ASSOCIATE FINANCE BUSINESS PARTNER — COMMERCIAL FINANCE

About Accenture

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Find out more about us at www.accenture.com.

 

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Finance Business Partner sits a level up from transactional trading support – acting as the strategic finance counterpart to the category director or functional head. Where Commercial Finance answers “is this promotion/SKU margin-accretive,” the Business Partner recommend “should we make this investment, enter this category, or change this operating model.” The role is judged on the quality of the recommendation and its adoption, not on report timeliness alone

Key Responsibilities:

 

A.  Financial analysis and reporting

• Execute the production of daily, weekly and monthly financial reports — daily sales flash, weekly trade packs, monthly review data packs — to agreed SLAs and quality standards.

• Build and maintain financial models for category P&L, pricing, COGS, supplier income / MDI, volume-price-mix and cost analysis.

• Build and maintain financial models used for category P&L, variance decomposition, volume-price-mix analysis and cost analysis.

• Manage reporting dashboards data accuracy — ensuring data quality, correct mapping and timely refresh across all allocated dashboards.

• Prepare reporting slide decks and packs for FBP Onshore to review, enrich and present to business stakeholders.

 

B.  Forecasting and budgeting support

• Support the rolling forecast process — compiling inputs, running planning & budgeting updates, validating outputs and flagging anomalies to Onshore.

• Execute budget build mechanics — category input compilation, uploads to Planning platform, hierarchy validation and version management across forecast cycles.

• Prepare driver-based forecast templates for review and sign off.

• Track risks and opportunities against forecast — maintaining a structured R&O register that feeds into weekly trading update.

 

C.  Commercial analysis and business case support

• Conduct financial analysis in support of business case development — building structured models with sensitivity analysis, scenario outputs and assumption documentation.

• Support commercial analysis across promotions, range reviews, supplier performance, seasonal events, working capital and inventory.

• Support financial analysis and business cases for e-commerce, loyalty, customer experience, store renewal and strategic investment initiatives.

• Prepare category performance deep-dives — SKU-level P&L, distribution analysis, seasonal trends — as inputs for category director briefings.

 

D.  Process execution and data quality

• Maintain data quality across planning and reporting layers within ERP and planning platform — flagging data exceptions and working with Finance IT to resolve.

• Identify repetitive manual steps in the reporting process and propose automation

• Manage report distribution workflows — ensuring the right reports reach the right recipients at the right time, in line with the agreed SLA framework.

E.  Team collaboration

• Work as part of the Business Partnering Pod — acting as a reliable, responsive execution partner for client

• Coordinate with Reporting team to ensure data assembly, report production and distribution runs to schedule.

Experience

• 8-10 years in a Finance, FP&A, commercial finance or financial analysis role

• Demonstrated experience in financial modelling, variance analysis and structured reporting

• Experience in commercial, wholesale, merchandise, CPG or product-driven environments strongly preferred

• Experience in category-based Commercial Finance covering supplier performance, trade activation, digital or customer investment is strongly preferred.

• Familiarity with forecast cycle mechanics — rolling forecasts, annual budget builds, month-end close routines
• Experience in a shared services, offshore delivery or GCC environment is an advantage

Technical finance skills

• Strong financial analysis and modelling — structured variance analysis, driver-based models, P&L decomposition

• Forecasting and budgeting support — input compilation, platform mechanics, version control

• P&L literacy — understanding of revenue, COGS, gross margin, promotional cost and 5th margin.

• Ability to build clear financial models with documented assumptions and sensitivity analysis

• Scenario analysis — running multi-variable scenarios and presenting outputs

Systems and tools

• Advanced Excel — financial modelling, large datasets, pivot analysis, complex lookups

• SAP ECC or equivalent ERP — report extraction, cost centre mapping, GL coding (training provided)

• EPM / CPM planning tools — TM1, SAP SAC, Anaplan, OneStream or equivalent

• Reporting and visualisation — Power BI, Tableau, Palantir or equivalent BI platforms
• Familiarity with Snowflake or data warehouse reporting layers preferred

Interpersonal and collaboration

• Strong attention to detail — accuracy and data quality are non-negotiable in this role

• Clear written communication — ability to draft numeric commentary and variance explanations that are clear and commercially grounded

• Organised and deadline-driven — can manage multiple deliverables simultaneously within tight SLA windows

• Collaborative and responsive — works effectively within the Business Partnering Pod structure

• Willingness to learn commercial constructs — proactive in building commercial literacy through the mandatory training programme
• omfortable working in an Australian business context — adapting communication style and time zone coverage as required

Qualifications

• Degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics or Commerce

• CA / CPA in progress or completed — preferred, not mandatory
• Equivalent professional qualification (CIMA, ACCA, CFA) considered

Benefits of working at Accenture:

 

·       18 weeks paid parental leave

·       Long & short-term career break opportunities

·       Structured career development program

·       Local and international career opportunities.

·       Certified as a Family Inclusive Workplace™

·       Flexible Work Arrangements - centered around Accenture’s Truly Human ethos and our commitment to supporting the health and wellbeing of our people.

·       We are proud to be in the top 3 of last year’s Diversity & Inclusion Index!

 

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All our consulting professionals receive comprehensive training covering business acumen, technical and professional skills development. You’ll also have opportunities to hone your functional skills and expertise in an area of specialization. We offer a variety of formal and informal training programs at every level to help you acquire and build specialized skills faster. Learning takes place both on the job and through formal training conducted online, in the classroom, or in collaboration with teammates. The sheer variety of work we do, and the experience it offers, provide an unbeatable platform from which to build a career. 

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About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities.

Visit us at www.accenture.com 

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement for Australia:

At Accenture, our intention is to foster a culture and a workplace in which all of our people feel a sense of belonging and are respected and empowered to do their best work. 

As part of our talent strategy, we hire and develop people who have different backgrounds, different perspectives and different lived experiences. These differences ensure that we have and attract the cognitive diversity to deliver a variety of perspectives, observations and insights which are essential to drive the innovation needed to reinvent, and we hold our leaders accountable for ensuring we have the most innovative and talented people in our industry.

 
We encourage applications from all people, and we are committed to removing barriers to the recruitment process and employee lifecycle. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, disability status, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, religion or sexual orientation and we do not tolerate discrimination. If you require adjustments to the recruitment process or have a preferred communication method, please email [email protected] and cite the relevant Job Number, or contact us on +61 2 9005 5000.

Learn how Accenture protects your personal data and know your rights in relation to your personal data. Read more about our Privacy Statement