Business Operations Analyst

Role Purpose

The Business Operations Analyst ensures that operational and financial administration is completed accurately, promptly, and consistently. The role owns job and file setup, billing preparation, costing line entries, supplier expense reconciliation, data-quality checks, and exception follow-up across company systems and supporting statements.

This role suits a systems-confident individual with strong numerical discipline, fast and accurate data-entry capability, and the curiosity to improve repetitive processes using Microsoft365 tools, including Copilot and Power Automate.

Key Responsibilities

Job and File Administration

• Create and maintain customer, job, project, and operational files in company systems within agreed service levels.
• Enter and update job details, instructions, references, supporting documents, and status information accurately.
• Check that mandatory fields, approvals, and documentation are complete before progressing transactions.
• Maintain orderly electronic records that are easy to retrieve and suitable for audit review.

Billing and Costing Support

• Prepare billing information and supporting documentation for invoicing.
• Add approved costing line items, supplier charges, disbursements, and other operational expenses to the correct job or cost centre.
• Check rates, quantities, tax treatment, currencies, references, and supporting documents before submission.
• Follow up with operations, finance, procurement, and suppliers to resolve missing or disputed items.
• Support timely month-end billing, cost accrual, and job closure activities.

Reconciliation and Data Integrity

• Reconcile transactions recorded in company systems against supplier statements, invoices, job records, and supporting schedules.
• Identify duplicate, missing, incorrectly allocated, or unusual charges and coordinate corrective action.
• Perform regular quality checks to confirm that operational and financial records are complete, accurate, and auditable.
• Maintain clear reconciliation records and an exception log until all differences are resolved.
• Escalate material discrepancies, control failures, or recurring errors promptly.

Reporting and Operational Support

• Prepare routine reports covering billing status, unallocated costs, outstanding reconciliations, open exceptions, and data quality.
• Support operational and finance teams with accurate system information and transaction follow-up.
• Assist management with ad hoc analysis, audit queries, and month-end reporting requirements.
• Monitor assigned workflows and highlight delays, bottlenecks, and recurring root causes.

Process Improvement and Automation

• Document current processes and identify repetitive, manual, or error-prone activities suitable for simplification or automation.
• Build practical knowledge of Microsoft Copilot and Power Automate through structured self-learning and supervised application.
• Support the testing and rollout of simple workflows, notifications, approvals, data checks, and productivity improvements.
• Maintain process notes and user guides and share improved working practices with colleagues.
• Ensure any automation follows company approval, information-security, access-control, and data-governance requirements.

Core Capabilities

Accuracy and control
Consistently validates entries, supporting documents, allocations, and totals before submission.

Systems aptitude
Learns new systems quickly and confidently work across multiple screens, records, and workflows.

Typing and data entry
Demonstrates fast, accurate keyboarding while maintaining quality under transaction-volume pressure.

Analytical thinking
Recognises discrepancies, traces root causes, and distinguishes genuine exceptions from timing differences.

Ownership
Follows outstanding items through to closure and escalates issues before deadlines are affected.

Organisation
Prioritises competing daily, weekly, and month-end tasks without losing accuracy.

Communication
Explains discrepancies clearly and works constructively with operations, finance, and suppliers.

Continuous improvement
Shows curiosity, self-learning discipline, and a practical interest in automation and better workflows.

Preferred Skills

• Exposure to Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Copilot, Power Query, Power BI, or SharePoint Lists.
• Experience with high-volume transaction processing, job costing, logistics, relocation, freight forwarding, or shared services.
• Experience creating process maps, standard operating procedures, checklists, or user guides.
• Basic understanding of internal controls, audit trails, access controls, and data privacy.

Required Experience and Qualifications

• 3-5 years of relevant experience in business operations, billing, finance support, accounts, shared services, logistics administration, or a similar transaction-processing environment.
• Diploma or Degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, Operations, Supply Chain, Analytics, or a related discipline.
• Hands-on experience with billing, costing, invoice checking, supplier statement reconciliation, or transactional data validation.
• Experience using an ERP, finance, logistics, relocation, CRM, or operational management system.
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel, including lookups, filters, sorting, conditional formatting, and basic data reconciliation.
• Professional written and spoken English.