Junior Accountant (Fresh Food) at Shoprite Group of Companies

Purpose of the Job    

• The purpose of the Junior Accountant (Fresh Food) is to support the sound financial management and practice within Fresh Foods operations by ensuring accurate cost management, identifying variances, and providing insights that optimizes financial performance and contributes significantly to the overall financial health and decision-making processes.
• This role supports various financial activities, from standard cost updates and variance analysis to monthly financial operations, year-end reviews, and budgeting processes.
• This role requires a candidate with strong analytical skills, attention to detail, and the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

Job Objectives    

Financial Precision: RSA & Non-RSA Buying Support

• Efficiently and accurately receive and process emails related to updating standard costs.
• Compare in-store costs with standard costs to identify discrepancies between actual and standard costs.
• Verify if stores/divisions are using the correct ingredients as per recipes to ensure the proper use of ingredients to minimize material usage variances.
• Support the investigation and reporting on Margin Price Variance (MPV) and Material Usage Variance (MUV) shrinkage and overage.
• Check that Alternative Bills of Materials (Alt BOMs) are loaded for new site to ensure that divisions have the correct Alt BOMs for their recipes.
• Support cost related queries by efficiently executing cost loading for new sites and update standard costs for current and new recipes to ensure accurate data.

Timely Reporting:

• Build new and accurate reports to assist operation managers and senior management with decision-making.
• Provide regular update of Gross Profit (GP) Summary and Monday reports as and when required.
• Disseminate weekly Zing Report (Deranged stock) to relevant stakeholders.

Monthly Financial Operations (as and when required):

• Update ChicRite ROI_PNL, incorporating new articles and salary costs, and disseminate the final Profit and Loss (PnL) to the team.
• Provide the monthly update of Convenience PnL, collaborating with teams to ensure accuracy and relevancy.
• Maintain the HR Stat-Keys data set, leveraging Self Analysis and BPC, and generate the HR Productivity Report post month-end.
• Ensure the receipt, signing, and payment of outstanding invoices for fresh departments.
• Prepare JV for the Chicken Sum transfer, addressing anomalies/outliers in the PnL for Quality Assurance and Fresh Foods departments.
• Contribute to the financial slides for Fresh Divisional meetings, providing insights and feedback on outliers.
• Support the process of creating and publishing Fresh Foods Contribution Statements as comprehensive financial books.

Year-End and Budgeting:

• Conduct a meticulous review of the PnL for both departments at year-end, addressing anomalies and supporting audit-related queries.
• Collaborate in the posting of JVs, provision for outstanding invoices, and accurate allocation of expenses.
• Assist in the preparation of the incentive bonus calculation.
• Support the initiation of the budgeting process, starting with Home Office cost centers and updating asset registers.
• Execute the preparation of Capex and Opex budget upload files, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
• Contribute to the budgeting process for Divisional Budgets, working closely with COOs and senior management to finalize the PnL exercise.

Qualifications    

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field – (essential)
• CPA or relevant professional certification is preferred – (essential)

Experience    

Essential:

• 2 years’ experience in financial analysis, cost accounting, and budgeting
• Experience with SAP BPC, Retail

Knowledge and Skills    

• Proficient in Microsoft365 with advanced Excel skills – (essential)

Closing Date    

• 2026/02/06