Finance Business Partner

Role: Finance Business Partner

Location: Melbourne (hybrid)

Role Type: Permanent Full Time

Role ID:

Salary: $100,000 - $120,000+ Superannuation

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world.

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Role Summary

This role is responsible for providing data and insight for the timely and accurate delivery of financial and operating reporting.  This role supports the business through preparation of data to inform key insights for business performance management, forecasting processes, and cost control, enabling effective decision making across the organisation.

This role is also responsible for the accuracy of project and regional financials, delivering forward-looking insights and supporting the business in making data-driven decisions.  Reporting to the Senior Finance Business Partner this role partners closely with project managers and relevant senior stakeholders to ensure forecasts are robust, revenue is accurately recognised, and opportunities and risks are identified and actively managed.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the development, enhancement and ongoing maintenance of the reporting suite to ensure accuracy, consistency, and alignment with business needs.
• Prepare the monthly performance pack, ensuring timeliness and clarity of insights for senior stakeholders.
• Coordinate the forecast process, including development of models, timeline management, and consolidation of entity inputs.
• Support the annual budgeting process, ensuring clear communication of timelines and deliverables.
• Prepare and maintain the regional orderbook and pipeline phasing reports, supporting forward visibility of revenue and resource planning.
• Analyse and effectively communicate material variances, unusual transactions, or misclassifications, identifying recommendations for corrective actions where required.
• Support the Senior Finance Business Partner and senior leaders with ad hoc reporting and analysis, tailored to evolving business priorities.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, including automation of manual processes and enhancements of reporting tools and templates.
• Provide commercial support for tenders and contracts.
• Support the results analysis process, ensuring timely delivery in line with the monthly timetable, and support follow up on risks, opportunities, and agreed actions.
• Support the Senior Finance Business Partner and the Financial Controller on the preparation of statutory reporting and audit deliverables, including timely and accurate completion of the Stat Pack.
• Support working capital management through review of invoicing, WIP, and debtor provisions, and by partnering with operational teams to drive timely cash conversion
• Assist in the month end process to ensure that revenue is captured in accordance with accounting principles.

Key Attributes

• Analytical, organized, and detail oriented with a strong sense of ownership.
• Proven ability to steer non-finance stakeholders toward commercially sound outcomes.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate financial data into actionable insights.
• Continuous improvement mindset with a focus on streamlining processes and reporting outputs.
• Ability to develop strong relationships and work effectively with senior stakeholders.

Key Competencies and Experience

Bachelor of Accounting, Business or equivalent

• 3+ years' experience in a Finance Business Partner, Finance Analyst or similar role.
• Advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills.
• Proven experience in preparing management information.
• Certification in data analytics or Power BI would be advantageous.

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

Work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core of our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. Please let our Recruitment team know if you require any reasonable adjustments to support your engagement with the application process.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.