Michelle Knobel

I am a UK-trained management accountant and bookkeeper with 8+ years in finance, including Mazars and Kaplan International. I currently run day-to-day finance for four separately registered companies in the UK, USA, France and South Africa, reporting directly to their CEO: month-end close, management accounts, multi-country payroll, VAT and year-end packs for external accountants.

Bookkeeper at Winecap Ltd and The Finer Things Company (2024-02 – Present)

• Run full-cycle bookkeeping for four separately registered companies, including Winecap, a UK wine investment company: accounts payable and receivable, general ledger and multi-currency transactions (GBP, USD, EUR, ZAR).
• Close the books each month and prepare management accounts for the CEO, backed by bank, balance sheet and intercompany reconciliations, journals, accruals and prepayments.
• Prepare year-end records and supporting schedules for external accountants
• Process monthly payroll for 14 employees across the UK (7), USA (3) and SA (4), including sales commissions.
• File VAT return on Quickbooks and prepare the US sales tax reports.
• Manage credit control and payments: raise customer invoices, chase overdue accounts, resolve customer queries and schedule supplier payment runs.
• Cleaned up the historical records: reconciled bank and credit card accounts, rebuilt an accurate debtors ledger and corrected misposted Shopify fees, so its accounts now show the true financial position.
• Built Google Apps Script automations (with Gemini) for daily outstanding invoices and bills, weekly customer payments by sales adviser

Co-founder & Head of Operations at My Easy Kitchen (2022-05 – 2024-01)

• Co-founded a food business and grew it from concept to around 70 meals a day, running operations and finance side by side.
• Ran procurement and supplier relationships, product costing, order records, and accounts payable and receivable.
• Managed a team of three and day-to-day operations.

Assistant Management Accountant at Mazars LLP (now Forvis Mazars) (2019-04 – 2022-04)

• Prepared the month-end close and management accounts for four outsourced clients in retail, investment and pharmaceuticals, for manager review.
• Ran the accounts payable and receivable function for these clients, checking the invoice processing
• Prepared quarterly VAT returns and client-specific reporting packs.
• Trained colleagues on client-specific processes and streamlined workflows, helping the team meet multiple concurrent client deadlines.

Assistant Management Accountant (FP&A) at Kaplan International College (2018-02 – 2019-04)

• Supported FP&A reporting for operations mainly in the USA and China, reporting to the Management Accountant.
• Managed accounts payable, accounts receivable and intercompany accounts, and completed balance sheet reconciliations.
• Built scenario-planning templates and supported the annual budgeting process.

Accounts Assistant at Kaplan International Languages (2016-10 – 2018-02)

• Ran the accounts payable cycle: processing and paying supplier invoices and resolving supplier queries.
• Completed balance sheet reconciliations and intercompany accounting; prepared monthly operating expenditure variance analysis against budget.

International Credit Controller at Kaplan International Languages (2016-03 – 2016-10)

• Managed the international sales ledger for the USA, Canada, UK and Ireland: chasing overdue balances, running monthly credit-risk analysis and processing refunds in line with policy.
• Cleared an account backlog that had built up over four years.

Audit Vacation Student at EY (Ernst & Young) (2015-11 – 2015-11)

• Supported the audit of George Municipality, reconciling annual leave and petty cash.

BCom in Accounting (CA stream) – University of Cape Town (2015)

Part-qualified – CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants)