About Us 3173 is a privately owned UK firm of pensions experts with clients throughout the UK, serviced from offices in London, Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds. The 3173 Group of companies includes Dalriada Trustees Limited (Dalriada) one of the UKs largest professional pension scheme trustee companies. Spence & Partners provides full pension actuarial, consulting, investment consulting and administration services that provide simply smarter solutions for trustees, employers and members and Mantle: reimagines the traditional models of defined benefit pensions administration and actuarial valuation software. Background to the Role The 3173 Group is an ambitious and fast growth software and professional services business operating right across the UK in the specialist defined benefit pensions industry. The business has been in operation for almost 20 years and has grown to be one of the leading players in its principal markets being the provision of Trustee, Administration, Actuarial, Investment and technology services to Pension Schemes. 3173 has developed its own unique technology platform, Mantle, which gives our company a significant advantage in our market. We have office locations throughout the United Kingdom but we are very proud to be headquartered in Belfast. The Group received a significant investment from Synova, a leading growth investor in September 2022. This partnership will enable our business to consolidate its market leading positions and will facilitate the investment required to enable 3173 to achieve even greater potential in the rapidly developing pensions and technology markets. Due to our continued success and expansion, 3173 is eager to appoint a Financial Controller to join the business to lead the finance function. The position will manage the finance team and report to the CFO. The role will be responsible for financial and commercial reporting across all reporting entities and service lines. The role will also play a key part in the evaluation of investment opportunities, growth initiatives and will support the CFO in connection with future acquisitions. This position is ideally suited to an experienced and commercially minded Financial Controller with strong management and organisational skills eager to undertake a pivotal role within an ambitious growth business embedding and optimising our newly implemented ERP system. About You You will be a qualified accountant with significant experience post qualification working within a busy commercial finance environment. You will have worked as a Financial Controller in a busy commercial environment and are looking for the opportunity to develop and lead the Finance function within 3173, a high growth provider of financial services to the pensions industry. As the Financial Controller, you will provide financial leadership and contribute proactively to the growth and development of 3173. You will be able to demonstrate your experience in supporting a commercial organisation through the financial reporting process, with significant practical experience in the development of clear and concise financial reporting, which will enable business leadership to identify underperformance and take corrective action, to ensure that both short term and long term financial plans are achieved. You will be a confident and articulate communicator with the ability to work with senior leaders and use your influencing skills to achieve the best outcomes for the business. You will be highly competent in the use of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. You will thrive in a collaborative, fast moving team-based environment and able to support and contribute to the development of the wider Finance team. You will be a diligent and driven individual with a high level of attention to detail. Someone who is enthusiastic, confident, thorough, and conscientious will do well in this role. The ability and confidence to highlight and escalate where relevant any challenges or risks to the senior leadership team is a must. You will be able to easily build effective working relationships at all levels. Your responsibilities will include: Management responsibility for the finance team, ensuring all monthly deadlines are achieved. Lead and drive the continued embedding and optimisation of our new ERP system to deliver increased automation, efficiencies, and improved ways of working in line with business goals. Head the preparation of monthly management accounts including practice revenue, expense, and variance analysis. Lead the preparation of the monthly Financial Performance Report and Finance Board Reports for all legal entities. Lead the finance team in the preparation of audited financial statements for all legal entities and manage the relationship with the external auditors. Conduct the preparation of corporation tax computations and VAT returns for all legal entities and ensure that the Group is compliant with all applicable tax deadlines. Lead the finance team in the preparation of both budgets and longer term strategic financial plans across the 3173 Group, including the presentation of budgets to senior leadership and investors. Lead the finance team in the preparation of rolling profit and cashflow forecasts across the Group, including the development of financial models and the presentation of such forecasts to senior leadership and investors. Manage the working capital position within the Group including responsibility for credit control and the identification and efficient investment of surplus cash balances. Lead the finance team in the preparation of financial performance profitability monitoring and associated governance across the Group including contract profitability and staff utilisation metrics to enhance the overall performance of the Group. Head the finance team in the monitoring of expenses across all budget holders, identifying underperformance in spend versus budget and ensuring corrective action is taken. Lead in finance team in the development and documentation of internal financial controls to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of existing financial processes. Lead the preparation of the financial investment appraisal of significant strategic investments across the Group. Joint supervision with the People & Culture team of an outsourced payroll function. Essential Skills & Criteria ACA/ACCA/CIMA Qualified accountant with a minimum of seven years experience post qualification gained in a commercial finance environment. Previous experience within a Commercial business in a Financial Controller role. Previous experience in a Management position, to include the training and development of team members. Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to build trusted relationships with both staff and external stakeholders. Demonstrable experience in the use of accounting software such as Sage, Oracle, SAP or similar across sales ledger, purchase ledger and nominal ledger. Very experienced in the use of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Experienced in the use of financial modelling to support the creation of budgets, rolling forecasts and other financial plans. Experienced in the development of investment appraisals. Strong commercial awareness with experience in the reporting of commercial key performance indicators. Experience in training and developing junior staff. Experience in leading a payroll team, including compliance with HMRC requirements. Highly flexible, including willingness to work flexible hours at peak times. Ability to attend the Belfast office a minimum of two days per week. Circumstances Location:Belfast hybrid Working hours: Monday to Friday, 37.5 hours per week with additional hours as and when required. All roles are subject to a six-month probationary period and all prospective employees are required to complete an Access NI check. As part of the pre-hire process the successful candidate will be subject to reference checking security vetting. 3173 is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applying with a disability or long-term health condition? As part of our belief that we benefit from the differences among us we are committed to increasing the representation of disabled colleagues and want to remove any barriers or challenges that get in the way of candidates with a disability or long-term health condition from applying to work with us. As part of this commitment, we guarantee to automatically interview anyone with a disability who meets the minimum criteria. If there is support or an adjustment that we can provide to enable you to be at your best during the recruitment and selection process, we encourage you to advise us in good time so that we may make suitable arrangements. We understand that being open with us may feel uncomfortable so please only share with us the information that you are comfortable to share, and rest assured that we will use this only to provide you with the right support. Any information you give us will be treated completely confidentially. To discuss this further please call and ask to speak to a member of the People & Culture team.