Head of Financial Reporting
13 days ago
City of London
Equals is the next-generation global money movement platform built for exceptional businesses operating across borders. We bring international payments, embedded finance, and more together into a single connection that simplifies operations and strengthens financial control. With deep expertise and integrated infrastructure, Equals turns financial complexity into reliable solutions. With our headquarters in London and teams around the UK and Europe, you will join a very close-knit, talented and supportive team from various backgrounds who believe that bringing different perspectives together helps us understand our customers' needs. United, by one thing, making money management straightforward and cost-effective for our customers. Equals Money is a fast-growing, regulated payments business on a mission to make money movement simple. As Head of Financial Reporting you will be the technical accounting authority for the group - owning the preparation of year-end statutory accounts for all of the group's legal entities and driving a tight audit timetable (all audit work for the top-of-group companies by the end of March and other legal entities by the end of April), and the more technical aspects of the monthly management accounts (group consolidation, intercompany matrix and expected credit loss assessment, tax expense and deferred tax in the balance sheet, impairment reviews, IFRS 16 lease accounting, MIP and EBT share incentives), ensuring full tax compliance across multiple jurisdictions in partnership with our external advisors (Corporation Tax, VAT, Transfer Pricing, MSAs), and taking ownership of the Finance function's risk and control environment. Reporting to the Group Finance Director, this is a broad and substantive role at the centre of the Finance function. If you are an ACA-qualified accountant who thrives on technical accounting and tax ownership, precision, and continuous improvement, this is the role for you. • Ensure that the general ledger is maintained to a statutory reporting standard throughout the year. Keep the group's statutory financial records in a diligence-ready state, so that there are always three years of monthly figures reconciled to the management accounts that can be provided to a lender, partner bank, investor or acquirer at short notice., • Provide full quality assurance and therefore own the output of the following parts of the monthly management accounts: Group consolidation, intercompany matrix and expected credit loss assessment, tax expense in the income statement, deferred tax in the balance sheet, treatment of VAT in the income statement and balance sheet, impairment reviews, IFRS 16 lease accounting, MIP and EBT share incentive accounting., • Champion best-practice use of NetSuite across the Finance function, working with the team and with the Head of Management Accounting and Head of Finance Projects to improve how the system supports reporting, consolidation, and control, • Own the preparation of year-end statutory accounts for all group entities, extracted directly from NetSuite, and ensuring accounts are completed accurately and on time., • Prepare and review consolidated group financial statements in full compliance with IFRS, including all required notes and disclosures., • Draft technical accounting memos and position papers on complex or judgemental areas, and monitor the impact of new and emerging standards on the group., • Maintain and develop robust supporting schedules, reconciliations, and working papers that provide a clear audit trail from the general ledger to the management accounts and published statutory accounts., • Coordinate inputs from across the business - finance, legal, treasury, and operations - to ensure all entities are closed accurately and consistently., • Identify and implement improvements to month-end and year-end processes, reducing manual effort and increasing the reliability of outputs., • Support and co-ordinate capital flows across the group to meet debt and equity servicing requirements - including dividends and intercompany loans - ensuring these are correctly structured, accounted for, and documented in line with tax, regulatory, legal and lender agreement requirements., • Prepare lender reporting information and covenant calculations for review by FP&A functions prior to submission to lenders., • Lead the annual statutory audit end-to-end: plan the timetable, manage deliverables, and hold internal stakeholders accountable to deadlines., • Look to deliver the main group audited accounts by end of March and all other legal entities by the end of April with key judgement areas (impairment, going concern, revenue recognition, capitalisation and expected credit loss analysis) and draft statutory accounts all completed ahead of the financial year end., • Establish and run limited assurance procedures over the June half-year numbers for the regulated entities, so that distributable reserves can be verified and cash upstreamed to service group debt interest., • Act as the primary day-to-day contact for external auditors, ensuring they have everything they need to work efficiently and that queries are resolved promptly., • Prepare and own the full audit file - schedules, supporting documentation, variance analyses, and management representations - to a standard that minimises auditor review time., • Proactively identify and resolve accounting or disclosure issues ahead of fieldwork to avoid surprises and keep the audit firmly on track., • Communicate audit progress and findings clearly to the Group Finance Director and senior leadership, flagging risks early and with recommended solutions., • Manage the group's tax compliance calendar, coordinating with external tax advisors to ensure Corporation Tax and VAT returns are prepared, reviewed, and filed on time., • Manage Transfer Pricing and MIP/EBT and share scheme tax valuations., • Provide advisors with accurate, well‑organised underlying data and act as the internal point of contact to ensure returns reflect the group's position correctly., • Support tax planning initiatives and help implement advisor recommendations in a practical, controlled manner., • Stay current with changes to tax legislation in all