About the Role

The Finance and Business Services (FBS) function is looking to recruit a Finance Systems Analytics and Reporting Manager to support the Open University’s Finance and Business Services team.

The Finance and Business Services team at The Open University is seeking an experienced and dynamic Finance Systems Analytics and Reporting Manager to lead and drive excellence in financial reporting and analytics. This critical role will focus on leveraging strategic reporting systems to support the university’s budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes as the University transitions from BPC to SAP Analytics Cloud.

As the Finance Systems Analytics and Reporting Manager, you will be pivotal in managing SAP analytics tools while fostering collaboration across the institution. Your contributions will directly impact the accuracy, efficiency, and strategic alignment of financial processes within the university.

This is an exciting and dynamic role that is perfect for someone who as a qualified finance professional has a deep understanding of finance and is passionate about leveraging SAP BPC and SAP SAC tools to drive the group budgeting, forecasting and planning process and contribute to the success of a leading educational institution.

Key Responsibilities

• Create and maintain data models that support various reporting requirements and integrate data from multiple sources into SAP Analytics Cloud.
• Develop clear and meaningful data visualizations that facilitate effective analysis and decision-making.
• Apply best practices in data visualization to present data in an understandable and insightful manner.
• Collaborate closely with stakeholders across the university to gather requirements and understand budgeting, forecasting and reporting needs.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including IT, Finance, CDO and other departments, to align reporting and analytics initiatives with organizational objectives.
• Conduct user training and write training documentation
• Be a key member of the FBS committee where changes and enhancements required to the systems are evaluated and prioritized
• Ensure data integrity and quality in the reports by validating and verifying data sources, transformations, and calculations.
• Adhere to data governance standards and guidelines to maintain consistent and accurate reporting.

Skills and Experience

Essential

• Have extensive and hands on knowledge of SAP Reporting systems including BPC (standard),  SAC and SAP BW
• Significant experience in SAP BPC planning and forecasting systems.
• Good understanding of finance to AAT level with hands-on experience of working in finance.
• At least one end to end implementation experience of SAP Analytics Cloud solutions
• Experienced in supporting the development and maintenance of fully integrated BPC budgetary, forecasting and planning models, collaborating with offshore IT support partner to resolve defects.
• Experienced in the design and development of interactive and visually appealing reports using SAP Analytics Cloud, ensuring data accuracy and relevance.

• Ability to carry out data reconciliation activities with ease and accuracy 
• Line management of a Power BI (and potentially other systems) reporting analyst
• Good understanding of Non SAP reporting tools including Power BI to guide and inform the production of visually appealing impactful reports.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team environment.
• Ability to be flexible and work analytically in a problem-solving environment, address user queries and troubleshoot issues related to reports and dashboards.
• Ability to optimize and troubleshoot the performance of Power BI.
• Familiarity with SAP releases and features roadmap.
• Financial analysis skills to gather and interpret requirements from various stakeholders with the ability to bring user requirements to life.

Desirable

• Be a qualified accountant with significant experience in Accounting and Finance domain Familiarity with financial reporting processes and standards.
• A sound technical understanding of Power BI reporting and planning tools best practices.
• Evidence within a higher education context.
• Relevant certifications in SAP BPC, SAC or related areas are advantageous
• Understanding of SAP Finance Products including S4 Hana, Success Factors and Payroll

Essential Requirements

Flexible working: We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

Work location: It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where you can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be at least once per week. 

How to apply:  To apply for this role please submit the following as separate documents;
•    CV 
•    Supporting statement, up to 1000 words, you should set out in your statement why you’re interested in this role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job and person specification.

Early closing date:  We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.