Aniruddha Panchal

Inventory & Margin Accounting

• Lead and manage the end-to-end Inventory and Margin Accounting processes, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and timely reporting.
• Delivering comprehensive inventory and margin reports to executives and business leaders, supporting informed strategic decision-making.
• Partnering with Operations by providing regular inventory insights, driving improvements in stock management, and supporting the business goal of reducing shrink.
• Ensuring accurate and timely recognition of vendor rebates, allowances, and other considerations, enabling better margin analysis and forecasting.
• Conducting regular inventory and margin reconciliations to maintain data integrity, strengthen internal controls, and support audit readiness.

Accounts Payable

• Lead, coach, and mentor the Accounts Payable team, enhancing technical and analytical capabilities to consistently achieve departmental KPIs.
• Conducting regular audits of key performance metrics to assess effectiveness of internal controls and ensure compliance with policies and procedures.
• Strengthened vendor partnerships by delivering efficient and reliable service, ensuring all vendor queries were resolved within defined service levels (≤2 business days).
• Delivering critical financial insights to executives, highlighting risk areas such as debit balances and discrepancies to safeguard company assets and strengthen internal controls.

Systems Accounting and vendor maintenance

• Providing strategic oversight of finance systems, ensuring stability, integrity, and continuous improvement to support business growth and scalability.
• Acting as the key liaison between Finance and IT, translating complex business requirements into effective system solutions that delivered measurable value.
• Lead the design, implementation, and governance of system enhancement projects, ensuring alignment with corporate objectives and successful delivery within scope, time, and budget.
• Partnering with cross-functional stakeholders to integrate financial systems with operational platforms, improving data accuracy, reporting capabilities, and decision-making across the business.
• Leading the vendor onboarding process, ensuring compliance with global guidelines and controls, including bank detail verification, denied-party screening, and TRAC checks to uphold Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) requirements.

Key Projects and Achievements

• Item level Inventory reconciliation for $450M+ inventory leading better shrink management
• PowerBi for shrink results; location, department and item level
• Option GME for daily department margin visibility
• PowerBi dashboard for finance team managers enabling effective KPI tracking, workload management and resource allocation
• Duty post payment audit recovery of $310K ($248K net) representing 0.5bps of sales. Identified total potential recovery of $1.1M
• EDI for Inbound Freight vendors driving significant process efficiencies
• Citibank P-Card implementation
• Provided strong leadership, guidance and mentorship to a high-performing finance team of 19 professionals, fostering a culture of growth, accountability, and operational excellence.

Financial Planning and Treasury

• Led end-to-end FP&A processes, including budgeting, 3 period updates, business plan and ROI, and scenario analysis, translating financial insights into actionable strategic plans.
• Partnered with executive leadership and cross-functional teams to ensure financial goals were aligned with organizational strategy and operational priorities.
• Delivered timely, accurate, and relevant financial reports to executives and business leaders, enabling informed decision-making and driving business performance.
• Led treasury operations, including cash flow forecasting, liquidity management, loan facilities, and debt servicing.
• Oversaw foreign exchange (FX) risk management, merchant fee analysis, and banking relationships, safeguarding profitability, working capital optimization and reducing financial risk.
• Strengthened governance by embedding internal controls, compliance frameworks, and risk management practices across financial planning and treasury processes.

Payroll

• Led the end-to-end payroll function, ensuring accurate, timely, and compliant processing for all employees across multiple pay cycles.
• Ensured compliance with tax regulations, superannuation requirements, awards, enterprise agreement, employment laws, minimizing risk and safeguarding company reputation.
• Owned and managed Expat Taxes, management bonus calculations, and Fringe Benefits Taxes (FBT).
• Oversaw payroll governance and internal controls, including segregation of duties, data integrity checks, and audit readiness.
• Partnered with HR and IT to streamline payroll systems and processes, driving automation, accuracy, and efficiency.
• Delivered payroll reporting and analytics to executives and Finance, enabling visibility into payroll costs, overtime trends, and roster planning.
• Managed third-party relationships with payroll service providers, tax authorities, and auditors.
• Provided strategic support by forecasting payroll-related cash flows and integrating payroll cost insights into financial planning and budgeting.
• Led and mentored the payroll team, fostering continuous improvement and ensuring high standards of service delivery.

