Financial Controller

P.Louise is one of the fastest growing beauty brands in the UK, trading across Shopify, TikTok Shop, Boots wholesale, our own physical retail sites at the Trafford Centre and the P.Louise Empire, and international markets across the EU and US. We move quickly, we launch constantly, and we sell at real volume across a lot of channels at once.

That pace is the opportunity and the problem. The data exists, but too much of it lands late, lives in spreadsheets, and takes too long to turn into an answer. We need a Financial Controller who owns the numbers end to end and, more importantly, owns what the business does with them.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE

Own management information at P.Louise end to end. Deliver a fast, accurate close and turn it into clear margin insight the business can act on, while it still matters. Fix the processes between Finance and every other department so the numbers are right at source rather than corrected after the fact.

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

01 Management Information and Reporting

02 Margin and Profitability

03 Cross Functional Process and Business Partnering

04 Month End Close and Balance Sheet Control

05 Statutory Reporting, Audit and Tax

06 Systems, Automation and Controls

1. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND REPORTING

This is the centre of the role. MI at P.Louise is owned here, from source data through to the commentary that lands in front of the board.

• Own the full MI suite. Monthly management accounts, board pack, and channel and country reporting across every entity in the group. One owner, one version of the truth.
• Own the reporting calendar. Publish to a fixed timetable that the business can plan around. Timeliness is not negotiable. A good number next week is worth less than a solid number on the day.
• Reconcile the sources. Finance reporting must tie back cleanly to Shopify, TikTok Shop, Triple Whale, the WMS and Xero, with any differences explained rather than absorbed.
• Answer the so what. Every report should tell the reader what changed, why it changed, and what to do about it. Reporting that only restates the number is not doing its job.
• Support the trading rhythm. Work alongside Ecommerce, Merchandising and Retail on daily and weekly trade reporting, and bring the profit view into the trade meeting rather than leaving it as a revenue conversation.
• Forecasting and reforecasting. Own the P&L forecast and rolling reforecast, hold the business to it, and explain variance to forecast and to prior year with the same clarity every month.
• Retire manual reporting. Replace spreadsheet driven packs with automated, repeatable reporting so the team spends its time interpreting rather than building.

2. MARGIN AND PROFITABILITY

We know what we sell. We need to be far sharper on what we keep.

• Own gross margin. Margin reporting by SKU, category, channel, country and campaign, refreshed to a reliable cadence and trusted across the business.
• Landed cost accuracy. Make sure product cost genuinely reflects FOB, freight, duty, and inbound handling, and that cost changes flow through promptly rather than surfacing at year end.
• Contribution margin after variable cost. Build and own the view that goes past gross margin into 3PL and pick and pack, storage, outbound shipping, payment and gateway fees, returns, discounting and marketing spend, by channel.
• Channel profitability. A clear, defensible answer on how Shopify UK, EU and US, TikTok Shop, Boots wholesale and the retail sites each perform on the bottom line, not just on revenue.
• Challenge pricing and promotion. Provide first line financial input into pricing, discount depth, bundle and advent economics, and supplier and manufacturer cost negotiations, before commitments are made rather than after.
• Catch leakage early. Monitor return rates, shipping subsidy, over discounting, freight spikes, FX movement and supplier price creep, and raise them while there is still time to act.
• Answer the hard questions. Where are we making money, where are we not, what do we cut, and what do we put more behind.

3. CROSS FUNCTIONAL PROCESS AND BUSINESS PARTNERING

Most reporting problems are process problems that started somewhere else. This role is expected to go and fix them at source.

• Own the interfaces. Take responsibility for how information flows into Finance from Ecommerce, Merchandising and Buying, Operations, Marketing, Retail and Wholesale.
• Fix it upstream. Where Finance is repeatedly correcting the same issue, redesign the process with the department that owns it instead of building another reconciliation.
• Set the standards. Agree cut off dates, data standards, coding discipline and clear service levels between Finance and the rest of the business, and hold both sides to them.
• Purchase order and cost discipline. Drive proper commitment capture, supplier invoice accuracy and approval routing, so cost is recognised when it is committed and not when the invoice appears.
• Be genuinely useful. Turn up to other departments with insight and options rather than requests and reminders. The measure of success is that heads of department want Finance in the room.
• Coach the numbers. Help non finance colleagues understand margin, cost to serve and cash impact, so commercial decisions are made with the full picture.

4. MONTH END CLOSE AND BALANCE SHEET CONTROL

• Own month end end to end and compress the timetable, so MI is available early enough in the month to be useful.
• Run a full balance sheet reconciliation programme across every entity and every account, with monthly review and sign off.
• Own accruals, prepayments and provisions, including stock provisioning, returns provisioning and marketing accruals.
• Own stock and cost of goods accuracy, including reconciliation between the WMS, the 3PL and the ledger, and investigation of unexplained movement.
• Maintain ageing analysis on debtors, creditors and intercompany, and drive down aged and unexplained items.
• Own the fixed asset register, including capitalisation, depreciation, disposals and impairment review.

5. STATUTORY REPORTING, AUDIT AND TAX

The technical foundation still sits with this role. It should be run efficiently enough that it never crowds out the commercial work.

• Prepare statutory financial statements for all group entities under FRS 102, with awareness of IFRS where relevant internationally.
• Own the group consolidation, including intercompany eliminations, investment in subsidiaries and consolidated P&L and balance sheet.
• Manage foreign currency translation for overseas entities and reconcile FX movement through reserves.
• Act as day to day lead for the external auditors, own the audit timetable and prepared by client schedules, and close the audit out cleanly each year.
• Oversee corporation tax computations and deferred tax, and review UK and international VAT compliance.
• Review R&D tax credit claims with external advisors, and flag legislative change that creates exposure or opportunity.
• Support covenant reporting and compliance monitoring on the group debt facilities.

6. SYSTEMS, AUTOMATION AND CONTROLS

• Get more out of the existing stack, including Xero, Shopify, TikTok Shop, Triple Whale, Klaviyo and the WMS and 3PL systems, and work with Data on the reporting infrastructure behind them.
• Drive automation of reconciliation and reporting, reducing manual and spreadsheet risk across the finance team.
• Maintain and strengthen the financial control framework, including segregation of duties, approval matrices and documented process notes.
• Document controls to a standard that would stand up to external investment or a more formal control environment.

CANDIDATE CRITERIA

• ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified, with a strong technical grounding.
• Proven ownership of management information in a fast moving, multi channel business, including management accounts and board level reporting.
• Genuine strength in margin and profitability analysis, comfortable working below gross margin into cost to serve.
• Experience in ecommerce, DTC or a multi channel consumer business is strongly preferred, ideally with exposure to Shopify or marketplace trading.
• Multi entity experience, ideally including international entities and foreign currency.
• Able to explain financial performance to non finance colleagues clearly and without jargon, and to hold their own in a commercial debate.
• Advanced Excel, with the confidence to work directly with large data sets.
• Comfortable being the person who chases the process fix rather than working around it.
• Office based in Manchester, five days a week.
• Experience of TikTok Shop, wholesale or physical retail reporting alongside ecommerce.
• Experience of stock, landed cost and inventory accounting in a physical product business.
• Practice trained background with subsequent industry experience.
• Experience of managing and developing a finance team.

WHAT WE OFFER

• A genuinely broad seat in a business growing at pace, with direct access to the Commercial and Finance Director and the wider leadership team.
• Real ownership. This is not a reporting seat with a fixed template, it is a mandate to rebuild how the business sees itself.
• Competitive salary, commensurate with experience.
• Staff discount on P.Louise products.
• A fast moving, entrepreneurial culture where your impact is felt immediately.