{"id":703682,"url":"https://alion.io/job/takealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation","title":"Financial Accountant - Inventory & Stock Optimisation","company":{"id":57341,"name":"Takealot","domain":"takealot.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/takealot","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":82,"open_postings":28,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.714,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":50,"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"}},"role":"Finance","role_family":"Finance","seniority":"middle","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cape Town, South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Google Sheets","optional":false},{"name":"Looker","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Excel","optional":false},{"name":"Power BI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Tableau","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-24T05:48:51Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-26","last_verified_at":"2026-11-05T18:57:44Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":73,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":72},"description":"takealot.com, a leading South African online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Financial Accountant - Inventory & Stock Optimisation to join our Head Office in Cape Town.\nWe are a young, dynamic, hyper-growth company looking for smart, creative, hardworking people with integrity to join us. We offer a market-related, Total Remuneration Package which allows full flexibility according to your needs, a great work environment and a promise that you won’t be bored as long as you are prepared for a challenge and want to build something great.\nThis position reports to: Head of Finance: General \nPurpose of the role: \nThe Finance Lead: Inventory and Stock Optimisation is responsible for the full financial ownership of inventory across Takealot's 1P and 3P businesses. This includes maintaining accurate stock valuations and reconciled positions, managing system integrations into the accounting environment, driving automation and process overhauls, and acting as the primary Finance business partner to the commercial heads of Retail and Marketplace. The role requires an equal balance of deep technical accounting rigour and commercial, AI-driven strategic thinking.\nKey Responsibilities: \nInventory Financial Management\nFull financial ownership of inventory across 1P (retail-owned stock) and 3P (marketplace and consignment stock positioning)\nMaintain accurate, timely, and reconciled stock positions across all warehouses, fulfilment centres, and in-transit nodes\nManage and report on stock cost - including landed cost, cost of sales, provisions, and write-downs\nOwn the month-end inventory close process: ensure completeness, accuracy, and speed of reporting with zero tolerance for late or incorrect numbers\nEnsure correct accounting treatment of all inventory movements and associated costs in line with IFRS, with specific application of IAS 2 (Inventories)\nMaintain and continuously improve internal controls over the full inventory cycle\nWACP Management and Valuation\nManage, maintain, and update Weighted Average Cost Price (WACP) calculations to ensure inventory is accurately valued at all times\nOwn the WACP automation project end-to-end: design, development, testing, and implementation of automated WACP calculation processes\nInvestigate and resolve WACP discrepancies and ensure alignment between operational stock systems and the accounting ledger\nMaintain fully documented WACP calculation models with audit-ready supporting workings\nOwn fully landed cost prices and associated costs related to imported goods\nSystem Integrations and Reconciliations\nManage and oversee the stock integration between operational systems and the accounting system, ensuring accurate and timely posting of all stock transactions\nInvestigate and resolve failed or erroneous stock integrations - identify root causes and implement corrective measures to prevent recurrence\nWork with IT, Data, and Operations teams to improve data quality and system integration architecture across all inventory touchpoints\nBuild and maintain automated reconciliation frameworks that flag exceptions in real time, without reliance on a fully integrated ERP\nStock Loss and Shrinkage\nIdentify, quantify, and investigate stock losses across the fulfilment network\nBuild robust loss-attribution frameworks - distinguish between theft, damage, system error, and process failure\nPerform and review shrinkage and obsolescence provision calculations; ensure all provisions are adequately supported, documented, and correctly recorded\nPartner with Operations and Logistics to drive root cause resolution and financial recovery\nTrack shrinkage trends and surface financial risk to leadership before it becomes a P&L problem\n1P and 3P Stock Positioning\nSupport Retail and Marketplace teams with the financial implications of stock positioning decisions - open-to-buy, liquidation, aged inventory, and excess stock\nProvide financial modelling and scenario analysis to guide stock optimisation trade-offs: holding cost vs. markdown risk vs. stockout cost\nMonitor and report on slow-moving, aged, and excess inventory - drive commercial conversations with Buyers and Category Managers\nSupport budgeting and forecasting processes with robust inventory assumptions and cost modelling\nCost Management\nTrack and analyse all inventory-related costs: storage fees, inbound logistics, fulfilment costs allocated to inventory, write-offs, and provisions\nChallenge cost structures and identify savings opportunities\nEnsure correct IFRS treatment of all inventory-related costs and movements\nReporting and Analytics\nDesign and own the inventory finance reporting suite - dashboards, KPI scorecards, exception reports, and executive-level summaries\nBuild reporting infrastructure that works in the absence of a fully integrated ERP - using data pipelines and BI tools to connect fragmented data sources into coherent financial views\nProvide weekly, monthly, and ad hoc stock reporting to the Head of Finance, CFO, and Commercial leadership\nDevelop and maintain comprehensive inventory health reporting: stock levels, movement, ageing, and risk - providing management with actionable