Commercial Accountant / Senior Finance Manager – Hotel, Hospitality, Leisure

Overview

In this role you will lead the finance function for a growing family-run hospitality group and partner with the leadership team to turn numbers into commercially actionable insights. You’ll own period-end processes, budgets, forecasts and multi-entity reporting across hotels, events and farming operations. You’ll identify improvement opportunities in labour, stock, margins and capex, and build practical financial models for new ideas. You will influence decision-making at board level and drive automation to deliver faster, clearer reporting. This is a hands-on position with broad scope and a clear pathway to Head of Finance for the right candidate.

Pay / Benefits

• Competitive salary DOE
• Bonus up to ~15% of salary
• Private healthcare
• Farm Fitness gym membership
• Hotel stays at group venues for R&D
• Meals on duty and employee discounts across venues

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day finance across multiple Group entities and ensure robust controls and compliance
• Manage period-end close for 13 four-weekly periods with reconciliations and management accounts
• Prepare budgets, rolling forecasts, board reporting and financial analysis
• Oversee intercompany accounting, multi-entity consolidation and cost centre reporting
• VAT management across varied income streams (accommodation, F&B, events, memberships, farming)
• Manage supplier payments, cash flow, working capital and debt facilities
• Oversee multi-site payroll, pensions, PAYE, tips and service charge administration
• Lead year-end, statutory accounts and corporation tax with external accountants
• Develop and lead a small finance team
• Provide commercial partnership to non-finance colleagues, explaining P&Ls and driving performance improvements
• Build financial models and business cases quickly for new opportunities
• Support operational leaders with commercially sound decision-making
• Oversee finance systems and data flows to enable automation and better reporting

Key requirements

• Hospitality finance leadership experience
• Experience supporting a growth business with turnover in the £10–£20m range
• Hands-on management of period-end, management accounts, budgets and forecasts
• Strong VAT knowledge across multi-entity structures
• Cash flow, banking, payments, payroll and financial controls experience
• Commercial business partnering in a hospitality setting
• Ability to analyse profitability and implement improvements
• Proven ability to produce practical financial models and business cases
• Experience leading a finance team and working with external accountants
• Strong systems capability and interest in AI, automation and process improvement
• Excellent stakeholder management and ability to challenge senior leaders constructively
• Able to manage competing priorities and adapt to a fast-moving business
• Hospitality PMS/POS systems, commercial insurance, banking facilities, capital projects or finance system implementations experience (valued)
• Professional accounting qualification desirable (CIMA preferred; ACA/ACCA/part-qualified considered)
• Relocation or commuting within 30–40 minutes of Welwyn area preferred

• Stakeholder management
• Commercial mindset
• Structured communication with non-finance colleagues
• Xero
• Moss
• Mews

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