Commercial Finance and Payments Analyst

Overview

This role supports commercial decision-making for a portfolio of DTC eCommerce brands across multiple markets. Working closely with the CFO and in partnership with Marketing and Operations, you will investigate performance drivers, challenge assumptions, and recommend where to invest, what to change, and how to convert more revenue into available cash.

The position is an Independent Contractor role (Full time) and is Remote.

Responsibilities

Turn performance data into commercial decisions

• Monitor daily acquisition spend, revenue, return on investment (ROI), return on advertising spend (ROAS), customer acquisition cost (CAC), contribution margin, and CAC payback. Investigate what changed, why it changed, and the actions to take.
• Analyse performance by brand, market, channel, and customer cohort to identify where growth creates value and where spend or operational changes could improve returns.
• Build practical models and scenarios to assess spend allocation and growth opportunities; provide clear recommendations based on profitability, cash requirements, and the strength of the evidence.
• Partner with Marketing and Operations to challenge assumptions constructively, prioritise opportunities, and evaluate results from agreed changes.
• Deliver a concise daily performance update covering the most meaningful movements, commercial implications, and recommended actions, including improvements to dashboards so teams can act quickly.

Understand customers and subscription economics

• Monitor purchasing and customer cohort patterns daily, including average order value, purchase frequency, repeat purchases, retention, refunds, and chargebacks; distinguish useful signals from normal daily volatility.
• Track customer lifetime value (LTV), LTV-to-CAC, and cohort profitability with clear assumptions and consistent definitions. Update estimates as cohorts mature and new data becomes available.
• For subscription models, analyse recurring revenue, renewals, churn, failed payments, and payment recovery. Identify opportunities to improve retention, recover revenue, and strengthen customer economics.

Improve payment economics and cash conversion

• Manage merchant account and processor spend or volume caps by monitoring daily utilisation, remaining capacity, and reset dates; forecast headroom and flag constraints before they interrupt sales.
• Compare processors on total effective cost, approval rates, settlement speed, reserve requirements, payout reliability, and chargeback exposure.
• Advise on directing payment traffic and revenue toward lower-cost merchants and processors that convert sales into available cash more effectively, balancing checkout conversion, capacity, and concentration risk within approved limits and contractual requirements.
• Coordinate approved routing changes with Operations, measure impact, and recommend further improvements. Maintain a daily view of expected settlements, reserve releases, and cash at risk.

Own payment visibility and reconciliation

• Own end-to-end reconciliation across all payment processors, including private and higher-risk processors with rolling or fixed reserves. Reconcile transactions, fees, refunds, chargebacks, settlements, and bank deposits against internal records.
• Investigate discrepancies, unusual payment patterns, payout delays, and unexpected holds; trace root causes, resolve issues, and escalate material exposures with supporting evidence.
• Track reserve balances, release schedules, outstanding processor balances, and ageing receivables. Keep Finance and Operations aligned on accurate transaction reporting and provide reconciliation reports on schedule.
• Improve reconciliation workflows and controls as volumes grow, reducing manual work while preserving accuracy and traceability.

How you will approach the work

• Curious and investigative: ask questions beyond the initial brief and follow questions through to a useful answer.
• Commercially minded: connect numbers to customer behaviour, profit, and cash, and clearly explain what decisions the analysis supports.
• Proactive and practical: surface opportunities early, suggest next steps, and follow through to confirm whether changes worked.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: work with incomplete data, state assumptions, and use judgement without overstating certainty.
• Collaborative and willing to challenge: build relationships, ask constructive questions, and communicate clearly with stakeholders outside Finance.
• Accountable and detail-conscious: maintain reliable analysis and accurate payment records in a fully remote, async-first environment.

Requirements

• 2–5 years of relevant experience in commercial finance, business analysis, financial analysis, payments analytics, or a similarly analytical role, with examples of insights that influenced a business decision.
• Solid understanding of eCommerce economics, including acquisition spend, ROI, ROAS, CAC, LTV, contribution margin, retention, and cohort analysis (direct eCommerce employment preferred rather than essential).
• Hands-on payment processing and reconciliation experience, including settlement cycles, processing fees, rolling and fixed reserves, refunds, and chargebacks.
• Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills for modelling and analysis, confidence working with transaction and customer datasets, and sufficient accounting knowledge to reconcile sales, settlements, and bank receipts accurately.

Preferred Qualifications

• DTC or subscription eCommerce experience, particularly analysing customer cohorts, retention, and acquisition economics.
• Private or higher-risk payment processing experience involving reserves and complex settlements, including merchant cap management, routing analysis, disputes, or multi-currency reconciliation.
• Forensic accounting, investigative analysis, or transaction investigation experience, with the ability to turn findings into commercial action.
• Familiarity with Shopify, CheckoutChamp, or similar platforms; dashboard tools, SQL, or accounting software.

Compensation & Benefits

• Paid leave
• HMO and allowances

Location

• Remote

Engagement

• Independent Contractor (Full time)