Financial Controller - Polydor – Kings Cross, London

Music is Universal

It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does. Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation. We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com. The A Side: A Day in The Life Polydor is an incredibly hard working and passionate record label. Every staff member lives and breathes what they do and the determination to succeed and deliver for our artists is unrivalled. The Financial Controller will work alongside the Finance Director, to communicate clearly and effectively with Senior Management in all aspects of decision making and guidance for the label. Ensuring that any process of decision making includes financial analysis. Reporting on label profitability and helping to manage the business financially. The B Side: Skills & Experience Be analytical

• Responsible for overseeing all finance related areas with the Management Accountant, which includes Reporting, Analysis and Forecasting.
• Responsible for monthly and quarterly forecasting and maintenance of rolling forecast
• Responsible for initial preparation of annual budget and analysis.
• Responsible for review of all Joint Venture Accounts prepared by JV Accountant. Point of contact for issue resolution.
• Responsible for preparation and review of investment appraisals and post deal analysis.
• Responsible for budgeting of artist expenditure, approval of recording costs budgets.

Be operational

• Main point of contact for audit queries with both internal and external auditors, including hard-close, year-end, Statutory accounts.
• Responsible for month end close process including commentaries on P&L and cash flow.
• Ensure the maintenance and upkeep of general ledger, to include reconciliations, calculation of provisions/accruals and general review of accounts, journal posting.
• Ensure that all information provided to support P&L and Balance sheet amounts is accurate and adheres to accounting policies and that month end figures are supplied correctly and to deadline.
• Responsible for internal approvals on expenditure covering things such as tickets purchases, travel, marketing and recording budgets
• Manage relationships with key suppliers and urgent payments process.

Be technical

• Innovation of analytical techniques used
• Steering the adoption of new systems
• Tapping into the potential of available data and insight/analysis from across the company

Be administrative

• Adherence /improvement of business procedures and policies.
• Responsible for preparation of ad-hoc analysis requested by Business.
• Responsible for ad-hoc training and queries requested by business.

Person Specification

• ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified.
• Good academic background & strong analytical skills.
• Experience of managing month end – including understanding of a full profit and loss account and balance sheet and ability to judge the right commercial decisions to make.
• Ability to implement business and operational systems.
• Ability to work under pressure, possible longer hours and experience working in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong proven relationship-building skills.
• Driven and motivated to progress.
• Self-assured but diplomatic, able to act as the face of the Finance department.
• Personable.

Desirable Systems Experience

• Microsoft office
• SAP
• Business Objects
• Hyperion
• In-house packages
• Ideally experience working in a media or similar environment

Just So You Know… The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.
Job Category: Finance & Accounting