Financial Planning & Control Section Manager

At Honda we embrace inclusion in our various policies, so whilst our contracts state that the hours are as required to fulfil the role with a minimum of 35 hours per week, we offer flexibility for when you work.  The regular office hours are 08:00 – 16:00 Monday to Thursday with a half hour lunch break & 08:00 – 13:00 on a Friday.  However, we offer flexibility of when you work with our daily flex-time start of between 07:00 and 11:00 providing that there is no business requirement.

Whilst there is no contractual right to work from home, the flexibility we offer is that you can request to work from home 2 days per week, again providing there is no business requirement to attend the office.  

Role:

The role forms part of the Honda Motor Europe (HME) European Financial Planning & Control (FP&C) team and is dedicated to supporting the Head Office entity, GBH1. The wider team is responsible for the preparation and analysis of monthly results, financial control across European branches, top-level coordination of all budgeting and forecasting activities (short and long term), and the provision of commercial finance decision support to the European business. The team contributes to the implementation and monitoring of standardised finance activities across all branches in areas including financial control, accounts preparation, budgeting, analytics and reporting.

The role is responsible for providing financial insight and control support within a fast-paced European finance environment, while contributing to continuous improvement initiatives that enhance the efficiency, consistency and effectiveness of finance processes. The role holder will be responsible for ensuring Honda Motor Europe entity (GBH1) maintains accurate books and records using current standard accounting practice.  

Main Responsibilities:

Accounting Close

• Manage month end timetables and ensure clear communication of all deadlines.
• Ensure accurate revenue recognition under IFRS15.
• Ensure COGS, Inventory and Transfer Pricing are reported accurately, and all necessary quality checks are in place.
• Ensure all provisions are reported accurately and are aligned with latest accounting guidance.
• Ensure accurate lease accounting under IFRS16.
• Ensure all sub ledgers are reported accurately and closed in a timely manner.
• Provide necessary approvals for manual entries created by team members.
• Provide necessary reviews/and or approvals for balance sheet substantiation activities, ensuring a high level of understanding for all balances.
• Ensure all improvement and follow up activities are completed in a timely manner.
• Provide expert input and support to Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) month end reports.

Collaboration with Shared Service Centre

• Work with relevant Shared service centre teams to ensure accurate and timely input of all relevant month end close activities.
• Monitor KPIs to ensure service is within agreed levels.  Work closely with Shared Service teams to address concerns and drive improvements to processes.

Process Support and Improvement

• Drive ongoing issue resolution and process improvement within the month end close processes.
• Provide key expertise to European finance improvement initiatives as required.

Data Quality 

• Drive improvements in data quality to enhance reporting and improve month end processes.  
• Act as the SME to ensure the data quality impact of any system changes is understood and addressed.

Governance and Compliance

• Ensure adherence to current Governance and Compliance frameworks including SOx, ensuring all relevant processes are up to date, compliant and documented. 
• Work closely with Group Finance to understand and address impact of future changes.  

Budgeting and Forecasting

The role already has some budgeting and forecasting responsibilities, and this is expected to grow in the future (within 6 months). Activities may include:

• Assist central FP&A team, who will coordinate budget events for the region from a Finance perspective, supporting them locally for GBH1 as required. 
• Support business teams in preparation of their budgets e.g. guidance on accounting treatments. 
• Ensure cost allocation methods are accurate and in line with central guidance. 
• Review budgets for quality (phasing, granularity etc.). Challenge assumptions where appropriate.
• Identify root causes of previous budget variances to improve forecasting accuracy.
• Support central section of FP&A team to enhance financial understanding and exert greater budget control, e.g. by the wider roll-out of activity-based budgeting, risks and opportunities trackers etc.

Relationship Management

• Work closely with internal and external stakeholders as a recognized Finance process expert.

Team Management

• Manage and develop team members through effective objective setting, coaching and ongoing performance support.

Qualifications, skills and experience:
Required

• Recognised professional accounting qualification (e.g. ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent). 
• Demonstrable experience within a financial control environment. 
• Sound knowledge and application of IFRS accounting standards. 
• Experience of managing activities delivered through a finance shared service provider. 
• Experience of audit, risk management and compliance activities. 
• Proven ability to communicate effectively and build credible working relationships with a range of stakeholders. 
• Proven ability to influence stakeholders and achieve effective business outcomes across functions and teams. 
• Ability to work independently, take ownership of activities and drive delivery to completion. 
• Ability to organise and prioritise workloads, manage competing demands and deliver accurate work to demanding deadlines.

Desirable

• Experience of working within a European or other multi-cultural business environment. 
• Experience of working effectively across international teams and adapting to different business and cultural environments. 
• Experience of supporting process standardisation and continuous improvement initiatives. 
• Experience of Trintech Cadency, Hyperion, SAP S/4HANA and/or BOFC.

Honda is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in the workplace for all employees, temporary workers, contractors, applicants and visitors. Honda also encourages respect for the individual differences and talents of others while making full use of one's own abilities, based on Honda's philosophy of respect for the individual.

At Honda, we value and celebrate diversity and are committed to being a fair, non-discriminatory company that promotes and welcomes the uniqueness and differences of people around the world. We recognise that a diverse workforce allows for different ideas and perspectives, and we encourage everyone to share them. We strive to foster a culture of belonging that is consistent with Honda's core values and lived out in the way we work and respect each other. For us at Honda, diversifying our workforce means increasing its overall strength by providing people with equal opportunities - regardless of personal characteristics or previous careers.

This commitment flows directly from the Honda philosophy and the belief that we are all working towards a common goal. Honda recruits, hires, trains and promotes the most qualified/experienced individuals at all levels without regard to race, origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or any other protected characteristic.