Senior Operational Finance Manager – 6 Month Fixed Term Contract

Job description

**About us** At Trainline, our purpose is to [empower greener travel choices, connecting people and places.](https://www.thetrainline.com/terms/sustainability-faqs) Trainline enables millions of travellers to find and book the best value tickets across carriers, fares, and journey options through our highly rated mobile app, website, and B2B partner channels. **Great journeys start with Trainline 🚄** We’re Europe’s leading independent rail platform, helping millions of travellers find and book the best-value rail and coach journeys across our app, website and partner channels. Our job is to make the green travel choice the best choice. By building a better train travel experience, we help more people choose rail - creating a positive impact for customers, our business and the planet. We’re a team of more than 1,000 Trainliners from over 50 nationalities, working across London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Edinburgh and Madrid. Now is a brilliant time to join us and help shape the future of travel. **Introducing the Trainline Finance Team 👋** At Trainline, our Finance team is the backbone of how we manage, govern, and grow the business responsibly. From transactional processing to financial controls and systems ownership, the team works across a broad range of disciplines to ensure Trainline operates with accuracy, integrity, and commercial rigour. This is a pivotal interim appointment within our operational finance function, sitting within a high-performing team and reporting directly to the Group Financial Controller. As Interim Senior Operational Finance Manager, you will lead the teams responsible for Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Finance Systems, and our Cashbook function, driving operational excellence and embedding a continuous improvement mindset across the function. You will work closely with Finance leadership and Technology colleagues to strengthen controls, streamline processes, and maintain delivery momentum throughout a six-month fixed-term engagement, with a clear and structured handover at its close. **In this role as the Interim Senior Operational Finance Manager, you will...🚄** - Lead and develop a multi-disciplinary operational finance team across Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Finance Systems, and Cashbook, setting clear objectives, managing team capacity, and actively supporting the professional growth of every team member. - Own the day-to-day management of the AP and AR functions, ensuring invoices, payments, collections, and reconciliations are processed accurately, on time, and in line with strong governance and compliance standards. - Drive working capital performance by monitoring AP and AR KPIs, proactively managing aged debt and debtor days, and delivering regular reporting and insight to the Group Financial Controller. - Oversee bank and cash reconciliation across all entities and currencies, maintaining robust controls over cash processes including payment authorisation, segregation of duties, and reconciliation review. - Act as business owner for Trainline's core finance systems, ensuring platforms are scalable, secure, and well-governed, and that teams are empowered to use them effectively through training and change management. - Own the operational finance contribution to month-end close, ensuring ledgers are closed accurately and on time, and serve as a key point of contact throughout internal and external audit processes. - Identify and deliver process improvements with a focus on automation, efficiency, and scalability, coordinating with the Senior Finance Manager - Transformation to ensure changes are aligned with the broader Finance transformation roadmap. - Build trusted relationships across Finance, Technology, and the wider business, acting as the senior point of contact for operational finance and managing SLAs with internal stakeholders. **We'd love to hear from you if you have...🔍** - Substantial experience managing operational finance functions, ideally spanning Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and finance systems in a fast-paced commercial environment. - A strong track record of leading and developing high-performing finance teams, with the ability to set direction, manage performance, and support the professional growth of team members. - Solid expertise across AP/AR processes, credit control, working capital management, and financial controls, with a high standard of attention to detail and data governance. - Experience working within an ERP environment, ideally Microsoft Dynamics 365 or a comparable platform, with a confident grasp of transactional finance processes end-to-end. - A process improvement mindset, with demonstrated success delivering automation and efficiency gains across operational finance functions. - Strong communication skills and the ability to build effective working relationships with stakeholders across Finance, Technology, and senior business leadership. - Confidence managing SLAs and service expectations with internal stakeholders, alongside the resilience to operate effectively in a fast-paced and evolving environment. - Availability at short notice and comfort operating in an interim capacity, with the drive to take ownership quickly, deliver impact within a defined timeframe, and lead a clear and structured handover. **More information:** Enjoy fantastic perks like private healthcare & dental insurance, a generous work from abroad policy, 2-for-1 share purchase plans, an EV Scheme to further reduce carbon emissions, extra festive time off, and excellent family-friendly benefits. We prioritise career growth with clear career paths, transparent pay bands, personal learning budgets, and regular learning days. Jump on board and supercharge your career from day one! We're operating a hybrid model and ask that Trainliners work from the office a minimum of 60% of their time over a 12-week period. We also have a 28-day Work from Abroad policy. Our values represent the things that matter most to us and what we live and breathe everyday, in everything we do: - 💭 **Think Big** - We're building the future of rail - ✔️ **Own It** - We focus on every customer, partner and journey - 🤝 **Travel Together** - We're one team - ♻️ **Do Good** - We make a positive impact We know that having a diverse team makes us better and helps us succeed. And we mean all forms of diversity - gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, nationality and diversity of thought. That's why we're committed to creating inclusive places to work, where everyone belongs and differences are valued and celebrated. Interested in finding out more about what it's like to work at Trainline? Why not check us out on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/trainline/), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/lifeattrainline/) and [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Overview/Working-at-Trainline-EI_IE249203.11,20.htm)!