insight, not just numbers\nAudit and Compliance\nLead and manage the year-end stock count process: planning, coordination with operational teams, counting supervision, and full reconciliation of count results to accounting records\nManage and respond to external and internal audit queries related to inventory - maintain audit-ready working papers and supporting documentation at all times\nEnsure all inventory accounting policies and procedures are compliant and consistently applied\nOwn the inventory controls environment; design and enforce policies that prevent loss, misstatement, and system error\nProcess Overhaul and Automation\nConduct a full audit of existing inventory finance processes - identify manual, duplicated, or high-risk steps\nDesign and implement automated replacements: reconciliation bots, automated exception alerts, scheduled reporting pipelines, AI-assisted anomaly detection\nChampion a culture of continuous improvement - no manual process should survive if it can be automated\nLead automation projects within the finance context from design through to implementation and handover\nAccurate and timely stock integration reconciliations between operational and accounting systems - delivered on schedule, every month\nFully documented and automated WACP calculation model\nIAS 2-compliant inventory accounting policies and procedures\nMonthly and year-end inventory financial reports submitted within agreed deadlines\nCompleted and fully reconciled stock count files\nAudit-ready working papers and responses to all audit queries\nAutomated month-end inventory reporting packs\nSupported and documented shrinkage and obsolescence provision calculations\nLive inventory health dashboards and KPI scorecards for management and CFO\nMinimum Required Qualification\nBachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field\nStrong working knowledge of inventory management at scale-essential\nCA(SA) or CIMA advantageous \nMinimum Required Experience\n 4 to 7 years' experience in e-commerce, retail, FMCG, or a data-intensive commercial environment\nDemonstrable experience in inventory accounting, cost accounting, or supply chain finance\nHands-on experience with stock and ERP system integrations and reconciliations\nProven track record of working in environments without fully integrated ERP systems - you know how to build financial rigour from imperfect data\nExperience designing or managing automation projects within a finance context\nExperience as a Finance business partner to commercial or operational teams\nMinimum Required Competencies\nAI-driven and automation-obsessed - you automate first and ask questions later\nMoves fast without breaking things - you value speed AND accuracy\nComfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure where none exists\nStrong bias for action - you don't wait for a perfect system before improving the current one\nDeadline-driven and results-oriented; high personal accountability\nExcellent communicator - able to hold a room with Buyers, challenge a Head of Marketplace, and present to the CFO\nDetail-obsessed but strategically aware - you see the tree and the forest\nProactive in identifying process improvements and driving them through to completion\nSkills, Knowledge & Abilities\nTechnical Skills \nAdvanced data analytics: SQL, Python (highly advantageous), Power BI / Looker / Tableau\nExperience building or working with data pipelines, API integrations, or automated reporting tools\nFamiliarity with AI tools and their application in finance workflows: AI-assisted forecasting, anomaly detection, process automation\nStrong Excel and Google Sheets modelling skills - but viewed as a last resort, not a default\nUnderstanding of ERP and WMS integrations and data architecture is a strong advantage\nCommercial and Financial Acumen\nSolid understanding of inventory management principles\nUnderstanding of both 1P (owned inventory) and 3P (marketplace and consignment) business models and their distinct financial dynamics\nAbility to translate financial data into commercial insight and communicate it clearly to non-finance stakeholders\nProject management skills - particularly for automation and process improvement initiatives\nThe Environment: \ntakealot.com employees are entrepreneurial and dynamic, smart, customer- centric, fun and have the shared ambition of takealot.com being the leading e- commerce company in Africa. \nWe have fun, work hard, take ownership, work in teams to create solutions, and are always open to direct feedback/new ideas on where we can improve. \nWe are short on ego and high on output. \nWe are doers and not only thinkers, its all in the execution after all. \nWe love what we do and what we are creating.\nWe seek to employ an Extra Ordinary Mind who is Smart, has Integrity, and is Hardworking.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9934,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":4,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms","Marketplaces"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T03:26:25Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-09-28T15:21:15Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-26T07:56:26Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":22,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.494,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":73,"expected_fill_days":50,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/takealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/takealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T19:06:03Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":25622,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":57341},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=57341"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ftakealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ftakealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ftakealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/takealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ftakealot-finance-lead-inventory-stock-optimisation"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":703682}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"takealot.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":703682},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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