Role Overview
- Company: AFPL Group
- Position Title: Senior Manager - Accounts & Finance
- Department: Finance & Accounts
- Location: Corporate Office
- Reports To: Head of Finance / Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
- Direct Reports: * Manager / Assistant Manager (Payments & Taxation)
- Manager / Assistant Manager (Bookkeeping & General Ledger)
- Employment Type: Full-time
Job Purpose
The Senior Manager - Accounts & Finance is a leadership role responsible for directing the entire accounting, taxation, payment operations, and management reporting (MIS) functions across all AFPL group companies.
This role acts as the ultimate custodian of financial integrity, ensuring absolute accuracy in the books of accounts, strict compliance with direct and indirect tax frameworks, and timely, controlled payment disbursements. As a strategic partner to the CFO, the Senior Manager will supervise a team of accounting and tax professionals, elevating raw operational data into highly analytical board-level MIS reports to drive group-wide corporate strategy.
Key Responsibilities
1. Team Leadership & Operational Oversight
- Department Management: Lead, mentor, and evaluate a multi-tier team of accounts professionals responsible for bookkeeping, vendor payments, treasury, and taxation.
- Work Allocation & Review: Establish clear key performance indicators (KPIs) for direct reports, streamline department workflows, and run internal quality checks on all team outputs.
- SOP & Internal Controls: Develop, implement, and enforce robust standard operating procedures (SOPs) and internal financial controls (IFC) across all group entities to prevent financial leakages and fraud.
2. Supervisory Oversight of Taxation & Payments
- Taxation Oversight: * Provide strategic guidance to the tax team on the monthly filing of GSTR-1, GSTR-3B, and the proactive utilization of GSTR-1A for mid-month amendments.
- Supervise complex tax reconciliations (such as GSTR-2B vs. Purchase Register) to maximize Input Tax Credit (ITC) utilization.
- Oversee Direct Tax compliance (Corporate Income Tax, Advance Tax, and TDS/TCS filings) and coordinate responses to tax notices and assessment representation.
- Payment & Treasury Authorization: * Act as a senior authorized signatory/approver for high-value corporate vendor disbursements, payroll files, and inter-company fund transfers.
- Monitor cash flow forecasting models prepared by the payments team to optimize group-level working capital.
3. Core Bookkeeping, General Ledger & Consolidation
- Financial Integrity: Review and sign off on monthly trial balances, ensuring strict compliance with Ind AS / IFRS / local GAAP.
- Inter-Company Consolidation: Oversee complex inter-company reconciliations, transfer pricing compliance, and elimination entries required to produce consolidated group financial statements.
- Asset & Inventory Valuation: Direct the physical verification and valuation audits for fixed assets and inventories across all warehouses/offices.
4. Advanced MIS, Budgeting & Business Intelligence
- C-Suite MIS Reporting: Compile and present comprehensive consolidated monthly MIS packs, summarizing group profitability, working capital health, cash flow run rates, and key business unit performance metrics directly to the CFO and Board.
- Strategic Variance Analysis: Drive deep-dive variance analysis (Budget vs. Actual, MoM, YoY) to identify cost-containment opportunities and process inefficiencies.
- Budgetary Control: Lead the annual budgeting and forecasting exercise, collaborating with cross-functional business heads to consolidate financial projections.
- Automation & BI Integration: Drive the integration of Business Intelligence (BI) tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) with the ERP to transition the team towards automated, dynamic dashboard reporting.
5. Audit & Statutory Compliance
- Audit Ownership: Serve as the principal coordinator for statutory, internal, and tax audits, ensuring timely closure of audits with clean audit reports.
- Secretarial & Legal Alignments: Collaborate with the legal/secretarial team to ensure corporate compliance regarding board resolutions, filings, and statutory registries.
Job Specifications (Requirements)
Education & Professional Qualifications
- Minimum Education: Master's degree in Commerce, Finance, or Accounting.
- Professional Certification (Mandatory): Chartered Accountant (CA) or Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is highly preferred.
Experience
- Overall Experience: Minimum of 8–10 years of post-qualification experience in corporate finance and accounting.
- Leadership Experience: At least 4–5 years in a core supervisory/managerial role managing a mid-to-large-sized team handling payments, taxation, and general ledger operations within a conglomerate or multi-subsidiary corporate structure.
Key Technical Competencies
- Advanced Accounting & Consolidation: Deep expertise in Ind AS/IFRS, consolidation rules, and managing multi-entity accounts.
- Taxation Systems: Expert-level understanding of the Indian GST ecosystem (GSTR-1/1A/3B/2B), Income Tax provisions, and transfer pricing.
- Advanced Data Management: Mastery of ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite) and MS Excel. Strong familiarity with BI visualization software (Power BI/Tableau) is highly valued.
Soft Skills & Leadership
- Executive Presence: Ability to comfortably present complex financial realities, budgets, and projections to executive directors and external stakeholders.
- Conflict Resolution: Strong leadership and conflict resolution skills to manage diverse task streams (Tax vs. AP vs. GL).
- Strategic Vision: Ability to look beyond basic bookkeeping to provide business-critical cost, cash, and tax optimization recommendations.