.
• Fully reconciled inventory general ledger accounts including clearing accounts.
• Accurate report on stock valuation and movements in all warehouses and adjustments proposal to align sub inventory weighted average costing to the latest weighted average cost.
• Complete spares transactions processing on real-time basis in Oracle. Nil adjustments on stock issues processed outside oracle after quarterly stock takes

Qualifications

Education & Experience:

• Business related bachelor’s degree from a recognized university.
• Qualified Accountant with CPA /ACCA/CIMA/ACA is a plus.
• 3 – 4 years post qualification experience in finance with specialization an area of financial accounting.
• Proficiency in data analytics and visualization tools
• A strategic thinker, shaping processes, people, and systems.

Skills Required:

• Accounting / Finance