Commercial Costing Accountant

Umhlanga Support Office

Purpose of the Role:

• To provide the Group and the Business Development Department with commercial support and insight for strategic decision-making regarding potential profitability through the commercial structuring and preparation of new business tenders and proposals.  

• To collaborate with IFS Group departments to implement their identified margin unlocking cost improvements and cost reduction opportunities for enhanced contract profitability in the process of preparing commercially structured new business tenders and proposals.

Key Responsibilities:

• Contract Pricing and Re-Pricing Support

  • Collaborate with all internal departments and external resources to extract an up-to-date database of internal group and sector metrics and provide accurate industry cost information for new contract price negotiations.

  • Analyse the comparative costs of current contracts and the achievement of contract profitability objectives and evaluate the pricing and costing of contracts against the initial tender pricing to identify and define the variances in preparation of new tenders and proposals.

  • Provide insight and interpret the impact of key cost drivers including procurement, production and distribution costs on profitability to assist with the annual budgeting and forecasting processes.

• New Business/ Tender Costing

  • Assume overall responsibility of the project management lead with other internal departments for the development of a digitised costing model to be used for each contract costing and tender proposal. The digitised costing model should align to Group’s existing financial reporting and forecasting principles, operational costing methodologies, HR costing methodologies, digital solutions and digital strategies. The role requires strong financial and digital acumen, strong project management skills and to work closely with the finance team in this regard on an ongoing basis.

  • Conduct regular facilities service costing reviews and provide management information to the Business Development Executive on:
    – indicative man-day rates
    – market positioning
    – key costing risks
    – margin improvement opportunities

  • Establish, develop and maintain relationships with in-Company departments and staff in order to gather key information relating to a particular sector or a particular cost driver, which will be useful in the price formulation.

  • Lead inter-departmental pre and post tender meetings where they relate to costing with a particular focus on recording learnings for future application..

• Commercial Insight and Technical Expertise

  • Provide calculations, detailed analysis and associated recommendations to enhance costing efficiencies in current contracts and new business.

  • Provide costing expertise and guidance in team meetings and to internal clients and colleagues as requested.

  • Position self as the subject matter expert and shared knowledge as appropriate..

• Effective Teamwork and Self-Management

  • Take ownership and accountability for tasks and activities and demonstrate effective self-management in terms of planning and prioritising and self-development.

  • Follow through to ensure that quality and productivity standards of work are consistently and accurately maintained.

  • Inform relevant parties in the event of tasks or deadlines not met, the potential risks thereof and provide appropriate resolution.

  • Manage colleagues expectations and communicate appropriately.

  • Demonstrate willingness to help others and ‘go the extra mile’ to meet team targets and objectives.

Qualification and Experience:

• CA (SA)

• Advantageous: At least 5 years’ experience in commercial costing, proposal development in a project environment for full facilities management or hospitality industry.

• Marketing principles and methodologies

• Contract pricing strategies

• Contract costing principles, practices and performance indicators

• Facilities services economics

• Financial reporting

• Financial modelling

• Automation

• An understanding of multiple key performance indicators, inter-relationship and bottom-line sensitivity

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