The posting
Job Description
About the team
Join the Finance team at Argos and help bring the numbers behind a fast-moving retail business to life. Working across Sales, Margin and Property Cost Accounting, you’ll partner with commercial finance and property colleagues, collaborate with our Accenture service team and provide clear insight to Finance Leadership. It’s a visible role at the heart of period-end reporting, where accurate information and well-explained performance help the business make better decisions.
More about the role
As Gross Margin Accountant, you’ll take ownership of consolidating period-end results for Sales and Margin adjustments, making sure outputs are complete, accurate, supported by evidence and delivered to deadline. You’ll investigate variances against the Latest view and budget, explain the key drivers, and help identify risks and opportunities that need to be reflected in future forecasts.
Day to day, you’ll oversee period-end activities completed by Accenture, review margin, sales and property cost balance sheets, maintain reconciliations for more complex accounts and resolve outstanding items. You’ll work with commercial finance teams to prepare Latest views and budgets, support presentations to Finance Leadership, challenge expenditure and processes where appropriate, and contribute to half-year and year-end audit activity.
More about you
You’ll bring a recognised accountancy qualification and practical experience of period-end accounting, consolidation and balance sheet review. You can work confidently with large volumes of financial data, trace variances to their underlying drivers and translate your findings into concise explanations for finance and commercial stakeholders.
You’ll be comfortable taking ownership of deadlines, reviewing work completed by a third-party provider and constructively challenging colleagues when information, controls or processes need to improve. You’ll adapt your priorities as trading conditions and reporting requirements change, while maintaining accurate records, clear evidence and effective financial control. Experience in retail and knowledge of Oracle, or an equivalent finance system, would be advantageous.
Essential criteria
- A completed ACA, ACCA or CIMA accountancy qualification.
- Demonstrable experience of period-end accounting, including consolidation, reconciliations and balance sheet review.
- Proven experience analysing actual financial performance against forecast or budget and explaining material variances to stakeholders.
- Demonstrable ability to use Excel to consolidate and analyse large financial datasets and produce accurate reporting outputs.
- Proven experience delivering financial outputs to fixed reporting deadlines while coordinating inputs from internal teams or an external service provider.
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Responsibilities
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. For a FTSE business, we move incredibly fast. When we’re not handling projects, we’re helping all corners of the wider group with what they’re trying to achieve. And around here, you can see the results of your work as soon as you walk into a store, which gives you a real sense of purpose and responsibility. Better still, the team around you will listen to your ideas and opinions, and you’ll have every chance to try something new. The sheer scale and complexity of our set-up means there’s always something else around the corner, and we’ll help and support you every step of the way. We’re trusted to get on with it. So get ready to make things happen here.
Qualifications
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
