Finance Assistant

We are Lick

We are building a people-powered decorating movement where everyone feels supported and inspired to transform their space with our unique pigment-rich colours and high quality products. All with consideration to your and our home; planet Earth.

We’re a business that believes in building confidence in our decorators. Seeing their bright ideas and making them happen. We do this by giving our do-er uppers access to inspiration, advice and how-to guidance from our experts and wider community. As well as making our range of (water-based, low VOC) paint, (FSC-certified) wallpaper, and eco-supplies with real people and real homes in mind.

It's why we curate a selection of pigment-rich paints with unique depth of colour and their own individual identity, and high-quality designer wallpapers. It's why we have an expert team of colour consultants on-hand to help with any decorating question, big or small. It's why we're building a supportive community of decorators to inspire each other with their projects.

Because we know that a small change in colour can have a huge impact on the way we feel.

Gone are the days of too much choice, feeling like you’re doing it alone, and messy, expensive sample pots. This is a fresh look for decorating.

Decorator success starts at home...our home. That is why we are also on a mission to be the definitive people-powered company. Building an environment where individuals thrive and collectively transform an entire category.

About the company

The home decor brand was founded in 2019 by Lucas London and Sam Bradley - both experienced startup entrepreneurs - targeting the $1trillon global home decor market. The business has raised over $29m since inception. OMERS Ventures lead our Series A round in June 2021 with participation from existing investors Felix Capital and contributions from entrepreneurs and PE investors including Magnus Rausing, Alex Chesterman and Kathaka, the family office of Caroline Rupert of Richemont. Our sights are set on scale, this means expanding our product offering, launching new sustainability initiatives, and growing our already thriving community of home decorators across the globe.

Check out The Times coverage of our Series A investment round

£1M Decorator powered crowd funding campaign

Read what our investors think about our mission and vision as we redefine a category

Check out our recent Lick X Soho Home collaboration

Read about our exclusive wholesale partnership with Screwfix

Some examples of our US press coverage following our launch Stateside in April '22 House Beautiful and Apartment Therapy

Check out our first UK retail store

Check out Lick in action in our Rixo Decorating Diary, Daisy Lowe House Tour and Made.com Showroom Tour

MOST IMPORTANTLY Read what our decorators have to say in our Trust Pilot reviews

Our UK Office

We recently opened our beautiful new space in the heart of Brixton, London. Located 3 mins walk from the tube station. We have everything you need to deliver our goal of creating a centre for collaboration, connection, fresh perspectives.

We encourage UK team members to use the office 2-3 times a week but appreciate some people want to use it more and some people want to use it less.

We are a hybrid working team and we believe in the value of getting together offline and online. For this reason, we are focused on hiring candidates who can easily work in London. We see huge value in our team sharing an office together and strongly encourage everyone to use it as often as they can.

Our UK space is a 3 mins walk from Brixton underground station, there are fresh coffee, snacks, and refreshments, a stunning communal outdoor terrace area with 270-degree views, and additional breakout spaces throughout the building.

There are lots of secure spaces for you to store a bicycle/shower/change as needed.

Sustainability at Lick

Reducing our environmental impact is at the forefront of what we do and how we do it

Supercharging a fresh look for decorating means fixing the home decor industry’s environmental footprint. This is why we've put sustainability at the top of our agenda. We’re constantly working to lower our impact on the planet, and create a better future for our kids.

We're on our way...thousands of people are using our peel and stick samples (95% less waste than sample pots) and our low VOC water-based paints (fewer harmful chemicals and a more easily biodegradable end product). Our packaging is 100% biodegradable (our biodegradable plastic bags are even water-soluble). We use sustainably farmed bamboo in all our supplies, and are moving to recycled paper in all our printed materials. We're also moving our paint tin production to the UK, and continuing our partnerships with 4ocean and One Tree Planted (for every tin sold, we remove 18g plastic from the ocean and for every roll of wallpaper sold we plant one tree). But like a renovation project – there’s always more we can do, and we're determined to do it across everything we do.

For more information on how we work to ensure our products are created in a sustainable way and an in-dept look at our eco credentials please check out our sustainability hub on our site here.

Wellbeing at Lick

We are building a team filled with incredible human beings and it is our collective unique spirits that make Lick very special. We're cultivating an environment where we can all truly be ourselves (on the good days and the bad) and make an authentic impact. Growing and thriving as individuals and achieving something very significant together.

