Project Accountant - Finance Transformation

Ideas | People | Trust

We’re BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world.

We work with the companies that are Britain’s economic engine – ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high‑growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.

We’ll broaden your horizons

Working with every department at BDO, our Finance team helps us meet relevant legal requirements that ensure our firm operates effectively in a tightly-regulated field. They implement strategies that help us innovate – like combining new technology with traditional financial processes to make us even more digital. As part of this friendly team, you’ll enjoy flexible hours and have opportunities to take responsibility for the delivery of quality work. With your colleagues behind you, you’ll embrace change, new ideas and have an impact on the future of our firm.

We’ll help you succeed

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, and that understanding comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships.

You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working proactively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with.

In this role your primary objective will be to establish and manage the Firm’s Finance Transformation programme, by (i) establishing a short, medium and long-term change programme for Finance, (ii) ensuring project ideas are triaged, (iii) the best ideas are evaluated using the Project Prioritisation Matrix, (iv) using your knowledge of Finance and best practice to support the PMO to allocate resource to the most worthy projects, and (v) ensure projects achieve the benefits outlined during planning.*

*In this role, you will be supported by qualified project managers in the PMO team. They will provide the supporting structure to achieve success. Your value add will be a sound knowledge of Finance, Financial Accounting, and the ability to ensure all teams are working on the items that benefit Finance the most.

In this challenging and rewarding role, you’ll also:

• Work closely with key Finance contacts across the business to ensure they are regularly updated on the progress of projects, how these projects will impact underlying Finance processes, and the benefits they are likely to see.
• Identify process weaknesses or errors (within remit of projects and when consulted on an ad hoc basis as a financial reporting SME) and highlight these to Senior Management together with proposed solutions.
• Develop and implement a continuous improvement roadmap ensuring Finance is always serving our customers better.
• Have the ability to operate autonomously.

Principal responsibilities

Finance Transformation

• Apply your technical accounting expertise throughout project scoping, implementation, and completion to ensure the output is beneficial, GAAP compliant, and fit for purpose.
• Apply your understanding of existing BDO finance processes to ensure that adverse impacts or interruptions to BAU finance processes are avoided or minimised.
• Be the voice of reason. Proactively raise concerns and propose solutions to project pitfalls that you or others identify.
• Embrace technology. Identify and integrate new platforms and automation opportunities that will yield significant benefits to the finance function.
• Prioritise effectively. Work closely with the PMO team to ensure that your skillset is being put to the best use, yielding maximum benefit to the finance department within the minimum timeframe.

Leadership

• Contribute to and develop the departments long-term term objectives.
• Manage multiple stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of projects, ensuring they are sufficiently consulted and informed at all times.
• Present key project objectives and progress updates during finance department meetings

We’re looking for someone with:

• Strong mathematical and technical accounting (ideally IFRS) skillset.
• Able to understand and explain complex finance processes and accounting treatments.
• The ability to pay attention to detail and develop new and pragmatic procedures/action plans when required.
• Strong networking, stakeholder relationship building and project management skills
• Accountancy qualification – CIMA, ACA or ACCA – Significant experience in PQE or equivalent
• Proven experience of maintaining strong control environments and can demonstrate a clear understanding of all aspects of a fully functioning finance department including risk areas and process improvement possibilities.
• Experience working within a high-pressure environment, managing multiple competing deliverables within a large and complex multi-national organisation.
• A relevant project management qualification (e.g. Prince2) is advantageous
• Significant involvement in large-scale finance transformation projects is advantageous

You’ll be able to be yourself; we’ll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We’re committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand.

At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

We’re in it together

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs.

Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

We’re looking forward to the future

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy. Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions

We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity, and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better.