Who are we?

South Western Railway (SWR) operates over 1,500 services each weekday across the network and employs more than 5,000 people. We provide easy and convenient mobility, connecting people and communities in South West London, southern counties of England and the Isle of Wight.

Join our team and help us continue to improve quality of life, by bringing people together to get the most out of life.

SWR is part of FirstGroup, the largest rail operator in the UK and second largest bus operator in the UK outside London. FirstGroup operates services throughout the UK and Ireland, with over 30,000 employees providing services that make travel smoother and life easier.  FirstGroup works hard to reduce its impact on the environment, introducing cleaner and more environmentally responsible methods of transport. 

About the job:

To manage and prepare the management accounts for the directorate(s) that you are assigned to.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Manage the Directorate (and Directorate's profit centre) P&Ls producing periodic management accounts for the respective Senior Commercial Finance Manager / Commercial Finance Manager.
• Work closely with the Financial Controlling team to ensure that we have;
  • Correctly recognised, raised and classified costs, for example, by GL, Profit Centre, IWO, Initiative, Asset Code, and Intercompany Partner, and
  • Correctly recognised, raised and classified revenues.
• Work closely with the Human Resources, Payroll & Pensions Teams to ensure that we have correctly recognised, raised and classified payroll costs, for example, secondees, redundancies, ill health etc.
• Raising period end journals e.g. accruals and prepayment journals, ensuring appropriate evidence is maintained to support.
• Ensure that appropriate back up is maintained to support the non-system journal postings
• Ensure that the postings made from the various system interfaces are understood and are accurately posted
• Manage the balance sheet reconciliations for the balance sheet ledger accounts assigned to you (ensuring that the transactions posted are accurate and the route of conversion to cash is understood)
• Produce and maintain process documentation for the regular period end routines
• Produce variance analysis to budget / forecast, ensuring that this variance analysis is clearly understood by the respective Finance Business Partner.
• Produce periodic FTE, payroll and analysis reporting.
• Prepare and submit appropriate documentation to support request for sales invoices or recharges where appropriate
• Ensure that intercompany transactions are initiated and undertaken in accordance with the affiliate trading process rules
• Maintaining and clearing the invoice allocation within Webcycle and ensuring Purchase to Pay process is correctly followed
• Review Open PO, GRNI, Webcycle reports to ensure that the business is acting upon items in a timely manner.
• Review and action as specialist Finance Approver the Purchase Order requisitions submitted by the respective the Directorate to ensure that these are raised in accordance with policy and that GL, PC and WO coding is correct.
• Manage the collation of non-financial supporting information supporting the periodic management accounts submission for Group, Department for Transport and internally.
• Review slow moving inventory report and adjust provision as appropriate in line with company policy
• Every Quarter review Rolling Stock and Depot property dilapidations provisions and update for latest information available.
• Every Quarter review administrative property and station property dilapidations provisions and update for latest information available.
• Supplement reports and ad-hoc analysis requests.
• Provide a full range of finance support to the FBP team and wider Finance function.

Line Management

• Direct line management of Management Accountant(s)
• Working closely with all team members (through direct reports) to ensure successful achievement of objectives and to enhance and develop the team's overall capabilities and expertise. Including but not limited to:
  • Performance review
  • Develop development plan
  • Prepare succession planning and manage staff turnover
  • Promote and support talent

As a minimum, you will need to have:

• An ambitious self-starter with a minimum of 3-4 years experience working in finance
• Excellent inter-personal and communication skills.
• Confident in Excel, MS Office; with SAP/SAP BI/SAP BPC an advantage.
• Qualified CIMA or ACCA 

About the location:

South Western Railways HQ is based on the 4th Floor at South Bank Central, a stone's throw from the River Thames and a 10 minute walk from our busiest station, Waterloo. It is local to many well-known attractions, restaurants and retail facilities and is easily accessible by public transport.

Working pattern:

Working an average of 37 hours per week over 5 days

Office hours

The Reward:

In return we offer a competitive salary and a variety of valuable benefits, including:

• Free duty and leisure travel on SWR services for employee
• Free leisure travel for spouse/partner and dependants (criteria dependant)
• 75% discount on many other train operating companies
• Full training and support with development
• Large range of exclusive retail offers
• Excellent pension scheme

We all belong at SWR. FirstGroup's vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, across its group of businesses, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

We review all roles and job descriptions to ensure they are accessible and, where possible, we support and provide flexible working options; we recommend that you refer to each vacancy description for further details.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below.  We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/neurodiversity/

https://www.healthassured.org/blog/neurodiversity/