Key Projects and Achievements

• Onestream implementation to enhance reporting capabilities and efficiencies
• Merchant fees analysis to drive scheme fees negotiation discussions
• Streamlined budgeting process by implementing financial and forecasting tools to reduce the planning cycle time and drive efficiency
• Award interpretation and BOOT (better of overall test) and scenario analysis for employee agreement implementation
• Detailed audit of superannuation and long service leave to ensure the compliance with the relevant legislations
• Employee Central implementation

• Streamlined the month-end close process, reducing reliance on manual tasks and significantly improving the accuracy and timeliness of financial data reporting.
• Led budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting functions, designing tools to improve efficiency and stakeholder engagement. Developed an ODBC-driven trend analysis tool that enabled departments to make more informed budgeting and forecasting decisions.
• Prepared comprehensive monthly reporting packs for executive leadership, including detailed financial analysis, performance commentary, and actionable recommendations to support strategic objectives.
• Managed the Employee Agreement (EA) renewal process, including conducting BOOT (Better Off Overall Test), scenario analysis, union negotiations, ensuring compliance with Fair Work Act requirements and executive presentations.
• Managed end-to-end payroll functions while ensuring the compliance with various employment federal and state laws
• Oversaw employment tax compliance, including preparation and lodgment of Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) returns and management of expatriate tax matters for the organization.

• Managed end-to-end inventory accounting processes, ensuring timely information to the business users for better inventory management.
• Oversaw physical and cycle inventory counts, reconciliations, and adjustments; monitored obsolescence reserves to maintain inventory integrity.
• Analyzed gross margin and identified margin improvement opportunities through trend analysis.
• Partnered and collaborated with buying team to evaluate margin drivers, support pricing strategies, and prepare margin forecasts.
• Led month-end close activities related to inventory and COGS; prepared journal entries and account reconciliations to ensure accurate financial reporting.
• Maintained and improved internal controls over inventory and margin accounting processes; supported internal and external audit requirements
• Implemented process improvements to enhance efficiency and automation in inventory tracking and margin reporting.
• Identified system enhancement and upgrade avenue to improve inventory management to strengthen data integrity and reporting capabilities.
• Supervised and developed a team of inventory and margin accountants; ensured timely delivery of month-end tasks and continuous team development.

• Provided a cover for Maternity Leave to manage all aspects of Financial Accounting and Inventory and Margin Accounting.
• Prepared and lodged corporate tax returns and statutory financial reports, ensuring compliance with applicable regulatory and tax requirements.
• Successfully led and guided the team to ensure reporting timelines were met keeping in the integrity of Inventory and Margin control.

• Supported annual external audit preparations, ensuring a smooth and efficient process with no major discrepancies or audit findings.
• Monitored and reconciled revenue and expenditure transactions, ensuring accurate financial records and contributing to improved reporting accuracy.
• Managed the end-to-end period close process, including preparation of period-end journals, variance analysis, and commentary on financial results.
• Led and successfully implemented item-level inventory tracking for Depot and warehouses, enhancing inventory accuracy and visibility across the organization.
• Prepared corporate tax returns and statutory financial reports, ensuring compliance with applicable regulatory and tax requirements.
• Performed detailed inventory and margin analysis, providing insights into product performance and cost management.
• Assisted with internal and external audit processes, including gathering supporting documentation and preparing audit schedules.
• Completed period-end general ledger reconciliations, addressing aged items and ensuring alignment with financial controls.
• Provided training and mentorship to assistant accountants, promoting team knowledge sharing and capability development.

• Maintained detailed financial records of sales audit and completed a thorough bank reconciliations to safeguard the cash receipts
• Assisted with monthly and quarterly income statements and balance sheets reports to assist the management team with decision making
• Prepared general ledger entries and ensured its accuracy for accurate financial reporting
• Assisted with timely month-end closing procedures to meet the reporting timelines
• Ensured the timely booking of vendor considerations and assist with margin queries from the buying team

• Assisted in the implementation of the SAP Finance Module, contributing to system testing, data validation, and process mapping to ensure a smooth transition from legacy systems.
• Prepared general ledger reconciliations, ensuring accuracy and compliance with financial reporting standards.
• Generated debtor analysis reports, supporting effective accounts receivable management and timely collections.

• Input vendor payments and updated accounts to reflect new balances.
• Ensured timely vendor payments by managing invoice processing and expense tracking systems.
• Reduced discrepancies in financial statements through meticulous data entry and record-keeping practices.