Assistant Account Manager

About the Role

We are looking for a detail-oriented, analytical, and commercially focused Assistant Manager Accounts & Finance to manage accounting and finance operations for a growing FMCG business.

The candidate should have strong hands-on experience in FMCG accounting, distributor and channel finance, trade schemes, inventory accounting, working capital management, ROI analysis, statutory compliance, bank reconciliation, financial reporting, and MIS.

The role will be responsible for ensuring accounting accuracy, strong financial controls, timely statutory compliance, effective distributor management, efficient working capital utilization, and providing actionable financial insights to management.

Key Responsibilities

1. Financial Accounting & Month-End Closing

• Manage day-to-day accounting operations covering Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Fixed Assets, and expense accounting.
• Ensure accurate and timely recording of sales, purchases, expenses, provisions, accruals, advances, and other financial transactions.
• Process vendor invoices, employee reimbursements, expenses, debit/credit notes, and payments within defined timelines.
• Perform monthly, quarterly, and annual closing activities.
• Prepare and review schedules supporting financial statements.
• Ensure proper accounting of outstanding expenses, provisions, accruals, prepaid expenses, advances, and liabilities.
• Review unusual and aged balances and ensure timely resolution.
• Maintain books of accounts in accordance with applicable accounting standards and company policies.

2. Bank Reconciliation & Treasury Operations

• Perform daily/weekly/monthly bank reconciliations for all company bank accounts.

• Identify and resolve unreconciled transactions, bank charges, direct credits, outstanding cheques, and other reconciling items.

• Monitor daily bank balances, collections, payments, and fund utilization.

• Coordinate with banks for payment processing, collections, banking documentation, and account-related matters.

• Ensure timely processing of:

• Vendor payments

• Distributor settlements

• Statutory payments

• Salary payments

• Other operational payments

• Prepare cash flow forecasts and support treasury planning.

• Monitor liquidity and ensure optimum utilization of available funds.

3. Distributor & Channel Accounting

• Manage accounting and reconciliation for General Trade, Modern Trade, Institutional, E-commerce, and Quick Commerce channels.

• Maintain distributor/customer ledgers and ensure timely reconciliation.

• Monitor distributor outstanding, ageing, credit limits, collections, and overdue balances.

• Coordinate with Sales and Commercial teams for recovery of overdue receivables.

• Review and settle distributor claims relating to:

• Trade schemes

• Discounts

• Incentives

• Rebates

• Sales returns

• Shortages

• Damages

• Promotional claims

• Rate differences

• Ensure proper validation and accounting of distributor claims before settlement.

• Investigate disputed balances and coordinate with Sales, Commercial, and distributors for resolution.

• Monitor distributor credit exposure and highlight potential credit risks to management.

• Ensure accurate accounting of channel-wise revenue, discounts, schemes, rebates, and trade spends.

4. Trade Promotion & ROI Analysis

• Monitor and analyze trade promotions, schemes, discounts, incentives, and promotional spends.
• Calculate and evaluate ROI of promotional schemes and business initiatives.
• Compare promotional investment against incremental sales, gross margin, and contribution margin.
• Identify schemes or promotions with low or negative ROI and highlight the same to management.
• Support Sales and Commercial teams with financial analysis before launching major schemes.
• Track actual trade spends against approved budgets.
• Ensure proper accounting and provisioning of trade schemes and promotional expenses.

5. Working Capital Management

• Take ownership of key working capital metrics including:

• Receivables / Debtors

• Payables / Creditors

• Inventory

• Cash & Bank

• Advances

• Outstanding Expenses

• Monitor and improve the company's Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC).

• Prepare and review debtor ageing and creditor ageing reports.

• Monitor collection efficiency and overdue receivables.

• Track inventory holding days and identify slow-moving/obsolete inventory.

• Monitor payment cycles and optimize creditor utilization without impacting supplier relationships.

• Review outstanding expenses and ensure timely booking, settlement, and reversal where applicable.

• Monitor advances and recoverable balances and ensure timely adjustment.

• Prepare working capital dashboards and highlight areas requiring management action.

6. Inventory Accounting & Cost Control

• Manage accounting and reconciliation of inventory across plants, warehouses, depots, distributors, and distribution centers.
• Ensure accurate inventory valuation and COGS calculation.
• Reconcile physical inventory with books/system records.
• Monitor stock movement, stock ageing, slow-moving stock, damaged stock, expiry, and write-offs.
• Coordinate with Supply Chain and Operations teams for periodic physical stock verification.
• Investigate inventory variances and ensure corrective action.
• Monitor logistics, freight, warehousing, transportation, and distribution costs.
• Analyze product-wise and location-wise inventory holding.
• Support initiatives to reduce inventory carrying costs and improve inventory turnover.

7. MIS & Financial Reporting

• Prepare daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly MIS reports for management.

• Develop and maintain reports covering:

• Sales

• Gross margin

• Contribution margin

• Trade spends

• Distributor outstanding

• Debtor ageing

• Inventory

• Inventory ageing

• Creditor ageing

• Working capital

• Cash flow

• Operating expenses

• Profitability

• Perform budget vs. actual and forecast vs. actual variance analysis.

• Analyze profitability by product, customer, distributor, geography, and sales channel.

• Provide financial insights to management for improving profitability and cash flows.

• Develop dashboards and reports using Excel/ERP/BI tools.

• Highlight key business risks, cost overruns, working capital issues, and corrective actions.

8. Statutory Compliance & Taxation

• Ensure timely compliance with applicable:

• GST

• TDS

• TCS

• Professional Tax

• Income Tax

• Other applicable statutory requirements

• Prepare/review GST and TDS reconciliations and supporting schedules.

• Ensure timely statutory payments and return filings.

• Coordinate with tax consultants, statutory auditors, internal auditors, and other external stakeholders.

• Maintain proper documentation and audit trails.

• Support statutory, internal, tax, and other audits.

• Ensure compliance with applicable accounting standards and regulatory requirements.

9. Expense & Cost Management

• Review operating expenses against budgets and approved limits.
• Monitor outstanding expenses and monthly expense provisions to ensure completeness and accuracy of financial reporting.
• Identify cost overruns and investigate significant variances.
• Analyze cost trends across departments, locations, products, and business activities.
• Identify opportunities for cost reduction and process improvement.
• Ensure appropriate approvals and supporting documentation for expenses.

10. Internal Controls & Process Improvement

• Strengthen financial controls across accounting, distributor management, inventory, expenses, payments, and collections.
• Ensure compliance with approval matrices and company policies.
• Identify control gaps and recommend corrective measures.
• Improve reconciliation processes and reduce aged/unreconciled balances.
• Support automation of accounting, reporting, reconciliation, and MIS processes.
• Work closely with Sales, Supply Chain, Procurement, Commercial, Warehouse, Operations, HR, and Management teams.