Finance Business Partner

About Balio

Balio is a permanent-capital software group that acquires and operates a portfolio of B2B SaaS

companies across the US, UK and UAE. Group Finance runs a single-source financial record for the

whole portfolio — consolidated in USD, closed monthly — and partners closely with the General

Managers and operational teams who run each portfolio company. Day-to-day bookkeeping is

handled by a dedicated offshore support-accounting team, freeing this role to focus on planning,

analysis, technical accounting and business partnering. It's a fast-moving, acquisitive environment

where finance owns outcomes end to end.

Purpose of the role

Act as the finance partner to a cluster of portfolio companies — supporting their operational teams, owning their forecasts, budgets and FP&A, and standing behind the integrity and timeliness of their numbers. The transactional bookkeeping is done by the offshore support accountants; your job is to turn those books into insight, plans and decisions, resolve the technical accounting, and keep the whole cycle running efficiently.

Key responsibilities

• Business partnering — support the operational teams and General Managers of your portfolio companies, translating financial performance into clear, actionable insight and challenge.
• Forecasting & budgeting — own the budgets and rolling forecasts for your entities: build them, keep them current and hold the business to them.
• FP&A & reporting — produce and maintain FP&A dashboards and management reporting that give operators and leadership a live view of performance.
• Month-end close oversight — ensure the books close accurately and on time each month, reviewing and directing the work of the offshore support accountants rather than performing the bookkeeping yourself.
• Technical accounting — own and resolve technical accounting matters (IFRS treatment, revenue recognition, judgmental areas) across your entities.
• AR & AP — track and control receivables and payables, keeping working capital clean and issues surfaced early.
• Cash flow — track and forecast cash flow for your entities and feed the group cash position.
• Efficiency & controls — ensure the finance process for your cluster runs at maximum efficiency, with sound controls and continuous improvement of ways of working.

What success looks like in the first 6 months

• Every entity in your cluster closes accurately and on time, with the offshore team working smoothly to your direction.
• Budgets and rolling forecasts are live, trusted and used by operators to make decisions.
• FP&A dashboards give leadership a real-time view of portfolio performance, and technical accounting issues are resolved cleanly at source.

Requirements

• Professional accounting qualification (ACA / ACCA / CIMA / CPA or equivalent) — mandatory.
• 6+ years relevant experience.
• Strong working knowledge of IFRS.
• Experience with ERP or other finance-tool implementations.
• Proven forecasting, budgeting and FP&A capability, including building management dashboards.
• Strong technical accounting judgement and comfort owning close, AR/AP and cash flow.
• Self-directed and effective in a lean, fast-paced, acquisitive environment; able to direct offshore support and partner with non-finance operators.
• Clear written and verbal communicator.

Preferred / desirable

• UK tax experience preferred.
• SaaS / technology-sector finance experience preferred, including familiarity with SaaS metrics
• (ARR, NDR/GDR, MRR).
• QuickBooks and Xero experience advantageous.
• Exposure to group consolidation, multi-entity and multi-currency finance.
• Experience onboarding or integrating an acquired business into a group.
• Experience in a private-equity, holding-group or portfolio environment.
• UAE / DIFC or international group experience.

Team & working context

You'll be one of a small group of portfolio-facing finance business partners reporting to the Financial Controller, supported by an offshore support-accounting team that handles transactional bookkeeping. The role is high-ownership and analytical: someone who wants to partner the business, own the plan and direct the numbers across several companies will thrive; someone who wants to do the bookkeeping themselves will not.