The Internal Control Manager safeguards the integrity of Spinneys Egypt's financial records and control environment across head office, branches, and the distribution center. The role owns balance sheet reconciliation oversight and the design, documentation, and monitoring of finance policies, processes, and internal controls, with a specific mandate over the retail control environment — store cash and POS, goods receiving, inventory count governance, waste and markdown, and supplier income. The role operates as a second-line management control function, working closely with but distinct from the Accounting Manager (transactional accounting and reporting), the Treasury Manager (cash, banking, and funding), Inventory Control (stock accuracy and physical counts), and Internal Audit (independent assurance).
RESPONSIBILITIES- Own the end-to-end balance sheet reconciliation process for all General Ledger accounts on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.
- Review and formally sign off reconciliations prepared by the accounting team, ensuring supporting documentation is complete, accurate, and filed within the close calendar.
- Identify, investigate, and drive resolution of reconciling items, discrepancies, and long-outstanding balances with the relevant departments.
- Maintain a reconciliation tracker and ageing schedule for all balance sheet accounts, and escalate unresolved items to the CFO.
- Ensure all reconciliations comply with company accounting policy and applicable accounting standards (EAS / IFRS).
- Act as the key finance contact for external and internal auditors on balance sheet schedules and supporting evidence during interim and year-end audits.
- Develop, document, and maintain finance policies, standard operating procedures, and process maps covering procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, goods receiving, inventory, waste and markdown, store cash and POS, fixed assets, supplier income, and month-end close.
- Build and maintain the Risk & Control Matrix as the master control document, covering risk, control, control owner, frequency, and evidence.
- Design and implement internal control frameworks — segregation of duties, approval matrices, and control self-assessment — to mitigate financial and operational risk.
- Maintain and periodically update the Delegation of Authority (DOA) and approval matrix, and monitor compliance with both.
- Partner with department heads and branch and warehouse management to roll out new or updated policies and monitor ongoing compliance.
- Keep policies and controls current with regulatory changes, business growth, and system changes (ERP / POS).
- Design and monitor controls over store cash and POS, including cash-up and banking, till over and short thresholds, voids and refunds, manual discounts and price overrides, staff purchases, and loyalty and promotion integrity.
- Ensure effective three-way matching of purchase order, goods received note, and invoice; monitor short, over, and substituted deliveries, catch-weight receiving, back-door receiving discipline, and supplier returns and credit note recovery.
- Set the control standard for inventory count governance — cycle count calendar and coverage, count independence, recount rules, and stock adjustment approval thresholds aligned to the DOA — and verify compliance. Execution of physical counts remains with Inventory Control.
- Monitor the accuracy and completeness of waste and expiry recording, markdown authorization limits, and price integrity between POS, system, and shelf edge.
- Establish and monitor controls over the recognition, billing, and recovery of supplier income — rebates, listing fees, promotional funding, and volume bonuses — and monitor unrecovered claims.
- Verify fixed asset existence by site, control inter-branch transfers, and govern capital work in progress for new store openings and refits.
- Own the control readiness checklist signed off before a new branch trades, and the closure checklist covering stock, assets, and cash.
- Prepare an Annual Internal Control Plan for CFO approval, stating the processes, branches, and warehouses in scope and the number of reviews to be performed.
- Perform control monitoring, walkthroughs, and spot checks to assess whether key controls are designed and operating as intended; document findings and agree remediation plans and due dates with process owners.
- Facilitate control self-assessment by process owners and consolidate the results for the CFO.
- Prepare internal control reports, gap analyses, and corrective action plans for the CFO and senior management, and track remediation through to closure.
- Support fraud risk assessment and provide investigation support as required, in coordination with Internal Audit and Loss Prevention.
- Monitor compliance with Egyptian Tax Authority e-invoicing requirements and the correct tax treatment of promotions, waste, and staff purchases, in coordination with the tax function.
- Liaise with external auditors, tax authorities, and regulators on internal control matters as required.
- Own the periodic ERP and POS user access and segregation of duties conflict review, and drive remediation of high-risk conflicts with Information Technology, which retains ownership of user provisioning.
- Own the master data change control standard for item, price, cost, vendor, and promotion data.
- Develop exception-based, analytics-driven monitoring from ERP and POS data to achieve full population coverage rather than sample testing.
- Provide control design input on new system implementations, upgrades, and integrations.
- Deliver internal control awareness training to finance staff, branch managers, and warehouse managers, and embed a control module in relevant onboarding programs.
- Act as an advisory partner to process owners on control design for new processes, store formats, and business initiatives.
- Undertake process improvement initiatives, due diligence exercises, and special reviews assigned by the CFO that fall outside routine accounting operations and treasury activities.
REQUIREMENTS- • Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
- • Professional certification is preferred (CIA, CMA, CPA, or ACCA).
- • Min. 6 years experience in internal control, internal audit, or financial control, including at least 2 years in a managerial or lead role.
- • Experience in retail or FMCG multi-branch environment Min 3 Years.
- • Strong knowledge of Egyptian Accounting Standards (EAS) and/or IFRS, and internal control frameworks such as COSO.
- • Hands-on experience with ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics) and exposure to POS and inventory systems.
- • Very good English is necessary.
- • Advanced user of Microsoft Office.
- • Strong proficiency in Excel and BI tools for reporting and analysis.