We want it to be easy to openly discuss how you are feeling. We want it to be easy for you to do the things you know will help you thrive. We want to empower you to own your mental health and wellbeing we want to ensure you feel supported in doing so.

Our goal is to empower you to own your time and impact. We aim to provide you with the information and support you need to empower you to do fulfilling, impactful work and build relationships that matter.

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Lick

People are at the centre of everything we do at Lick. We work hard to make sure that we're amplifying diverse voices externally within our amazing community of decorators. Equally, we are on a mission to make Lick a company where every member of our team feels they can truly be themselves and genuinely make an impact. Today we would say we are doing a good job of attracting diverse talent and proving a home to thrive in, but our ambitions are bigger than that. We're working on ways to be able to formally follow through on this commitment, such as our team led Belonging Working Group, and approach to see each individual.

As a team, we are committed to educating ourselves and sharing important resources within the business to inform what we do and how we do it, and to always keep learning and improving. We have been lucky to have some amazing speakers on the subjects of LGBTQ+ Pride History, and Inclusive Design Processes. That is just the start.

Our Culture

We are nearly three years old and our culture will continue to evolve like everything we do. To give you a sense of what to expect, we can confirm it's fast and are very ambitious, with high expectations. We believe a great team can do great things and we work hard to ensure you have what you need to thrive and make a real impact. We put a huge emphasis on information sharing, communications and relationships. We use data and customer insights to improve what we do and how we do it.

We have ambitious business goals, and are equally ambitious about WHAT we achieve as HOW we achieve those goals. We don’t just do things a certain way because that’s how it’s always been done. We’re here to transform an entire category, this means developing new and better ways of doing things. You can see this in our team everyday and in all aspects of our culture and commitments to Sustainability, Wellbeing, DEI and the decorator experience.

As a team, we are focused on building a team that really cares and supports one another, one where everyone has the opportunity to build real friendships. We encourage and support this informally each day and always have a range of events from Yoga Classes to Movie Nights, Thursday Drinks and Weekly Mindful Walks to bring everyone together outside of the work environment.

About The Role

Following a period of growth and expansion into exciting new channels we are looking for someone to join the business as our first Finance Assistant to support our Finance Manager and VP of Finance by taking on core day-to-day finance processes and ultimately supporting the development of a best-in-class finance department at Lick.

Launching three years ago, the business has enjoyed incredible success with more than 540k orders shipped to more than 290k customers. As the business continues to grow and scale, our reporting and compliance obligations will increase in volume and complexity. These obligations exist within the UK and also international (EU and US), and the need to bring greater capacity, scrutiny and control to our internal finance processes is therefore a high priority. We are looking for someone who can take a hands-on role in key day-to-day finance processes, as well as playing an important part in helping shape and develop our processes as Lick grows and the environment we operate in becomes more complex.

All financial procedures are currently overseen by our VP of Finance and Finance Manager, with core month-end bookkeeping and management accounts outsourced to an external accounting partner. We will continue to outsource bookkeeping in the short-term, being managed by the Finance Manager. In time, we will transition to in-house month end reporting, with the month-end bookkeeping eventually forming part of this role. This provides a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the development of our finance function from the bottom up.

The ability to thrive in an evolving environment will be key to success in this role, along with a desire to seek innovation and efficiency in everything that we do. We are searching for an ambitious individual with an aptitude to think logically and analytically, to be curious, to challenge, plan their time effectively and to obsess about the small details.

The ideal candidate will be someone who already possesses a good understanding of the building blocks of accounting, AP, AR and month-end, and who is enthusiastic in playing a hands-on role in developing and improving existing processes. The role will suit an individual that is comfortable engaging cross-functionally and is looking for an opportunity to grow within a dynamic environment. The candidate will be empowered to contribute to the development of Lick’s finance processes and ways of working, as well as expand their existing experience by taking on new challenges, seeking to take the next step in their career and grow into a Financial Accountant in the future.

We would love to hear from you if you are excited about joining a fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment, motivated to challenge yourself to grow and learn and if you are passionate to help build the foundations of a first class finance team.

Our Systems

We are continually developing and evolving our systems and reporting capabilities. Currently we use Xero for financial reporting, Unleashed for Inventory Management and Spendesk for invoice and expense management. We have plans to roll out a new ERP system this year, and this candidate will play a key part in supporting the implementation of this new system.

