Senior Management Accountant

Potentiam Ltd; Wes-Kaap; Hybrid; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Potentiam Ltd, a rapidly growing offshore solutions provider, is seeking a senior finance professional to lead monthly close and manage revenue accounting for a UK-focused client base.

The role demands strong technical accounting, controls, and commercial judgment in a subscription and managed-services environment, with responsibility across balance sheets, payroll, and reporting. Hybrid Cape Town-based role with relevant experience and UK GAAP knowledge preferred.

Qualifications

• 5 to 8+ years’ relevant experience across management accounting or financial accounting.
• Demonstrable experience with revenue recognition and deferred revenue accounting.
• Strong balance-sheet reconciliation capability and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Own the monthly close and management reporting process.
• Manage revenue recognition and deferred revenue across subscription offerings.
• Perform balance-sheet reconciliations and maintain strong internal controls.
• Support FP&A, forecasting and wider business reporting.
• Collaborate with AP/AR and payroll teams to ensure accurate monthly results.

Skills

Management accounting

Revenue recognition

Month-end close

Financial controls

Financial reporting

UK payroll

Education

Finance/accounting degree

Tools

NetSuite

Job description

Potentiam is a rapidly growing global offshore solutions provider, connecting skilled technical professionals with leading UK and European companies. With established offices in South Africa, Romania, and India, and our newest location in Brazil, we continue to expand our global presence to support businesses in scaling effectively and sustainably.

Our mission is to help companies build high-performing offshore teams while ensuring our people have clear career development and growth opportunities. Potentiam manages all aspects of HR, payroll, infrastructure, and staff development, while our clients directly oversee their teams’ day-to-day responsibilities and role-specific training.

With ambitious growth plans to reach over 500 team members globally within the next 3–4 years, Potentiam offers an exciting, fast-paced environment where people, purpose, and performance come together.

Potentiam’s client

Our client is a growing UK technology business providing cloud, IT, communications, connectivity, security and managed services to organizations across the UK and internationally.

Operating in a predominantly recurring and subscription-based revenue environment, this company combines managed technology services with its proprietary platform to help customers gain greater visibility, control and value from their technology estates.

As the business continues to grow, the client is strengthening its finance capability to provide robust financial reporting, strong controls and high-quality commercial insight.

Purpose of role

This is a hands-on role with significant responsibility for the monthly close and management accounts process, with particular emphasis on recurring revenue accounting, deferred revenue, balance-sheet reconciliations, margin analysis and financial controls.

The successful candidate will operate in a fast-paced, subscription and managed-services environment where revenue may be recognized across monthly, annual and other contractual cycles. Strong understanding of revenue recognition and the ability to ensure that deferred revenue is accurately calculated, reconciled and released into the P&L will therefore be critical.

The role will suit someone who combines strong technical accounting capability with commercial judgement, attention to detail and a willingness to take ownership of issues through to resolution.

Duties and responsibilities

Month-End Close & Management Reporting

• Take ownership of key elements of the monthly close process, ensuring activities are completed accurately and within agreed deadlines.
• Prepare monthly management accounts and support schedules for review by the Financial Controller.
• Prepare and post recurring, adjustment and reclassification journals.
• Work closely with Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable teams to resolve outstanding items and achieve a timely month-end close.
• Prepare clear commentary explaining material movements, trends and exceptions within the monthly results.
• Provide accurate financial information to support FP&A, forecasting and wider business reporting.

Revenue Accounting & Deferred Revenue

• Manage accounting for recurring and subscription-based revenue across company’s service and technology offerings.
• Apply appropriate revenue recognition and cut-off principles across monthly, annual and other contractual billing cycles.
• Prepare and maintain deferred revenue schedules, ensuring revenue is recognized in the correct accounting period.
• Perform detailed deferred revenue reconciliations and investigate discrepancies between billing, underlying schedules, the general ledger and reported revenue.
• Identify missing, duplicated, incorrectly classified or incorrectly timed revenue and drive corrective action.
• Maintain strong control over revenue recognition to protect the accuracy and integrity of the P&L.

Margin & Commercial Analysis

• Analyse revenue, cost of sales and gross margin following month-end close.
• Review performance across recurring, non-recurring and repeat revenue streams.
• Analyse margin by customer, revenue stream and service area to identify unexpected movements or potential margin leakage.
• Investigate unusual cost or revenue movements and provide clear explanations to finance and business stakeholders.
• Develop an understanding of customer and supplier contracts and how these influence revenue recognition, direct costs and profitability.
• Support commercial decision-making through accurate financial analysis and insight.

Balance Sheet Management

• Prepare and maintain high-quality balance-sheet reconciliations across key accounts.
• Take ownership of deferred revenue, accruals, prepayments and other material balance-sheet accounts.
• Investigate aged, unsupported or unexplained balances and ensure corrective actions are followed through.
• Maintain accrual schedules across areas including accrued revenue, cost of sales and operating expenditure.
• Process and reconcile intercompany balances and transactions where required.
• Help strengthen balance-sheet discipline and improve the quality of working-capital information.

Payroll Accounting

• Review payroll outputs and support accurate accounting for the UK payroll population and employees operating internationally.
• Prepare and post payroll-related journals, including salary, tax, pension, bonus and benefit entries.
• Reconcile relevant payroll control accounts and investigate differences.
• Work effectively with payroll and HR stakeholders to ensure accurate and timely financial information.
• Apply robust financial controls across month-end, revenue, billing and balance-sheet processes.
• Review financial information for completeness and accuracy before it enters the accounting records.
• Support controls billing runs and ensures appropriate financial review before information is processed into the ERP.
• Validate information across billing, AP, AR, payroll and the general ledger.
• Identify weaknesses, recurring errors or inefficient processes and recommend practical improvements.
• Maintain clear supporting documentation and audit trails.

Process Improvement

• Support the continued development of scalable finance processes as company grow.
• Improve month-end schedules, reconciliations, reporting processes and supporting documentation.
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual intervention and improve the accuracy, consistency and efficiency of financial reporting.
• Work collaboratively with the Financial Controller and wider finance team to embed stronger controls and ways of working.

Skills/Experience

• 5 to 8+ years’ relevant experience across management accounting, financial accounting or a similar hands-on finance role.
• Strong experience preparing and owning monthly management accounts and month-end close.
• Demonstrable experience working in a subscription, recurring-revenue, SaaS, technology, telecoms or managed-services environment will be beneficial.
• Strong practical experience of revenue recognition and deferred revenue accounting.
• Excellent balance-sheet reconciliation capability, with evidence of identifying and resolving discrepancies rather than simply preparing schedules.
• Experience analysing revenue, cost of sales and gross margin.
• Strong understanding of accruals, prepayments, journals and general-ledger accounting.
• Experience working with AP and AR teams as part of the month-end close.
• Experience with UK payroll accounting and associated journals and reconciliations beneficial.
• Understanding of UK accounting principles and UK GAAP.
• Exposure to multi-entity or international finance environments would be beneficial.
• Previous experience within a private-equity-backed or high-growth organization would be advantageous.
• Strong written and spoken English.

Systems & Tools

• Experience with the following would be particularly relevant:
• NetSuite or a comparable ERP/accounting platform – NetSuite experience is highly desirable.
• Ability to reconcile information between multiple operational systems and the general ledger.
• Exposure to systems such as Halo, Ability or Xero would be useful but is not essential.

Qualifications

A relevant finance or accounting degree, diploma or professional qualification is preferred.

Location and hours

Foreshore; Cape Town CBD

10h00 – 19h00

Hybrid

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