Senior Accountant – Costing & Business Finance

Senior Accountant – Costing & Business Finance

Join Salasa as a **Senior Accountant – Costing & Business Finance**, where you will play a pivotal role in driving operational efficiency, financial clarity, and strategic decision-making within our dynamic warehouse environment. This is a forward-thinking, hands-on position that bridges finance and operations, ensuring data-driven insights shape pricing, productivity, and profitability strategies.

In this critical role, you will collaborate closely with warehouse operations and finance teams to develop and refine sophisticated costing frameworks that provide unparalleled visibility into warehouse productivity, resource allocation, and cost drivers. Your expertise will transform raw operational data into actionable financial intelligence, empowering leadership to optimize unit economics, capacity utilization, and overall profitability.

Key Responsibilities

As the **Senior Accountant – Costing & Business Finance**, your responsibilities will include:

• Developing and maintaining comprehensive costing models across all facets of warehouse operations, including inbound receiving, quality control, storage, picking, packing, packaging, manpower, utilities, technology, last-mile delivery, rent, and depreciation. Ensure these models deliver accurate, real-time insights into cost per item, order, shipment, and customer.
• Analyzing customer-level financial performance by calculating direct costs, cost-to-serve metrics, resource consumption, contribution margins, and capacity utilization. Align these insights with strategic business objectives to enhance customer profitability and operational efficiency.
• Establishing and refining cost allocation methodologies using operational cost drivers to ensure equitable distribution of shared warehouse expenses. This will include reconciling headcount, attendance, labor productivity, and operational output to identify cost-saving opportunities.
• Measuring and optimizing warehouse productivity by tracking key performance indicators such as items per labor hour, manpower cost per order, packaging efficiency, bin utilization, throughput per square meter, and courier cost per shipment. Leverage these metrics to enhance operational agility and reduce waste.
• Building and maintaining advanced financial models for warehouse utilization and capacity planning. Quantify the financial impact of underutilization, inventory profiles, throughput changes, and manpower requirements to support scalable growth initiatives.
• Creating and presenting weekly and monthly operational finance dashboards that highlight variances in volume, pricing, productivity, manpower, packaging, courier costs, and utilization. Provide clear, data-backed recommendations to drive continuous improvement.
• Supporting pricing, contract renewals, and customer negotiations with robust costing analysis. Ensure that financial insights are integrated into strategic discussions to foster mutually beneficial partnerships and operational excellence.
• Continuously validating and enhancing costing models by comparing assumptions against actual performance. Improve data quality, strengthen internal controls, and automate reporting processes to ensure accuracy and efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators

Your success in this role will be measured through:

• Development and maintenance of **advanced warehouse costing and unit economics models**.
• Comprehensive **customer cost-to-serve reporting** that drives informed decision-making.
• Effective **cost allocation methodologies** that ensure transparency and fairness in expense distribution.
• Sophisticated **warehouse utilization and capacity models** that optimize operational efficiency.
• Data-driven **manpower productivity models** that enhance labor allocation and performance.
• Regular **weekly operational finance dashboards** that highlight key performance trends and variances.
• Monthly **warehouse and customer profitability reporting** that aligns financial performance with strategic goals.
• Accurate **budget vs. actual and productivity variance analysis** to identify cost-saving opportunities and areas for improvement.

Education and Experience

To excel in this role, you will bring:

• A **Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Management Accounting, or a related discipline**, coupled with a **professional qualification such as CMA, CIMA, ACCA, or equivalent**—though not mandatory, these credentials are highly valued.
• Approximately **6-8 years of relevant experience** in cost accounting, management accounting, or a similar finance discipline, with a strong preference for candidates who have worked in **warehousing, logistics, fulfillment, manufacturing, FMCG, or high-volume operational environments**.

Skills and Competencies

Your success will be further amplified by:

• A **deep understanding of activity-based costing, cost allocation, unit economics, and operational productivity measurement**, enabling you to derive meaningful insights from complex financial data.
• **Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel** and **strong financial modeling skills**, with a preference for experience using **Power BI or similar visualization tools** to present data effectively.
• Familiarity with **ERP/WMS systems** and the ability to manage **large operational datasets** with precision and efficiency.
• Exceptional **business partnering skills** and a **collaborative mindset**, allowing you to work seamlessly with warehouse teams and gain a hands-on understanding of operational processes.

If you are a **strategic thinker with a passion for finance and operations**, and you thrive in a fast-paced, data-driven environment, we invite you to apply and contribute to Salasa’s mission of operational excellence and financial clarity.