Senior Accountant

To own the financial close and reporting cycle, safeguard margin and inventory integrity, bring income tax in-house, lead the external audit, and provide commercial insight into trading and logistics performance while reviewing and developing the junior finance team.

Key responsibilities

Financial reporting & close

• Manage the full month-end and year-end close process.
• Prepare and review monthly management accounts and annual financial statements (IFRS / IFRS for SMEs).
• Review reconciliations and journals prepared by the accountants, and absorb the defined reviews shifted from the Financial Manager.

Inventory & margin management

• Oversee inventory valuation, landed-cost accuracy, and stock provisioning.
• Analyse gross margin by entity / route / customer and report variances.
• Monitor logistics and operating costs against budget.

Tax & statutory (income tax in-house)

• Oversee VAT and provisional tax compliance and submissions.
• Prepare income tax / ITR14 in-house, with an external tax advisor engaged for complex matters and ITR14 review only.
• Manage forex accounting and import-related tax matters.

Audit

• Lead the external audit and act as primary liaison with the external auditors (Meyers Tennier).
• Prepare audit files and resolve audit queries.

Budgeting & forecasting

• Support annual budgets, reforecasts, and cash flow management.

Controls, process & team

• Strengthen internal controls and drive process improvements.
• Supervise, review, and mentor the Accountant (Zarbon) and Junior Accountant.

Qualifications

Minimum

• BCom Accounting or equivalent, with completed articles (SAICA / SAIPA).
• Professional designation: SAIPA (Professional Accountant), AGA(SA), or CIMA.
• 5+ years' relevant experience post-articles, including review / supervisory experience.

Preferred

• BCom Honours.
• CA(SA) advantageous, but not required.
• Experience in trading, logistics, distribution, or mining. Experience with multi-currency and import / export accounting, and in-house income tax.

Technical skills

• Strong technical knowledge of IFRS, inventory / costing, and South African tax legislation (including income tax / ITR14).
• Advanced proficiency in [Sage / Pastel / SAP / Syspro] and Excel.

Zama Masango