Management Accountant

We’re a Bristol-born hospitality business that’s growing quickly, and we want our Finance function to keep moving just as fast. We’re looking for a Management Accountant who takes ownership, gets stuck into the detail and naturally looks for a better way of doing things. You’ll get underneath our gross profit reporting, take responsibility for key parts of the period-end process across our 300+ site estate and influence how we produce our numbers so that insights and forecasts reach the business faster and more accurately than they do today.

We’re actively thinking about how our systems, data and reporting need to evolve for the next stage of Loungers’ growth. For the right person, this role offers the opportunity to take a leading role in that finance transformation and help shape the way the team works in the future. This is a role for someone who enjoys both doing and improving. Someone who is comfortable getting into the detail today, but ambitious about making that detail easier, faster and better tomorrow.

This is a hybrid role based in our HQ in Central Bristol 2-3 days a week and working from home 1 or 2 days a week.

Getting into the detail

Period-end ownership and reporting

• Lead gross profit reporting across our 300+ site estate, building a strong understanding of what really drives food and drink performance.
• Take ownership of key areas of the period-end close from start to finish, making sure the numbers are accurate, complete and delivered on time, and with the story behind the numbers ready to tell.
• Prepare and post journals, accruals and other period-end adjustments, supported by clear and robust working papers.
• Produce and maintain balance sheet reconciliations, investigate reconciling items and drive them through to resolution rather than simply carrying them forward.

Insight, analysis and decision support

• Turn financial analysis into something useful. Explain what happened, why it happened, why it matters and what we should do about it to both finance and non-finance audiences.
• Analyse performance, variances and high-value spend, spotting patterns, risks and opportunities.
• Lead budgets and forecasts for your areas, constructively challenging assumptions and helping to improve forecast accuracy.
• Use data to ask better questions and support better operational decisions.

Business partnering and stakeholder engagement

• Build strong relationships with stakeholders across Operations and HQ, helping them understand their numbers, control their costs and identify practical opportunities for savings and efficiencies.
• Communicate financial information simply and confidently, and take ownership of queries and issues.
• Build and improve reports and dashboards that give stakeholders the right information in a clear and accessible format.

Systems, data and process improvement

We don’t want someone who accepts ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ as the end of the conversation.

• Look for opportunities to remove unnecessary manual work, automate repeatable tasks and make our processes more efficient and robust.
• Challenge spreadsheets, reports and processes and find practical ways to simplify them.
• Help shorten the gap between something happening in one of our sites and the business having the information it needs to act on it.
• Make better use of Excel, Power BI and our wider finance systems to improve how information is produced, controlled and shared.
• Play a meaningful role in the wider transformation of our Finance function, helping us rethink processes, systems, data and reporting for the next stage of Loungers’ growth.

Team contribution and audit support

• Support the annual audit and other Finance requirements as needed.
• Share what you know with the wider team and help others develop.
• Help us continually raise the bar on the service Finance provides to the rest of the business.

Where could this take you?

We're a growing business and you'll join a team that's actively rethinking how it works, with the support to test ideas, learn quickly and challenge the status quo rather than work around it.

• Ownership of defined systems, automation and process-improvement workstreams from day one
• Regular exposure to senior finance and operational stakeholders, including opportunities to present your insight and be challenged on it.
• Scope to coach and develop others in the team as you build your leadership experience.
• A clear route towards broader group management accounts and commercial finance responsibility as we keep growing.

What you’ll bring

• A qualified accountant — ACA, ACCA or CIMA — with solid post-qualified experience in management accounts, reporting and forecasting.
• Strong technical accounting knowledge, with the judgement to apply standards sensibly and explain their impact clearly.
• Experience working in environments where accuracy, pace and ownership matter, with the confidence to take responsibility for your areas from the detailed workings through to the final story behind the numbers.
• A genuinely data-driven mindset, demonstrated through your ability to get underneath large volumes of data, spot patterns others may have missed and recognise when the answer doesn’t look quite right.
• Hands-on experience with advanced Excel, Power BI or similar reporting tools, using them to improve how finance information is produced, shared and understood.
• Real enthusiasm for automation, finance systems and better ways of working — with a track record of building sustainable solutions rather than repeating the same workaround every period.
• A strong record of improving processes, redesigning reports, introducing automation and helping accelerate reporting timetables.
• Comfort getting into the detail, combined with an uncompromising approach to accuracy and a natural curiosity about how things could work better.
• Confident communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively with non-finance stakeholders and explain the numbers clearly, without unnecessary jargon.
• A proactive, organised approach, with experience of balancing deadlines while maintaining accuracy and attention to detail.
• Experience in multi-site hospitality, retail or leisure, and with Access Dimensions, would be helpful but not essential — curiosity, drive and a track record of making things better matter more.

What’s in it for you?

• 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays)
• A culture that appreciates ideas and celebrates individuality
• Founder-led business - we might have c300 sites, but we still maintain an entrepreneurial spirit through everything we do
• 50% off food at all Lounges, Cosy Clubs and Brightsides
• Up to 10% bonus
• Pension contribution
• 24/7 mental health support
• Amazing events including LoungeFest – our annual company festival - Christmas parties and more
• We value people who work hard, treat others well and enjoy being part of a team. If that sounds like you, we’d love you to join us on the next stage of the Loungers journey.

About us

Loungers is a substantial and growing operator in the UK hospitality sector, operating over 300 sites in England and Wales across three distinct but complementary brands, Lounges, Cosy Club, and Brightside. Founded in 2002 by three friends who wanted to create a neighbourhood café-bar that they would want to go to, the Group is now the only growing all-day operator of scale in the UK and has consistently outperformed the wider UK hospitality sector over the past three years. Despite being the fastest growing café/restaurant group in the Country, Loungers has retained its entrepreneurial spirit and quirky ‘Loungey’ local community atmosphere.