Financial Accountant

JOB TITLE: Financial Accountant

REPORTS TO: Group Financial Manager

LOCATION: Johannesburg

ROLE OVERVIEW:

As a Financial Accountant, you will be joining a driven and collaborative finance team within a rapidly expanding Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) organisation in the renewable energy sector. You will play a critical role in safeguarding the financial integrity and profitability of our Photo Voltaic (PV) solar projects by ensuring accurate revenue recognition, disciplined cost and working capital management and insightful gross profit analysis.

This role is pivotal in delivering reliable project-level financial performance insights, partnering closely with project managers to track actuals against budgets, investigate variances and promote financially sound project execution. You will work alongside the finance, procurement and operations teams to ensure each project is delivered with optimal financial outcomes.

This is a high-impact role suited for a commercially focused accountant who thrives in a project-based, fast-paced environment.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting (essential)
• CIMA or newly qualified CA(SA) designation(essential)

PREFERRED SKILLS:

• Strong financial analysis and variance investigation capabilities
• High attention to detail and organisational skills.
• Advanced Excel and/or data reporting tools (Power BI, pivot tables, project dashboards)
• Proficiency in financial software and ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle) advantages
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills
• Ability to work collaboratively with finance and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to challenge constructively and drive accountability for financial outcomes
• Strong ethical standards and integrity.
• Pro-active and able to work independently with a drive to learn and grow
• Ability to work under pressure, and adhere to timelines
• Understanding of IFRS

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• Minimum 2 year's experience in power generation technologies and preferably Solar PV is an advantage
• Experience working within or with Independent Power Producers
• Understanding in project finance, accountancy and good notions of company and tax laws is an advantage

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Key Responsibilities:

Revenue Recognition and Project Accounting:

• Ensure revenue is recognised in accordance with project milestones, contractual terms and IFRS/IAS guidelines (e.g., percentage-of-completion methods).
• Track project billing schedules, change orders and customer invoicing to align recognised revenue with actual delivery progress. Ensuring the integrity of the inputs and outputs of the revenue calculation

Project Cost Management and Variance Tracking

• Monitor and analyse actual project costs against budgets provided by project managers.
• Investigate and explain material cost variances, labour overruns, delays or procurement deviations.
• Ensure procurement data is properly matched to the correct project cost centres and GL accounts.
• Review and report gross margins per project monthly, identifying trends, risks, and corrective actions.

Working Capital Management and Forecasting

• Maintain accurate records of inventory transactions and valuations
• Analysis of debtors aging and ensuring accuracy of related trade and other receivables accounts
• Analysis of creditors aging and ensuring accuracy of related trade and other payables accounts
• Release of supplier payments
• Responsible for maintaining project costs and working capital forecasts

Project Performance Support

• Act as a financial expert to project managers—challenging assumptions, flagging potential overruns and providing financial insight.
• Collaborate with procurement to ensure project cost allocations are timely, accurate, and complete.
• Track project-specific KPIs such as cost-to-complete, GP %, cash flow and WIP.
• Maintain financial visibility across all stages of the project lifecycle—from engineering and procurement to final handover.

Reporting, Compliance & Controls

• Prepare accurate month-end reports and dashboards for finance and executive stakeholders.
• Ensure all project accounting practices adhere to internal controls, finance policies, and audit requirements.
• Maintain financial documentation to support project audits and board-level reporting.
• Ad hoc requests from departments for info, explanations, help, support etc
• Support Internal and External audit