About Gapstars

At Gapstars, we partner with some of Europe’s most ambitious tech companies from disruptive startups to fast-scaling scaleups, helping them build high-performing remote engineering teams.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, with talent hubs in Sri Lanka and Portugal, we are home to 275+ engineers who thrive on solving real-world challenges with modern technologies. Our teams work across domains, from networking and marketplaces to SaaS and AI delivering scalable solutions that drive meaningful outcomes.

If you’re looking for a company that combines technical excellence, strong culture, and room to grow, welcome to Gapstars.

Your primary focus will be budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis for Operations and Product activities. Rather than simply reporting what happened, you'll help stakeholders understand why it happened, what it means, and what actions to take. You'll champion zero-based budgeting approaches and driver-based forecasting, ensuring financial plans are grounded in operational reality rather than historical trends.

You will also play a role in evaluating some of the new product introduction projects and operational efficiency initiatives, supporting the Director of Finance – Operations & Product in providing the financial analysis and governance that enables informed investment decisions.

This role sits at the intersection of finance and operations, requiring both analytical rigour and the ability to communicate insights clearly to stakeholders. Through your work supporting the Operations Accountant with month-end tasks, you'll develop deep understanding of the accounting foundation that underpins your analysis. You'll be empowered to challenge assumptions, ask difficult questions, and help the business make better decisions through superior financial analysis.

A critical aspect of this role is collaboration with the Data & Analytics team in IT and the Purchase Ledger team to ensure data is captured efficiently and automation workflows generate reliable information in the right format. This allows you to focus on adding value through analysis and insights rather than spending time transforming data.

What makes this role different

• Business partnership: You're not just reporting numbers: you're helping business leaders make better decisions.

• Driver-based approach: You'll link financial forecasts to operational metrics like production volumes, scrap rates, and efficiency measures.

• Zero-based mindset: You'll challenge historical spending patterns and ensure budgets are built from operational requirements.

• Project evaluation: You'll provide financial governance for new product introductions and operational improvement initiatives.

• Accounting integration: You'll gain hands-on experience with month-end processes, ensuring your analysis is grounded in solid accounting.

• Cross-functional collaboration: You'll work closely with Data & Analytics and Purchase Ledger teams to leverage automation and ensure efficient data flow.

• Continuous improvement: You'll actively identify opportunities to enhance budgeting, forecasting, and analysis processes.

Key responsibilities

Budgeting and forecasting

• Lead the annual budgeting process for Operations and Product general expenses, fixed costs, and variable costs.

• Implement zero-based budgeting approaches, challenging historical spending patterns and building budgets from operational requirements.

• Develop driver-based forecasting models that link financial projections to operational metrics (production volumes, headcount, efficiency rates, scrap percentages, etc.).

• Prepare rolling forecasts periodically, incorporating latest operational assumptions and business developments.

• Facilitate budget review sessions with Operations and Product leaders, challenging assumptions and ensuring rigorous thinking.

• Build financial models for "what-if" scenarios, helping stakeholders understand financial implications of operational decisions.

• Coordinate budget submissions across Operations, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Product Development teams.

• Ensure budgets and forecasts align with overall business strategy and financial targets.

Variance analysis and business insights

• Prepare comprehensive monthly variance analysis for Operations and Product costs, comparing actual results to budget and forecast.

• Investigate significant variances, conducting root cause analysis and providing clear explanations to stakeholders.

• Translate complex cost variances into operational language, helping business leaders understand financial impacts.

• Identify trends in operational costs, highlighting risks and opportunities for cost management.

• Analyse manufacturing efficiency metrics (labour productivity, material yield, scrap rates) and link to financial performance.

• Review warranty claims, analysing trends by product, vintage, and failure mode to inform provision adequacy.

• Evaluate inventory levels and movements, identifying obsolescence risks and working capital optimisation opportunities.

• Prepare clear, concise management reports that drive action rather than just presenting information.

Month-end support and accounting integration

• Support the Operations Accountant with month-end close activities, ensuring tasks are completed accurately and on schedule.

• Gain hands-on experience with inventory accounting, bill of materials processing, labour absorption, and fixed asset accounting.

• Develop deep understanding of how operational activities translate into financial transactions and journal entries.

• Ensure month-end processes capture data in analytically useful formats, enabling effective variance analysis.

• Review month-end data quality, identifying inconsistencies or anomalies that might impact analysis reliability.

• Propose improvements to month-end processes that enhance both accounting accuracy, analytical capability and process efficiency.

• Build strong working knowledge of Infor CSI ERP manufacturing and finance modules.

Operational data and metrics

• Develop and maintain operational metrics dashboards, tracking key performance indicators for manufacturing efficiency.

• Link financial performance to operational metrics, creating integrated performance reporting.

• Validate operational data quality, ensuring metrics used for driver-based forecasting are accurate and reliable.

• Collaborate closely with the Data & Analytics team in IT to design dashboards, data pipelines, and automation workflows that deliver reliable operational and financial data in formats ready for analysis.

• Work with the Purchase Ledger team to ensure procure-to-pay data is captured accurately and linked effectively to operational metrics, enabling comprehensive cost analysis.

• Work with Operations teams to improve data capture processes, enhancing both operational and financial reporting.

• Identify opportunities to leverage operational data for better financial forecasting and decision-making.

Stakeholder management and communication

• Build strong working relationships with Operations, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Product Development leaders.

• Communicate financial insights clearly and concisely to non-finance stakeholders, avoiding jargon and focusing on actionable information.

• Facilitate constructive challenge in budget and forecast discussions, ensuring rigorous thinking without damaging relationships.

• Respond to ad-hoc analysis requests promptly and thoroughly, demonstrating responsiveness and customer focus.

• Present financial analysis confidently to senior stakeholders, supporting decision-making with clear data and insights.

New product introduction and project evaluation

• Support the Director of Finance in providing financial analysis and governance for new product introduction (NPI) projects.

• Contribute to the preparation of financial models for NPI projects, including development costs, tooling investments, bill of materials costs, and volume/contribution assumptions.

• Conduct return on investment (ROI) analysis for product development initiatives, ensuring clear understanding of payback periods and profitability.

• Track actual costs against NPI budgets, highlighting variances and providing early warning of cost overruns.

• Evaluate operational efficiency initiatives, quantifying potential savings and building business cases.

• Challenge project assumptions, ensuring business cases are grounded in realistic operational and commercial projections.

• Monitor post-launch performance against NPI business cases, conducting lessons learned reviews to improve future project evaluation.

• Coordinate financial governance processes for stage-gate approvals, ensuring appropriate financial scrutiny at key decision points.