Experienced Senior Accountant

Senior Accountant

Finance Systems & Process Improvement

Role mandate
Own the integrity and continuous improvement of Africology's finance function. This is a hands-on senior accounting role for someone who can see the business end to end, strengthen financial controls, improve reporting, and redesign inefficient or redundant workflows across finance, inventory, retail, ecommerce and intercompany processes.

ROLE LEVEL

Senior / hands-on individual contributor with oversight responsibilities

FUNCTION

Finance, accounting, controls and business process improvement

EMPLOYMENT

Full-time

LOCATION

Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

REPORTS TO

Executive Management

1. Role purpose

· Provide reliable, decision-useful financial information while ensuring that the underlying accounting processes, data flows and controls are fit for purpose.

· Move the finance function away from reactive processing and manual workarounds toward disciplined, documented and increasingly automated workflows.

· Act as the finance systems thinker in the business: understand how transactions originate, move through operational systems, affect stock and cash, and ultimately land in the general ledger and management reports.

2. Core responsibilitiesFinancial accounting, close and reporting

· Own and improve the month-end close process, including reconciliations, journals, accruals, prepayments, intercompany balances, VAT-related accounting and balance sheet substantiation.

· Maintain the integrity of the general ledger and ensure consistent accounting treatment across business units and entities.

· Prepare accurate monthly management accounts and concise management reporting, with clear commentary on variances, risks, working capital, margin and cash movements.

· Maintain audit-ready supporting schedules and ensure that financial records are complete, traceable and properly documented.

· Support annual financial statement, audit, tax and statutory processes in collaboration with external accountants, auditors and advisors where required.

Systems, controls and process redesign

· Map key finance and operational workflows from source transaction to final accounting entry, identifying duplicated effort, unnecessary hand-offs, manual re-keying, weak controls and avoidable delays.

· Redesign processes so that controls are embedded into the workflow rather than added as an after-the-fact check.

· Review how Shopify, Cin7 Core and Xero interact, and establish clear ownership of master data, transaction flows, reconciliations and exception handling.

· Drive sensible automation and system configuration improvements while maintaining appropriate segregation of duties, approval controls and audit trails.

· Create and maintain practical SOPs, reconciliation matrices, close checklists and control documentation so that processes are repeatable and scalable.

· Challenge legacy ways of working constructively and make recommendations based on control, efficiency, data quality and commercial impact.

Inventory, cost of sales and stock integrity

· Strengthen accounting controls around inventory, cost of sales, stock adjustments, stock transfers, consignment, write-offs, production-related flows and inventory valuation.

· Reconcile operational stock records to accounting outputs and investigate material stock, margin or COGS variances to root cause.

· Ensure that product, customer, supplier, tax and account mappings are maintained consistently across Cin7 Core, Shopify and Xero.

· Partner with operations and warehouse teams to improve stock-count processes, exception reporting and accountability for variances.

Cash, revenue and reconciliation controls

· Ensure that sales, refunds, discounts, payment settlements and fees are completely and accurately reflected from source systems through to the ledger and bank.

· Oversee robust bank, merchant, ecommerce, debtor, creditor and intercompany reconciliations, with timely investigation and closure of exceptions.

· Review aged receivables and payables, cash-flow movements and working-capital risks, escalating issues before they become operational problems.

· Build control reports that highlight missing, duplicated, unmatched or unusual transactions rather than relying on manual discovery.

Business partnering and operational improvement

· Work closely with retail, ecommerce, wholesale, operations and management to understand how commercial decisions affect revenue, margin, stock, cash flow and accounting treatment.

· Translate finance data into practical insight for management, including identifying leakage, inefficiency, weak margin, recurring exceptions and process bottlenecks.

· Review new workflows, systems or commercial initiatives before implementation to ensure the accounting, control and reporting implications are properly designed.

· Support the development of budgets, forecasts and scenario analysis where required, with a strong link between financial assumptions and operational drivers.

Team oversight and capability building

· Provide technical guidance and review to bookkeeping / finance administration staff, with clear standards for accuracy, supporting documentation and turnaround times.

· Separate transactional processing from higher-value review and analysis so that the finance team works at the right level and avoids unnecessary duplication.

· Build a culture of ownership, documentation, continuous improvement and early escalation of exceptions.

3. Key deliverables in the first 6-12 months

Faster, controlled close

A documented month-end close calendar with clear owners, reconciliations and review points.

End-to-end process map

A practical view of the major finance workflows, including where data originates, where it is transformed and where controls should sit.

Reconciliation framework

A consistent control matrix across bank, payment gateways, Shopify, Cin7 Core, Xero, debtors, creditors, inventory and intercompany accounts.

Reduced manual handling

Material reduction in duplicate capturing, spreadsheet workarounds and repeated manual checks through better workflow design and automation.

Stronger management reporting

A concise monthly management pack focused on margin, cash, working capital, stock, exceptions and business performance.

Clear SOP ownership

Current finance SOPs and control documentation that reflect how the business should operate, not merely how it has operated historically.

4. Experience and qualifications

· Relevant degree or diploma in Accounting, Finance or a related discipline. A professional designation or completed articles (for example SAIPA / SAICA-aligned experience) is advantageous, but practical capability is more important than title alone.

· Approximately 5-8+ years of progressively responsible accounting experience, including ownership of month-end, reconciliations, management reporting and balance sheet integrity.

· Demonstrated experience improving finance processes, controls or systems rather than only processing transactions within an existing workflow.

· Strong practical understanding of inventory accounting, cost of sales, VAT, intercompany accounting, working capital and multi-channel revenue flows.

· Advanced competence in Xero or a comparable accounting platform, with strong spreadsheet capability. Experience with Cin7 Core / DEAR, Shopify, ecommerce payment flows or a similar ERP / inventory environment is highly advantageous.

· Comfort working across multiple legal entities, operational teams and data sources, with the judgement to distinguish a system issue, process issue, control failure and accounting issue.

5. The person we are looking for

· Systems thinker: naturally asks how a process works end to end, what the source of truth is, where the control should sit and why work is being repeated.

· Commercially aware: understands that finance exists to protect