Management Accountant

Loungers plc; West of England; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday (plus bank holidays)

Pension contribution

Mental health support

Job summary

Loungers plc is seeking an experienced, qualified accountant to join the Management Accounts team at our Bristol HQ. You’ll own key areas of the period-end close, influence reporting, and build insights that reach the business quickly across our 300+ sites.

The role is hybrid with Bristol-based work up to 4 days a week, offering exposure to senior stakeholders and opportunities to redesign processes for faster, more accurate forecasting and decision support.

Qualifications

• ACCA/ACCA or CIMA eligible with post-qualification experience in management accounts.
• Strong Excel, Power BI or similar for finance reporting.
• Experience in multi-site hospitality, retail or leisure is helpful.
• Excellent communication with non-finance stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own key areas of the period-end close from start to finish with the story behind the numbers.
• Lead period-end and mid-period gross profit reporting across 300+ sites.
• Maintain balance sheet reconciliations and resolve reconciling items.
• Prepare and post journals, accruals and other period-end adjustments.
• Develop budgets and forecasts; build dashboards for stakeholders.
• Partner with operations and HQ to control costs and find savings.
• Support audit and drive continuous finance process improvement.

Skills

ACA/ACCA/CIMA

Management accounts

Forecasting

Excel

Power BI

Data analysis

Stakeholder engagement

Automation

Education

Qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA)

Tools

Access Dimensions

Job description

We’re a Bristol-born and bred hospitality brand that’s growing quickly, and our reporting needs to keep pace. Sitting within our Management Accounts team at our friendly HQ in Bristol, this role is for an experienced, qualified accountant who is energised by data— someone who wants to do far more than close the period and move on. You'll own key areas of the period-end close, as well as influence how we produce our numbers so that insights and forecasts reach the business faster, more accurately and more widely than they do today. You’ll gain exposure to a fast-growing multi-site business and work directly with a range of stakeholders across Loungers.

This role is a great opportunity because you’ll have a genuinely broad remit across a 300+ site estate, the freedom to redesign processes rather than simply inherit them, real exposure to senior stakeholders, and the chance to see the impact of your work within weeks rather than years.

This is a hybrid role based in our HQ in central Bristol. The succesful candidate should expect to work from our Bristol HQ up to 4 days a week.

Getting into the detail

Period-end ownership and reporting

• Own key areas of the period-end close from start to finish - accurate, complete, on time, and with the story behind the numbers ready to tell.
• Lead period-end and mid-period gross profit reporting across our 300+ site estate, building a strong understanding of what really drives food and drink performance.
• Produce and maintain robust balance sheet reconciliations, investigate reconciling items and drive them through to timely resolution.
• Prepare and post journals, accruals and other period-end adjustments, backed by working papers.

Insight, analysis and decision support

• Turn analysis of performance, variances and high-value spend into clear commentary — what happened, why it matters, what we do about it — for finance and non-finance audiences alike.
• Lead budgets and forecasts for your areas, constructively challenging assumptions and improving accuracy to support better operational decisions.

Business partnering and stakeholder engagement

• Business partner with stakeholders across operations and HQ, helping them understand their costs, control them, and find practical savings and efficiencies.
• Build reports and dashboards that give stakeholders the right information in a clear, accessible format.

Systems, data and process improvement

• Review how we report today and make it quicker and sharper: remove unnecessary manual work, automate repeatable processes and shorten the gap between something happening in a site and the business having the insight to act on it.
• Play a leading part in finance systems and data projects — reporting software, better integration between systems, and getting more out of the tools we already have.

Team contribution and audit support

• Support the annual audit, share what you know with the wider team and help us raise the bar on the finance service we give the business.

Where could this take you?

We're a growing business and you'll join a team that's actively rethinking how it works, with the support to test ideas, learn quickly and challenge the status quo rather than work around it.

• Ownership of defined systems, automation and process-improvement workstreams from day one
• Regular exposure to senior finance and operational stakeholders, including opportunities to present your insight and be challenged on it.
• Scope to coach and develop others in the team as you build your leadership experience.
• A clear route towards broader group management accounts and commercial finance responsibility as we keep growing.

What you’ll bring

• A qualified accountant — ACA, ACCA or CIMA — with solid post-qualified experience in management accounts, reporting and forecasting.
• Strong technical accounting knowledge, with the judgement to apply standards sensibly and explain their impact clearly.
• Experience working in environments where accuracy, pace and ownership matter, with the confidence to take responsibility for your areas from the detailed workings through to the final story behind the numbers.
• A genuinely data-driven mindset, demonstrated through your ability to get underneath large volumes of data, spot patterns others may have missed and recognise when the answer doesn’t look quite right.
• Hands‑on experience with advanced Excel, Power BI or similar reporting tools, using them to improve how finance information is produced, shared and understood.
• Real enthusiasm for automation, finance systems and better ways of working — with a track record of building sustainable solutions rather than repeating the same workaround every period.
• A strong record of improving processes, redesigning reports, introducing automation and helping accelerate reporting timetables.
• Comfort getting into the detail, combined with an uncompromising approach to accuracy and a natural curiosity about how things could work better.
• Confident communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively with non-finance stakeholders and explain the numbers clearly, without unnecessary jargon.
• A proactive, organised approach, with experience of balancing deadlines while maintaining accuracy and attention to detail.
• Experience in multi‑site hospitality, retail or leisure, and with Access Dimensions, would be helpful but not essential — curiosity, drive and a track record of making things better matter more.

What’s in it for you?

• 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays)
• A culture that appreciates ideas and celebrates individuality
• Founder‑led business - we might have c300 sites, but we still maintain an entrepreneurial spirit through everything we do
• 50% off food at all Lounges, Cosy Clubs and Brightsides
• Up to 10% bonus
• Pension contribution
• 24/7 mental health support
• Amazing events including LoungeFest – our annual company festival - Christmas parties and more
• We value people who work hard, treat others well and enjoy being part of a team. If that sounds like you, we’d love you to join us on the next stage of the Loungers journey.

About us

Loungers is a substantial and growing operator in the UK hospitality sector, operating over 300 sites in England and Wales across three distinct but complementary brands, Lounges, Cosy Club, and Brightside. Founded in 2002 by three friends who wanted to create a neighbourhood café-bar that they would want to go to, the Group is now the only growing all-day operator of scale in the UK and has consistently outperformed the wider UK hospitality sector over the past three years. Despite being the fastest growing café/restaurant group in the Country, Loungers has retained its entrepreneurial spirit and quirky ‘Loungey’ local community atmosphere.