Financial Controller - Travel Counsellors : Job Details

Join us as a Financial Controller and shape our financial strategy! Oversee the UK Management Accounts team while working closely with senior leadership to provide insights, manage risk, and drive the company toward its financial goals. If you're ready to make an impact, we want to hear from you!

The Financial Controller role requires hands-on management of all accounting, financial controls, statutory compliance, and support for strategic financial planning.

Business Partnering & Stakeholder Management:

• Support the FP&A team in preparing annual budgets and regular forecasts, and lead the preparation of Overheads/Non-Opex budgets/forecasts for the UK entity.
• Provide detailed analysis and commentary on financial performance, variances, and trends, working with the FP&A team to understand Gross Margin deviations from budget/forecast.
• Work closely with department heads to monitor departmental budgets, control costs, and maximise profitability.
• Act as a key business partner to the senior management team, providing financial insights and analysis to support decision-making and provide recommendations to improve profitability, operational efficiency, and overall financial health of the business.

Accounting & Financial Control:

• Ensure the timely and accurate production of monthly management accounts, ensuring accuracy and timeliness of the information presented.
• Ownership of the UK Balance Sheet, ensuring reconciliations are completed and reviewed on a monthly basis.
• Work closely with the treasury, FP&A, Finance Transaction, and Financial Operations teams to ensure the integrity of data within D365 and the provision of information to the users of the information.

Financial Reporting & Compliance:

• Support the Group Reporting team in preparing statutory accounts and ensuring compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and tax obligations.
• Support the annual external audit process, liaising with external auditors and providing necessary documentation.
• Oversee the preparation, submission, and reconciliation of UK VAT returns.
• Ensure the accurate and timely submission of UK and industry-related regulatory submissions, including IATA, AFI, ATOL, TOMS and ONS.

Team Leadership & Development:

• Lead, mentor, and develop the UK finance team, fostering a culture of high performance and continuous improvement.
• Set clear objectives for team members, conduct regular performance reviews, and provide training and development opportunities.

• A competitive basic salary + annual company bonus
• Flexible hybrid working model
• Career development and promotional opportunities
• 25 days holidays (increasing to 28 after 5 years of service)
• A Moments That Matter Day (annually)
• Enhanced maternity/paternity pay
• Holiday buy and sell (up to 5 days per year)
• 3 paid days charity leave
• Company events, socials, and incentives
• 3x annual salary death in service benefit
• Company pension scheme
• Costco membership
• Salary sacrifice, company car scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Free breakfast, fruit, and hot/cold beverages
• Referral scheme
• Employee discount
• Private medical insurance (taxable benefit) or healthcare cash plan (costs incurred by employees)

• Fully qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or equivalent), with 8-10 years post qualification
• Extensive experience in a financial leadership role, ideally within an international group
• Strong technical accounting knowledge, including UK GAAP and IFRS
• Proven track record of managing financial reporting
• Experience working with external auditors
• Knowledge of tax regulations, compliance, HMRC and IATA requirements

• Experience in the travel industry
• Previous experience in a high-volume, high-growth environment
• Experience with regulatory bodies

Here at Travel Counsellors, our customers, communities, and colleagues lie at the heart of everything we do - and that's what makes us special. For us, relationships come before transactions, and we are there for our customers, connecting with them on a deeply human level through the moments that matter.

We've been changing lives for the past 30 years as the leading travel marketplace for self-employed travel entrepreneurs, empowering over 2,100 global independent travel agents to run successful leisure and corporate travel businesses. We pride ourselves on remaining a company that truly cares and has never wavered from its purpose - to redefine what personal means for a travel business.

Our Travel Counsellors are supported by a team of over 400 super-talented people in our support offices to help them create unique, inspiring, and exciting experiences for their customers whilst building lasting personal relationships that bring them back to us, time and time again.

Our unique approach within the workplace - as well as towards customers - has seen us receive numerous awards and accolades, including being named The Best Place to Work in Travel at the 2022 TTG Travel Industry Awards, placing in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list 2023 and 2024 (Large Company) as well as being the first travel company to be awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category!