Financial Controller - Head Of Account

Job Title: Head of Accounts

Industry: Manufacturing

Location: Kano, Nigeria

Employment Type: Full-Time

Level: Senior Management

Remuneration: Up to USD 3,000 Monthly + Local Allowance + Factory Accommodation

Reports To: Financial Controller / Director of Finance / Managing Director

About the Role

We are seeking a highly analytical, control-oriented Head of Accounts to lead our accounting function and manage our data-entry operations team. The ideal candidate will own the monthly financial closing cycle, enforce robust internal controls, optimize inventory and product costing mechanisms, and ensure accurate, multi-entity management reporting.

This role requires a hands-on accounting leader with a deep understanding of inventory-intensive operations, gross-profit reconciliation, intercompany account balancing, and team leadership. You will be instrumental in mapping finance workflows, establishing strict segregation of duties, and building a zero-error data culture across the finance department.

Key Responsibilities
Monthly Financial Closing & Management Reporting

• Closing Governance: Own and enforce the monthly closing calendar, delegating tasks to ensure all business entities close on or before set deadlines.
• Trial Balance Integrity: Review trial balances across entities to confirm period cut-off integrity, accurate accruals, prepayments, depreciation, and closing journal entries.
• Financial Statements: Prepare and present monthly Profit & Loss (P&L) statements, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow schedules, complete with variance analysis and material movement explanations.
• Audit Trail & Documentation: Maintain a centralized closing checklist and sign-off reconciliation folder, logging all unresolved items for executive review.

Inventory Accounting, Valuation & Costing

• General Ledger Alignment: Reconcile physical and software inventory records to GL balance sheet accounts across all entity warehouses and product lines.
• Movement Tracking: Audit all stock movements—including raw material purchases, production consumption, factory transfers, finished goods, waste/scrap, and customer returns.
• Stock Count Supervision: Lead periodic and annual physical stock counts alongside operations and warehouse teams, investigating line-item variances and ensuring authorized adjustments.
• Cost Allocation: Oversee inventory valuation, overhead absorption, slow-moving/obsolete stock provisions, and goods-in-transit (GIT) tracking.

Gross Profit (GP) & Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Reconciliation

• Margin Analysis: Reconcile sales, COGS, and GP reports against trial balance figures and monthly management accounts.
• Variance Investigation: Track gross margins by product line and business unit, identifying root causes behind selling price fluctuations, raw material cost surges, or production yield drop-offs.
• Direct Cost Audit: Audit direct labor, consumables, machine overhead absorption, production waste, and freight/logistics costs to eliminate omissions or double-counting.
• Process Remediation: Collaborate with operations and IT/ERP teams to resolve costing errors and ensure system-wide posting corrections.

Customer Accounts & Receivables Management

• Subledger Reconciliation: Direct the monthly reconciliation of customer subledgers to the general ledger, resolving unallocated payments, unmatched receipts, and disputed invoices.
• Ageing & Credit Control: Oversee receivables ageing reports, flag high-risk overdue accounts, and coordinate structured collection follow-ups with sales leadership.
• Credit Governance: Review customer credit limits, issue statements of account, and maintain bad-debt provisions in line with corporate accounting policies.

Operating Expense (OPEX) Governance

• Budget vs. Actual Variance: Conduct line-by-line monthly OPEX reviews against approved budgets and prior-period performance, documenting variance drivers.
• Expenditure Verification: Audit expense postings, supporting receipts, approval limits, accruals, and prepayments to prevent duplicate payments or unsupported spend.

Intercompany Account Balancing

• Group Reconciliations: Reconcile monthly intercompany payables, receivables, loans, management fees, and asset transfers across all group entities.
• Cross-Entity Alignment: Coordinate with counterpart finance teams to resolve timing delays, misallocations, and foreign exchange (FX) adjustments.
• Elimination Schedules: Maintain the group intercompany reconciliation matrix and prepare elimination schedules for consolidated financial reporting.

Team Leadership, Controls & Segregation of Duties

• Team Management: Supervise, train, and mentor accounting officers and data-entry personnel, establishing clear KPIs and managing workload distribution.
• Zero-Error Data Standards: Implement maker-checker validation frameworks, account coding standards, document checks, and system exception reports to drive input accuracy.
• Workflow & Segregation Matrix: Map all financial workflows, define approval matrices, and maintain individual job descriptions for all finance staff.
• ERP Access & Security: Align ERP user roles and access rights with assigned duties, establishing independent secondary reviews where full separation is constrained by team size.

Audit Support & General Controls

• Oversee bank, cash, vendor, and balance sheet account reconciliations.
• Maintain complete, auditable files for all journal vouchers, approvals, schedules, and corrective entries.
• Coordinate internal/external audits and drive post-audit action plans to completion.

Educational & Professional Background

• Education: Bachelor's Degree or HND in Accounting, Finance, or a related discipline.
• Professional Certification: Professional accounting designation (ACCA, ACA / ICAN, CPA, or equivalent) is required or strongly preferred.
• Experience: Minimum of 6–10 years of progressive accounting experience, with at least 3+ years in a supervisory/leadership role in a multi-entity business.
• Sector Experience: Hands-on experience in manufacturing, agro-processing, FMCG, food production, or inventory-heavy industries is highly preferred.

Technical Competencies

• Advanced ERP Expertise: Demonstrated ability to navigate, configure, and audit ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Odoo, Sage 300, or QuickBooks Enterprise), tracing transactions seamlessly from source operational documents through subledgers to the GL.
• Financial Modeling & Excel: Advanced Microsoft Excel capabilities (Pivots, XLOOKUP, Index/Match, scenario modeling, and automated reconciliation sheets).
• Costing & Inventory Mechanics: Mastery of inventory accounting, product costing methodologies (FIFO/Weighted Average), variance analysis, and intercompany eliminations.