Commercial Finance Analyst

About Us

Safeguard Europe was founded in 1983 and has developed a reputation for producing quality and innovative products and systems for the protection and renovation of property. Having experienced significant growth, the company has diversified its product ranges around its core manufacturing and technical competencies, entering new categories and markets. Safeguard offers a unique working environment where products and systems are developed, manufactured, and marketed under one roof in an end-to-end process. We encourage an open and collaborative environment, welcoming ideas and contributions from all team members.

About the Role

The Commercial Finance Analyst will play a key role in providing accurate, timely, and insightful analysis of product costs and margins across the business.

Working closely with Finance, Operations, Marketing and Sales teams, the postholder will ensure that product profitability is well understood across all sales channels - including B2B, retail, and eCommerce - to support pricing decisions, strategic planning, stock optimisation, and continuous improvement initiatives.

This role is critical to ensuring accurate cost control, transparent margin reporting, and identifying opportunities to improve profitability and operational efficiency.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Product Costing & Margin Analysis

• Build, maintain, and improve product costing models, ensuring accurate standard and actual cost data (materials, labour, overheads).
• Analyse and report on product and customer profitability across all sales channels (e.g. eCommerce, Merchant, Retail, Distributors).
• Investigate margin variances across all sales channels, incorporating key cost drivers such as storage, logistics, and final-mile delivery charges. Provide root cause analysis and recommend corrective actions.

Commercial Support & Pricing Strategy

• Support new product launches with cost build-ups and pricing input.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing to evaluate promotions, discounts, and channel performance.
• Assist with pricing reviews, and support forecasting with margin and cost trend insights.

Operations & Budget Alignment

• Collaborate with Operations and Supply Chain to review manufacturing variances, material usage, and production efficiency.
• Monitor stock allocation across warehouses (including 3PL sites), tracking sales velocity and inventory turnover to support demand planning and stock optimisation.
• Assist with annual budgeting and standard cost updates aligning with operational plans.

Reporting & Decision Support

• Prepare monthly and quarterly reports and presentations for senior management.
• Provide actionable insight to support strategic decision-making across departments.

Systems & Process Improvements

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of automated data pipelines and reporting tools to enhance cost tracking, data accuracy and ERP integration.

General

• Undertake any other ad-hoc duties as required.

Skills & Experience:

Analytical & Commercial Acumen

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with excellent numerical ability and high attention to detail. Commercially astute, with the ability to translate financial data into actionable insights for a non-financial audience.

Communication & Collaboration

Effective communicator able to influence across all levels. Comfortable presenting findings to internal teams (Finance, Operations, Procurement, Sales, Marketing) and liaising with external stakeholders (suppliers, auditors, eCommerce platforms) to ensure data accuracy and margin transparency.

Systems & Tools

• Advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, lookups, data modelling essential).
• Experience with ERP systems (e.g. Odoo, Sage, Dynamics 365, NetSuite).
• Familiarity with BI tools (e.g. Power BI) and eCommerce analytics platforms (e.g. Amazon Seller Central, Seller board).
• Understanding of cost accounting principles, product costing, and margin analysis.
• Experience with data integrations, APIs, or ETL tools for syncing cost data into ERP systems is desirable.

Ways of Working

Proactive, self-motivated, and adaptable to changing priorities. Comfortable working in a fast-paced, multi-channel environment, managing multiple workstreams to tight deadlines.

Qualifications:

• Part-qualified or actively studying towards CIMA or ACCA (or equivalent experience).
• Previous experience in a manufacturing or product-based environment along with eCommerce (essential).
• Demonstrated track record of analysing cost and margin performance across multiple sales channels (essential).
• Experience in leveraging reporting functions in ERP / MRP systems (desirable).

Experience:

Proven experience in a finance analyst, pricing analyst, or commercial analyst role, ideally within a manufacturing, product-based, or multichannel retail environment.

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