Commercial Finance and Payments Analyst

AJ Media | Commercial Finance

Location: Remote | Engagement: Independent Contractor | Full time

About the role

AJ Media is a fast-growing DTC eCommerce company managing a portfolio of brands across multiple markets. We are looking for a commercially minded analyst with 2–5 years of relevant experience who wants to understand what drives growth, profitability and cash flow, and help the business make better decisions every day.

Working directly with our CFO and partnering with Marketing and Operations, you will investigate performance, challenge assumptions and recommend where we should invest, what we should change and how we can convert more revenue into available cash. Your analysis will connect acquisition spend, customer behaviour, subscription economics and payment performance.

We want someone who asks why, spots patterns and follows an interesting question through to a useful answer. You will be comfortable exploring imperfect data, testing an idea and explaining what the business should do next. Accurate payment reconciliation remains part of your ownership and provides the foundation for sound commercial recommendations.

What you will do

Turn performance data into commercial decisions

• Monitor daily acquisition spend, revenue, return on investment (ROI), return on advertising spend (ROAS), customer acquisition cost (CAC), contribution margin and CAC payback. Investigate what changed, why it changed and what action to take.

• Analyse performance by brand, market, channel and customer cohort to identify where growth creates value and where spend or operational changes could improve returns.

• Build practical models and scenarios to assess spend allocation and growth opportunities; make clear recommendations based on profitability, cash requirements and the strength of the evidence.

• Work with Marketing and Operations to challenge assumptions constructively, prioritise opportunities and evaluate the results of agreed changes.

• Deliver a concise daily performance update covering the most meaningful movements, commercial implications and recommended actions. Improve dashboards so teams can act quickly.

Understand customers and subscription economics

• Monitor purchasing and customer cohort patterns daily, including average order value, purchase frequency, repeat purchases, retention, refunds and chargebacks; distinguish useful signals from normal daily volatility.

• Track customer lifetime value (LTV), LTV-to-CAC and cohort profitability, with clear assumptions and consistent definitions. Update estimates as cohorts mature and new data becomes available.

• For subscription models, analyse recurring revenue, renewals, churn, failed payments and payment recovery. Identify opportunities to improve retention, recover revenue and strengthen customer economics.

Improve payment economics and cash conversion

• Manage merchant account and processor spend or volume caps: monitor daily utilisation, remaining capacity and reset dates, forecast headroom and flag constraints before they interrupt sales.

• Compare processors on total effective cost, approval rates, settlement speed, reserve requirements, payout reliability and chargeback exposure.

• Advise on directing payment traffic and revenue towards lower-cost merchants and processors that convert sales into available cash more effectively, balancing checkout conversion, capacity and concentration risk within approved limits and contractual requirements.

• Coordinate approved routing changes with Operations, measure their impact and recommend further improvements. Maintain a daily view of expected settlements, reserve releases and cash at risk.

Own payment visibility and reconciliation

• Own end-to-end reconciliation across all payment processors, including private and higher-risk processors with rolling or fixed reserves. Reconcile transactions, fees, refunds, chargebacks, settlements and bank deposits against internal records.

• Investigate discrepancies, unusual payment patterns, payout delays and unexpected holds; trace root causes, resolve issues and escalate material exposures with supporting evidence.

• Track reserve balances, release schedules, outstanding processor balances and ageing receivables. Keep Finance and Operations aligned on accurate transaction reporting and provide reconciliation reports on schedule.

• Improve reconciliation workflows and controls as volumes grow, reducing manual work while preserving accuracy and traceability.

How you approach the work

• Curious and investigative: you ask questions beyond the initial brief, look for connections and keep digging until you understand the commercial driver.

• Commercially minded: you connect the numbers to customer behaviour, profit and cash, then explain what decision they support.

• Proactive and practical: you surface opportunities early, suggest a next step and follow through to see whether it worked.

• Comfortable with ambiguity: you work with incomplete data, state your assumptions and use judgement without overstating certainty.

• Collaborative and willing to challenge: you build relationships, ask constructive questions and communicate clearly with people outside Finance.

• Accountable and detail-conscious: you take ownership of reliable analysis and payment records in a fully remote, async-first environment.

What you bring

• 2–5 years of relevant experience in commercial finance, business analysis, financial analysis, payments analytics or a similarly analytical role, with examples of insights that influenced a business decision.

• A solid understanding of eCommerce economics, including acquisition spend, ROI, ROAS, CAC, LTV, contribution margin, retention and cohort analysis. Direct eCommerce employment is preferred rather than essential.

• Hands-on payment processing and reconciliation experience, with an understanding of settlement cycles, processing fees, rolling and fixed reserves, refunds and chargebacks.

• Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills for modelling and analysis, confidence working with transaction and customer datasets, and enough accounting knowledge to reconcile sales, settlements and bank receipts accurately.

Experience that would help you stand out

• DTC or subscription eCommerce experience, particularly analysing customer cohorts, retention and acquisition economics.

• Private or higher-risk payment processing experience involving reserves and complex settlements; merchant cap management, routing analysis, disputes or multi-currency reconciliation.

• Forensic accounting, investigative analysis or transaction investigation experience, with an ability to turn findings into commercial action.

• Familiarity with Shopify, CheckoutChamp or similar platforms; dashboard tools, SQL or accounting software.

Why join us

• Work directly with our CFO and help shape commercial decisions across three growing consumer brands, with more launches planned.

• Join a remote-first, results-focused team where performance is measured by outcomes.

• Paid leave, HMO and allowances.