Group Management Accountant

Reporting to: Group Financial Controller
Location: Leeds (Hybrid)
Salary: £45,000 – £55,000

About Audience Collective

Audience Collective is a group of specialist agencies delivering growth for ambitious brands. We operate as an integrated model, combining specialist agency capability with strong commercial discipline.

Our finance function enables this through robust financial control, reliable reporting, scalable processes and commercially relevant insight that supports decision-making across the Group.

Role Purpose

The Group Management Accountant is responsible for the coordination, accuracy and quality of finance outputs across multiple agencies and entities.

The role ensures that core finance processes are delivered accurately, consistently and on time, with clear documentation, strong working-capital visibility and practical commercial insight.

The role acts as the key operational link between transactional finance activity, Finance Business Partners, agency stakeholders and the Group Management Accountant

The role is responsible for supporting:

• Month-end close and management reporting

• Balance sheet reconciliations and financial control evidence

• Multi-entity reporting consistency and intercompany reconciliations

• Agency revenue recognition, WIP, accrued income and deferred income review

• Working capital, cash flow inputs and debtor/creditor visibility

• Payroll coordination and payroll-to-GL reconciliation

• Budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis support

• Finance systems, data quality and process improvement

• Audit, year-end and compliance support

Authority, Decision-Making and Escalation

The Group Management Accountant is accountable for:

• Accuracy, completeness and timeliness of agreed finance outputs

• Coordinating month-end and reporting timetables

• Reviewing transactional finance outputs for consistency and evidence

• Preparing schedules and analysis for Group Management Accountant review

• Maintaining process discipline, documentation and data quality

• Identifying issues and supporting practical resolution

The role is expected to:

• Challenge incomplete, inaccurate or unsupported finance outputs

• Coordinate dependencies across transactional finance, FBPs and agency stakeholders

• Maintain clear close checklists, evidence trails and issue logs

• Highlight reporting, working-capital, payroll, WIP or billing risks early

• Escalate where matters require technical judgement, control sign-off or senior decision-making

Escalation to the Group Financial Controller is required for:

• Technical accounting judgements

• Material balance sheet or reconciliation risks

• Unresolved intercompany differences

• Revenue recognition, WIP or billing issues with material impact

• Significant payroll, VAT, cash flow or compliance risks

• Audit or year-end matters requiring judgement

• Process ownership issues that cannot be resolved through normal working rhythms

Key Responsibilities

Month-End Close and Reporting Coordination

• Coordinate month-end close activity across agencies and entities.

• Ensure journals, accruals, prepayments and reconciliations are complete, accurate and supported.

• Review finance outputs for consistency, completeness and evidence before escalation.

• Support delivery of reporting packs to agreed timelines.

• Maintain month-end checklists, action logs and issue trackers.

Outcome: Accurate, reliable and timely month-end close.

Multi-Entity Coordination and Intercompany Support

• Support reporting consistency across multiple agencies and entities.

• Prepare and maintain intercompany reconciliations and balance schedules.

• Assist with consolidation inputs for Group Financial Controller review.

• Highlight unresolved differences, inconsistent treatment or data-quality issues.

• Support consistent application of agreed reporting processes across entities.

Outcome: Clean multi-entity inputs and stronger consolidation support.

Financial Control and Balance Sheet Integrity

• Ensure balance sheet reconciliations are completed monthly and supported by evidence.

• Review aged, unreconciled or unusual balances and coordinate follow-up.

• Maintain clear documentation and audit trails.

• Support VAT, payroll and compliance-related finance processes.

• Escalate control issues or judgement-based matters promptly.

Outcome: Stronger balance sheet discipline and reduced control risk.

Agency Revenue Recognition, WIP and Billing Accuracy

• Support the monthly review of revenue across retainers, projects, media/pass-through activity and milestone-based work.

• Monitor WIP, accrued income, deferred income and billing cut-off.

• Work with FBPs and agency stakeholders to identify billing gaps, underbilling, over-servicing or margin leakage.

• Support reconciliation between project, billing and finance data.

• Escalate material revenue recognition or judgement-based matters to the Group Financial Controller.

Outcome: Improved revenue accuracy, stronger billing discipline and clearer margin visibility.

Working Capital and Cash Flow Support

• Monitor aged debt, creditor positions and working-capital movements.

• Support cash flow reporting through accurate debtor, creditor, payroll, VAT and committed-cost inputs.

• Work with FBPs and transactional finance colleagues to support debtor follow-up and cash collection visibility.

• Highlight cash conversion risks, billing delays and working-capital trends.

Outcome: Better cash visibility and improved working-capital discipline.

Payroll Coordination and Reconciliation

• Coordinate monthly payroll inputs and validation activity.

• Review payroll data for completeness and accuracy, including starters, leavers, salary changes, bonus, commission and absence inputs.

• Liaise with HR, payroll providers and finance stakeholders to resolve queries.

• Reconcile payroll outputs to the finance system and management reporting.

• Maintain payroll documentation and control evidence.

• Escalate statutory, pension, benefit or judgement-based payroll matters as required.

Outcome: Accurate, controlled and well-documented payroll outputs.

Budgeting, Forecasting and Variance Analysis Support

• Support the annual budget and rolling reforecast processes.

• Coordinate finance inputs and ensure submissions are complete and consistent.

• Prepare variance analysis against budget, forecast and prior periods.

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