Financial Accountant

The Company

This is a young business in the oil and gas industry, moving from appraisal into early production, with a finance team being built around it. Behind it sits an experienced, privately held energy investor with strong shareholder backing and an active interest in how the business is run, so there is a clear direction, even if the procedures for it are not written yet. The accounts run on spreadsheets for now, with a new ERP planned over the coming year.

Some of the finance work, including payables, reconciliations and tax compliance, is currently handled by an external provider, and the intention is to bring more of it in house progressively. There is no payables team here and no receivables team, because the invoice volumes do not justify them, so as the work comes in house the journals, the reconciliations, the coding and the regulatory work sit with this seat, alongside our external advisers. A Senior Financial Accountant provides technical review and coaching, and a Finance Manager with hands-on experience supports you. It is a small, close team where everyone pitches in and adds value where possible, even if it is “not their job.” That seat is becoming the engine room of the function. If you take this Financial Accountant role, you help build it.

The Role

Reporting to the Finance Manager, this Financial Accountant role owns the day to day accounting across a multi entity group: the month end journals, the balance sheet and bank reconciliations, accounts payable and the vendor master as that work comes in house, the fixed asset register, the coding of every dollar to the right entity, project and account, plus preparing the workpapers for the BAS, IAS, payroll tax and regulatory returns for review alongside our external advisers. It is the transactional and regulatory work of the business, done accurately and done a little better each month. You will be expected to work independently and own your outputs from day one.

The role is broad for its title, and we are looking for someone with the capability and appetite to develop across the broader finance function, not only the transactional work. Alongside the routine you would support the joint venture billing and cash calls with the schedules behind them, prepare the supporting schedules for the monthly reporting pack and the annual budget, keep the audit file ready as a discipline rather than a year end scramble, and sit on the inside of the ERP implementation: the data clean up, the migration reconciliations and the testing. The first year has a shape: the new ERP under way, a month end with a rhythm to it, the joint ventures supported, the first budget done and the first year end run by the new team, with you part of every one of them.

Duties will include, but not be limited to:

• Preparing and posting the month end journals across all entities (accruals, prepayments, depreciation and intercompany) against the close timetable

• Reconciling the balance sheet accounts on time, investigating unusual movements before the close is finalised and raising aged items early

• Running accounts payable as it comes in house: invoices matched and approved under the delegation of authority, payment runs prepared for review, aged payables kept clean

• Maintaining the vendor master, including new vendor set up and ABN checks, with supplier bank detail changes made only on evidence and after independent verification

• Reconciling bank accounts at a frequency that suits the activity and risk of each account, and keeping a regular cash position summary for the Finance Manager

• Preparing the BAS, IAS and payroll tax workpapers and the regulatory returns for review alongside the external advisers, and keeping the lodgement calendar across every entity

• Maintaining the fixed asset register and coding capital and operating spend to the right project, asset class, cost centre and entity, with the monthly actual versus budget analysis

• Supporting the joint venture accounting: the sub ledger entries and the schedules and reconciliations behind partner billing, cash calls and cost statements

• Preparing the supporting schedules for the monthly reporting pack and the annual budget

• Keeping the records audit ready and preparing the audit schedules and responses

• Working on the ERP implementation from the inside: data clean up, migration reconciliations and testing, and keeping the process notes current

About You

You are the kind of Financial Accountant who gives a bank reconciliation the same care as a judgement call, and who would rather fix a process than live with it. You are accurate in the detail without being slow, you notice the thing that needs doing and raise it, and you put your hand up for more once the routine is under control. You adapt when the system changes under you, you keep learning because so much here is new, and you would rather be in a small team that pitches in than a large one with a procedure for everything. You have the appetite to grow beyond the transactional work into joint venture accounting, budgeting, reporting and systems development. Under pressure you stay composed and you do what you said you would do. You might be three to five years into commerce in a multi entity, project or joint venture environment, and already able to work out what to do when there is no procedure to follow.

Skills & Experience

To be effective in this Financial Accountant role, you will likely bring:

• Three to five years’ accounting experience with month end close, accounts payable and bank reconciliations you have owned, preparer side in an Australian business

• Australian tax compliance in practice: GST and BAS, IAS and payroll tax workpapers

• Experience in one or more of capital project or AFE accounting, joint ventures or cost sharing arrangements, royalties or levies, high value contractor spend approved in the field, and multi entity groups, with two ideal and relevant project or capital exposure valued, because joint venture capability can be developed in the right person

• Working knowledge of a mid tier or enterprise ERP, and real Excel: pivot tables, lookups and reconciliation models you built

• Strong accounting fundamentals, attention to detail, critical thinking and initiative, and the ability to manage competing deadlines and keep accurate records while working independently

• A degree in accounting, finance or commerce, with CA or CPA completed or in the final stages with active study, and if you came from audit, at least two years in a commercial preparer side role since

• Full Australian work rights, and already based in Brisbane

What’s on Offer

• A Financial Accountant role with real breadth beyond the title: joint venture support, budgets, entity reports and the ERP, inside a function being built out

• A Senior Financial Accountant who provides technical review and coaching, and a Finance Manager with hands-on experience who supports you, in a small team that sits together

• Brisbane CBD office with flexible start and finish times and occasional travel to site

• A competitive package, aligned to the experience you bring

Apply Now

If you want a Financial Accountant role where the routine is yours to own and improve, and the people above you have hands-on experience and will back you, apply today.

Click Apply Now to submit your application or contact Fran Dugdale at P&C Partners for a confidential discussion.