Inventory Control Manager

The Company

This is an Australian manufacturer that makes what it sells, under GMP, with every batch traceable from raw material to the pallet that leaves the dock. Behind it sits an ASX listed parent, so there is real capital and a real appetite to build properly. The tens of millions of stock sits in the warehouse at any given moment, which means the accuracy of a single transaction is not an administrative detail. It is the financial report.

The business has grown faster than its inventory discipline has, and it would rather build that discipline now than keep finding the gaps at month end. A new ERP lands in weeks, batch tracking is about to widen across every category of stock, and the warehouse team is young, willing and short on technical depth. This Inventory Control Manager role is the first hire brought in to change that.

The Role

Reporting to the Warehouse and Logistics Manager with a dotted line to the Head of Production, the Inventory Control Manager owns the accuracy of every transaction that touches stock. The two people processing those transactions today report to you.

This is a newly created seat, which means there is no procedure to inherit and no standard to defend. You write the standard operating procedures for every transaction type, then you train the team against them. Where an error keeps coming back, you fix the process rather than the transaction.

Four questions decide whether you are right for this. What is the transaction. What does it do to inventory. What does it do to the general ledger. Would it stand up in an audit. If those four feel obvious to you, most of this role already makes sense.

Duties will include, but not be limited to:

• Owning the accurate and timely recording of every warehouse transaction, from goods receipt and put away through picks, transfers, adjustments, cycle counts and dispatch

• Writing practical standard operating procedures for every transaction type, including sales and purchase orders, returns, credit notes, stock adjustments, transfers, write offs and stocktakes

• Managing and coaching the two team members who process transactions today, and training them against the new procedures

• Taking hands on ownership of the higher risk transactions cause most of the damage: supplier returns, landed cost allocation and receipt discrepancies

• Allocating landed costs accurately, including freight, duty, insurance and clearance across international corridors, so unit costs and margins reported to finance are right

• Managing supplier receipts against purchase orders, checking quantity, unit cost and batch data against the documentation before stock is booked in

• Capturing batch and lot numbers, expiry dates and quantities correctly at every transaction point, in line with GMP traceability requirements

• Running a daily and weekly transaction review so issues are caught and corrected in real time rather than surfacing at month end

• Partnering with the accounts team on month end close, reconciling stock on hand to the general ledger and resolving variances

• Performing regular cycle counts and supporting periodic full stocktakes, investigating anything that does not reconcile

• Processing stock adjustments, write offs and disposals with the right approvals, documentation and audit trail

• Acting as the nominated system super user for inventory transactions in the new ERP from go live

About You

You are the kind of Inventory Control Manager who looks at a transaction and sees where it lands in the ledger before anyone asks. You have run inventory in a business where stock value is material and getting it wrong shows up in the accounts, not just the stocktake. You have written procedures before, and you have taught them to people who were doing it a different way the week before. You are comfortable being the most technical person in the room without making that everybody else's problem, and a young team that wants to learn reads as an opportunity to you rather than a burden.

Skills & Experience

• Five to ten years as an Inventory Controller, Inventory Manager or Inventory Control Manager, in a business carrying significant stock value

• Sound understanding of how inventory transactions flow into the finance ledger, including the difference between a return, a credit note and a stock adjustment, and how each should be treated

• Experience in a batch or lot tracked environment, where traceability and expiry dates are controlled rather than optional

• Practical experience allocating landed costs, including international freight and on costs

• A record of writing standard operating procedures and training a team to actually follow them

• Prior experience leading or mentoring a small team, with a coaching style rather than a correcting one

• Experience with a mid market ERP or inventory platform, with NetSuite exposure or experience through an ERP implementation highly regarded

• Understanding of GST and accounts payable treatment for credit notes and adjustments will be well regarded

What's on Offer

• A newly created Inventory Control Manager seat with no standard to inherit, so the process discipline is yours to set

• An ERP go live weeks away, so what you build becomes the system everybody then works to

• Brisbane southside with parking at the door, and a competitive package aligned to the experience you bring

Apply Now

If you are the Inventory Control Manager who would rather set the standard than inherit one, apply today.

Click Apply Now to submit your application or contact Matthew Taylor or Jack Gullo at P&C Partners Brisbane for a confidential discussion.