jurisdictions that Equals operates in and assess their impact on the group, escalating material issues appropriately., • Own the technical payroll tax and employment tax compliance position for the group, working with the payroll team in Management Accounting to ensure obligations are correctly determined, met accurately and filed on time., • Own the Finance function's risk and control environment: Co‑ordinate financial risk assessments across the Finance function, working with process owners to ensure risks are identified, documented, and managed on an ongoing basis. Maintain a comprehensive financial risk register covering material financial processes and exposure, rated both gross and net of controls, with a named owner and mitigating controls, together with action plans carrying named owners and target dates for improvement wherever a residual risk rating sits above risk appetite., • Design and embed financial controls that are proportionate, effective, and auditable - ensuring the group's control framework keeps pace with business growth and regulatory expectations., • Monitor control effectiveness, track action plan completion, and report the status of the Finance risk and control environment to the Group Finance Director and, where appropriate, to the Group Audit and Risk Committee., • Act as the Finance function's primary point of contact for the Chief Internal Auditor, co‑ordinating internal audit activity, facilitating access to information, and ensuring agreed actions are tracked and implemented on time., • Run a standing horizon‑scanning process for emerging risk — accounting and regulatory change, tax and legislative change. Support the business through evolving compliance and regulatory reporting requirements, including those relevant to Equals Money's status as a regulated payments institution., • Develop financial stress tests for key financial risks and identify detailed mitigation plans to enact in the event of a stress scenario occurring. Develop financial golden rules as early indicators of potential stress scenarios that would trigger the commencement of mitigating actions as those scenarios develop. Day-to-day you will work closely with the Group Finance Director, your own team, and the wider Finance function - including the Head of Management Accounting on the close and year-end, who also owns Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Payroll and to whom you will provide the technical positions on payroll tax, employment tax and expected credit loss provisioning, the Directors of Financial Control on entity and regulatory matters, and the Group Treasurer on capital flows. You will also work with the Head of Finance Projects on system and process change affecting reporting and control. Beyond Finance, you will interact with legal, operations, product and other Equals support functions to support the reporting and control agenda. You will have periodic engagement with the Chief Internal Auditor and the Group Audit and Risk Committee in the context of the Finance risk and control environment. Externally, you will be the key relationship owner for the group's external auditors and tax advisors - managing these relationships with professionalism and ensuring they remain productive and commercially efficient. • ACA qualified with at least 5 years post-qualified experience, ideally gained in practice followed by a move into a corporate or fintech environment., • Strong technical knowledge of IFRS, with the ability to apply standards to real-world situations and document your conclusions clearly., • Proven experience preparing statutory accounts and managing group consolidations - you have done this before and can own the process end-to-end., • Demonstrable experience running audit timetables and coordinating cross-functional inputs; you know what it takes to keep an audit on track., • Strong working knowledge of Corporation Tax, VAT and Transfer Pricing compliance, with experience working alongside external advisors to deliver accurate returns and optimise tax planning for an international group., • Exposure to financial risk and control frameworks - whether through internal audit, a controls-focused role in practice, or ownership of a risk register in industry., • Experience of running an audit from within a business rather than solely from the practice side., • Experience of leading or supervising others, with the confidence to manage experienced process owners and hold them to account., • Advanced Excel skills and familiarity with ERP-based general ledgers are essential; NetSuite experience is a meaningful advantage., • Technically rigorous - you relish understanding and applying accounting standards and are proven to be very capable of consolidating group accounts in an international business., • Rigorous - you set a high bar for accuracy and take pride in the quality of your work and the robustness of your workings., • Clear communicator - you can translate complex accounting and control positions into plain language for non-finance colleagues and senior stakeholders alike., • Delivery-focused – you plan well, communicate the plan to those that you need to deliver, manage your own deadlines with minimal oversight and escape the right things at the right time and are able to co‑ordinate others in the business who are not your own direct reports to deliver to your timetable., • A capable manager - you set clear standards, delegate properly, and develop the people around you., • Commercially curious - you want to understand the business behind the numbers, not just report them., • Continuous improver - you proactively look for ways to do things better and have the confidence to drive change rather than wait to be asked. Equals is committed to building a workplace where everyone can be themselves. We actively welcome different perspectives, backgrounds and experiences, and we'll work with you to understand what you need to do your best work. We're an equal opportunities employer and proud of it. We offer hybrid working across our teams, balancing time in the office - for collaboration, events and the relationships that make work rewarding - with the flexibility to work remotely where roles allow. #J-18808-Ljbffr
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