The Financial Analyst & Inventory Demand Planner plays a critical role in managing the company’s purchasing operations, maintaining accurate inventory records, and ensuring new items are correctly set up in the inventory and ERP system. This role also supports the finance team by performing essential financial analysis, including budget-to-actual variance analysis, cash forecasting, commissions reporting, and other financial tasks. The ideal candidate will have strong analytical skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work with large sets of data to assist in driving key business decisions. This role is critical in ensuring that the organization meets its financial objectives through sound financial reporting and analysis. This position handles multiple responsibilities such as sourcing, purchasing, inventory management, In-house customer service and collaboration to ensure that all new products are properly configured for sales and distribution.
Responsibilities
Inventory Planning and Management:
- Vendor Management:Identify and maintain relationships with suppliers and manage vendor issues.
- Procurement:Source products and services in line with company needs and budget constraints, ensuring quality and timely delivery.
- Purchase Order Creation:Create and issue purchase orders based on inventory needs, sales forecasts, and production schedules.
- Order Tracking:Monitor and track the status of purchase orders to ensure timely delivery and resolve any supply chain issues.
- Demand Planning:Ensure timely replenishment of inventory by reviewing sales trends and coordinating with sales and production teams to determine materials requisitions. Optimize stock levels to minimize costs.
- SKU Management:Maintenance of ISBNs, Labels, and barcoding. Setting up and discontinuing new SKUs in systems (ERP, Quoting), including product descriptions, SKUs, pricing, accounts, classifications, weights, dimensions, and supplier details.
Financial Analysis & Reporting:
- Analyze Financial Performance: Compare actual financial results to the budget and provide detailed variance analysis, explaining key drivers behind variances in revenue, expenses, and margins. Collaborate with departments.
- Monthly and Quarterly Financial Reporting: Assists with the preparation of financial reports, including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for management review.
- Cash flow Management: Assist in creating short-term and long-term cash flow forecasts to ensure liquidity and help the organization manage its working capital effectively.
- Ad-Hoc Analysis: Provide ad-hoc financial analysis as required by the finance team or other departments to support business decision-making.
- Financial Modeling: Develop and maintain simple financial models to support forecasting, budgeting, and scenario planning.
- Trend Analysis: Analyze financial trends and key metrics, identifying areas for cost savings, revenue growth, or improved financial performance.
Sales Analysis, Reporting and Support:
- Sales Commission Calculations: Prepare and analyze commission reports based on sales performance, ensuring that commissions are calculated accurately and paid in a timely manner.
- Custom Quote Creation: Develop tailored pricing quotes for internal customers based on the requirements of their customers and company custom pricing and discount guidelines.
- Approval of Quotes: Review and approve pricing quotes created by other team members or junior staff, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and profitability.
- Sales Reporting: Prepare the Great Minds opportunity pipeline for Really Great Reading’s CRM and other sales reporting as needed.
General Support:
- Audit Support: Provide necessary financial data and documentation during internal or external audits.
- Process Improvement: Assist in identifying opportunities to improve financial processes, systems, and reporting accuracy.
- Integrated Systems Data Hygiene: Ensure consistency, and reliability of customer data across multiple integrated systems. This role focuses on maintaining data integrity of customer records within enterprise systems (such as CRM, ERP, and other databases) through regular audits and data cleansing. Collaborating with multiple departments to ensure data is entered, stored, and utilized properly across all systems.
- Credit Cards: Sets up corporate credit cards for eligible employees.
This is a non-exhaustive list of role responsibilities. Additional duties may be required from time to time to support the business.
Qualifications & Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, Business, Logistics, or a related field preferred.
- At least 2 years of experience in purchasing, inventory management, or item setup, preferably in a manufacturing, distribution, or retail environment.
- Excellent organizational and multitasking skills with a high level of attention to details while keeping an eye on the bigger financial picture.
- Strong communication