Financial Analyst

Provide financial planning, analysis, reporting and modelling support. The role will support the management reporting, preparation of budgets, forecasts, financial models, service costing, variance analysis and business cases, ensuring accurate and timely financial information is available for management decision-making. The position will work closely with Finance, Commercial, Operations, and Shared Services to collect, validate and analyse financial and operational information. The role is primarily an analytical and execution-focused finance role, supporting Business Partnering who owns the overall business partnering, commercial finance and senior stakeholder engagement agenda. Management Reporting & MIS - Prepare monthly management reporting and financial analysis. - Maintain revenue, cost and profitability schedules. - Prepare monthly variance analysis and supporting commentary. - Track key operational and financial KPIs. - Develop reporting by service/product group. - Link operational metrics such as services, kilometres, tonnes and ton-kilometres to financial performance. - Ensure reporting data is complete, accurate and reconciled to the underlying financial information. - Maintain recurring MIS templates and improve reporting efficiency. Budgeting & Forecasting - Support the annual ERF budgeting and forecasting process. - Collect and consolidate departmental budget inputs. - Maintain detailed budget working files and financial models. - Prepare budget versus actual and forecast versus actual analysis. - Update monthly forecasts based on latest operational and commercial assumptions. - Maintain the ERF 5-year financial plan and supporting schedules. - Track changes in volumes, train paths, manpower, fleet, fuel, maintenance, terminal and other operating assumptions. - Follow up with departments for outstanding budget and forecast inputs. Financial Modelling & Analysis - Develop and maintain Excel-based financial models. - Support financial modelling for new services, commercial proposals and operational changes. - Prepare scenario and sensitivity analysis. - Analyse revenue, direct costs, contribution margin and operating costs. - Maintain costing models for different services and routes. - Support investment and business-case analysis. - Ensure models are structured, transparent and easy to update. Commercial Finance Support - Support the Finance Business Partner with pricing and commercial analysis. - Prepare service-level cost calculations and profitability analysis. - Analyse customer, product, route and service profitability. - Prepare financial schedules and supporting analysis for commercial proposals. - Maintain pricing and costing databases/models. Cost & Variance Analysis - Monitor actual costs against budget and forecast. - Analyse key cost drivers including fuel, fleet maintenance, terminal costs, trucking, manpower, utilities, shared services, and other operating costs. - Investigate material variances and identify underlying drivers. - Support monthly accrual-to-actual analysis. - Track recurring and one-off cost movements. - Assist with cost allocation and cost-centre analysis. Data & Financial Information - Extract and consolidate financial and operational data from relevant systems and reports. - Perform data validation and reconciliation. - Maintain financial databases and supporting schedules. - Improve the quality and consistency of financial data used for reporting and planning. - Develop automated Excel reporting where practical. - Support the migration of recurring Excel reporting into Power BI or other BI platforms. Business Case & Decision Support - Prepare financial schedules for business cases under the direction of the Finance Business Partner. - Calculate revenue, cost, margin, cash flow, ROI, IRR and payback where applicable. - Perform sensitivity analysis on key assumptions. - Maintain supporting documentation and assumptions. - Provide clear analytical outputs for management presentations and decision papers. Intercompany & Shared Services Support - Support analysis of intercompany charges and recharges. - Maintain supporting calculations for shared-service and corporate allocations. - Coordinate with SSC to obtain actuals, accruals, invoicing and collection information. - Reconcile financial information between operational, commercial and accounting records. - Track outstanding financial information and follow up with relevant stakeholders. Process Improvement - Identify opportunities to automate recurring finance processes. - Improve Excel models, reporting templates and data structures. - Standardise recurring financial analysis and reporting. - Reduce manual reporting and duplication of work. - Support development of Power BI dashboards and automated management reporting. - Maintain appropriate documentation for key models and processes. Academic Qualifications: - Finance or Accounting, preferred fields - Bachelor degree/ Master grade level Experience: - 5+ years of business finance or other relevant experience - Strong quantitative and analytical competency Other Skills: - Sound knowledge and experience of SAP FI-CO. - Good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel - Excellent English language skills, verbal & written. - Knowledge of IFRS