Responsibilities

• Delivery of core transactional and month-end reporting and bookkeeping processes supported by our Finance Manager when necessary.
• Support with the transition to in-house month end and management reporting
• Cash and bank reconciliation including weekly cash allocation and matching of bank payments and receipts in Xero and working with the Finance Manager to optimise our systems to deliver Cash and Bank process improvements and efficiencies.
• Accounts Receivable reconciliation and working with the Finance Manager to ensure rebates and other deductions are validated and reconciled.
• Engaging with customers and the Operations team to resolve overdue sales invoices and ad-hoc queries.
• Accounts Payable reconciliation, processing purchase invoices, performing weekly payment runs and driving best practice in the adoption and use of Spendesk across Lick.
• Liaising with internal and external stakeholders to resolve any invoicing or payment queries.
• Assisting with the implementation of the new ERP.
• Stakeholder happiness - enthusiastic about building confidence within the Lick family around all things finance by facilitating proactive and collaborative communication.
• A good understanding of our diverse decorator community and of the issues critical to our business along with an ability to build and design inclusive and tailored solutions that work for all.
• Working with the Finance Manager to optimise and fully leverage our systems’ functionality with the goal of delivering process improvements, efficiencies and a more robust control environment.
• Playing a key role in ensuring all finance processes are correctly documented and successfully shared across the business.
• Assist with the year end audit process by supporting the Auditor with their requests for information, as well as supporting the Finance Manager in the preparation of information for the statutory financial statements.
• This will be an opportunity to develop important business partnering skills and to build meaningful cross-functional connections.

Requirements

Experience:

• Experience of working in a transactional finance team in a similar role ideally within a retail business.
• Demonstrated experience working within Accounts Payable and Receivable.
• An understanding of balance sheet reconciliation and what is required to deliver a successful month-end management reporting process will be beneficial.
• Exposure to eCommerce and/or multi-channel retail is preferred.
• Good bookkeeping and accounting first principles knowledge.
• You have experience of working in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment, whilst contributing to the enhancement of existing processes, or development of new ones.
• Intermediate Excel/ Google Sheets – Pivot Tables, V-lookups, IF statements etc.
• Good understanding of accounting software, with hands-on knowledge of Xero or a similar ERP being advantageous.
• Previous experience working in a finance role in a business with physical inventory would be helpful.

Qualities

• An aptitude for numbers and an attention to detail.
• A multi-tasker. As part of working in a fast-growth start-up, the ability to manage competing priorities with evolving levels of importance will be crucial. You will be someone who is comfortable with change and pace.
• Fun, kind and personable.
• A warm and articulate communicator.
• Good ability to understand stakeholder challenges and their competing interests.
• Willing to roll your sleeves-up and get stuck into the small details.
• Quick learner who is curious and inquisitive with a proactive mindset.
• Self-motivated, enthusiastic and comfortable taking on new pieces of work with autonomy.
• Humble and willing to admit mistakes.
• Experimentation is a natural instinct

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity options grants for all team members
• 26 days holiday (plus your birthday off) + Bank Holidays + December holidays (around 22nd December-3rd January for most roles). We aim to power you to own your time and expect everyone to take minimum 22 days off annually.
• Flexible Working - owning your time underpins our Wellbeing strategy. We all have a specific number of contracted hours to work per week, once you deliver on your role requirements as expected, you can start earlier, leave earlier, take a shorter lunch, leave a bit later, it's totally up to you.
• £300 allowance for Lick products.
• Private pension scheme
• Vitality Healthcare with added Mental Health package (plus full cover for therapy and counselling).
• You’ll get the first-hand experience of being part of, and growing with high growth, super early stage, fast-moving, and ambitious company.
• Relaxed work from home policy (UK employees use the office 2-3 days each week) with the option to use more or less depending on your personal situation (no one size fits all).
• A growth-focused team, you will enjoy monthly Deep Dive sessions from your fellow teammates and regular Skills sessions.
• Contribute to building and scaling a culture where wellbeing is part of how we do things, not just a bonus.
• Lots of amazing opportunities to get to know other members of the team at different team events and have an impact on our culture through our Belonging Impact Group and beyond.
• A proactive approach to creating a working environment that supports/reflects our team member's unique personal needs..
• You are hopefully reading this and thinking I can't wait to be part of the team that makes this even better as the company grows ;)

Lick is an equal opportunity employer and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all of our applicants. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, colour, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. If you would like to request any accommodations from application through to interview, please email us at emma.bailey@lick.com