Urgent: Applications close 2 July 2026 — days away. Apply immediately through the Sasol careers portal.
Company Summary
Sasol is one of South Africa’s most iconic and globally significant companies — a fully integrated chemicals and energy corporation with a 70-year heritage and operations spanning more than 30 countries. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in Johannesburg, Sasol pioneered the commercial production of synthetic fuels from coal through its proprietary Fischer-Tropsch technology — a process developed in South Africa and now licensed to energy companies worldwide. Today, Sasol operates across the full value chain from mining and gas production through chemical manufacturing and marketing, serving industrial, commercial, and consumer markets globally.
Sasol’s Secunda Operations in Mpumalanga — the largest coal-to-liquids facility in the world — is the company’s most significant manufacturing site and the industrial heart of South Africa’s Highveld. The Secunda complex employs thousands of people directly and tens of thousands indirectly, and is the economic backbone of the Secunda and eMalahleni region. For a finance professional, working inside Sasol’s financial management function at Secunda means operating within one of the most complex, capital-intensive, and technically demanding industrial environments in Africa — where the quality of financial intelligence directly influences multi-billion rand operational decisions.
Sasol is committed to diversity, inclusion, and the development of its people at every stage of their careers. Preference will be given to applicants from designated groups and people with disabilities in line with Sasol’s Employment Equity Plan.
Opportunity Overview
Sasol’s Finance Southern Africa division is recruiting a Management Accountant to join its financial management team at the Secunda, Mpumalanga facility. This is a senior-level management accounting role requiring a highly experienced finance professional capable of working independently, engaging confidently with senior operational stakeholders, and delivering accurate, timely, and meaningful financial intelligence to cost centre owners across the business unit.
Position: Management Accountant Job Requisition ID: 12595 Company: Sasol Division: FIN: Finance Southern Africa Location: Secunda, Mpumalanga Employment Type: Permanent, full-time Closing Date: 2 July 2026 Posted: 25 June 2026
Purpose of the Role
The Management Accountant exists to ensure that sound financial management and reporting practices are implemented and applied within the assigned Business Unit. The role provides accurate, timely financial reporting to internal stakeholders, participates in business decision-making, and partners proactively with budget owners — cost centre managers — to provide financial analysis and intelligence that facilitates sound operational decisions and evaluates the financial impact of decisions already made.
This is not a back-office processing role. It is a business-facing financial partnership role that requires the ability to translate complex financial data into clear, actionable insights for operational leaders who may not have a finance background.
What You Will Be Doing
Monthly Reporting and Cost Management
- Preparing monthly management reports for your assigned area within required deadlines and presenting findings to Senior Managers and cost centre owners at monthly cost review meetings
- Reviewing the financial position of each department, identifying variances against budget and forecast, and providing meaningful, well-reasoned explanations — not just numbers on a page
- Scrutinising actual line items to ensure correct cost allocations and classifications, and preparing correcting journal entries where required — maintaining account hygiene across your portfolio
- Evaluating the completeness of monthly costs and preparing provision journals in line with Sasol’s work instructions for the provision process
- Preparing monthly General Ledger reconciliations accurately, completely, and timeously for review by senior management
- Validating General Ledger accounts used for sundry payments and petty cash and signing off as proof of review
- Executing monthly recoveries of For and On Behalf (FOB) costs, intercompany costs, and external cost recoveries including invoicing
- Providing training to cost centre owners on SAP and Power BI reports where required
- Maintaining SAP master data at cost centre level including cost types
- Attending to ad-hoc requests efficiently and within agreed timelines
Budgeting and Forecasting
- Guiding cost centre owners through Sasol’s budget and forecast guidelines, requirements, and timelines
- Preparing accurate cash flow forecasts presented within agreed deadlines
- Preparing and analysing financial information submitted by cost centre owners for budgets and forecasts
- Updating the SAP budget system with approved budget and forecast figures
- Ensuring budget and forecast outputs are accurate, complete, and aligned to Sasol’s guidelines and targets
- Confirming the accuracy and completeness of SAP data to cost centre owners
- Performing variance analysis against budget, prior year actuals, and forecast — identifying trends, risks, and opportunities
- Submitting budget and forecast information timeously to the Manager: Management Accounting
- Obtaining cost drivers from stakeholders for cost recovery models where applicable
Year-End and Half Year-End Activities
- Ensuring all account hygiene corrections have been processed before year-end close — no pre-payments or capital items misclassified as operating expenses
- Confirming that all accruals and provisions are accurate, valid, and fully accounted for
- Preparing disclosure schedules assigned to you for inclusion in the year-end reporting pack
- Ensuring strict adherence to all communicated year-end and half year-end timelines
- Performing analytical reviews of half year-end and year-end results and presenting findings to management
Governance and Collaboration
- Acting as custodian of financial governance in your assigned area — adhering to IFRS standards and Sasol’s Accounting Manual
- Collaborating cross-functionally with operational, engineering, procurement, and HR teams as required
- Participating in on-the-job knowledge sharing with team members
Key Requirements
Education:
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance or Management Accounting from a recognised university — essential
- Professional accounting qualification (CIMA, CA(SA), or equivalent) would be a significant advantage — confirm with Sasol directly
Experience:
- Minimum 6 years of relevant management accounting experience in a corporate environment — this is a senior role and candidates with fewer than 6 years of directly relevant experience are unlikely to be considered
- Strong working knowledge of SAP — including cost centre management, journal processing, budget system updates, and master data maintenance — is a firm requirement
- Strong Microsoft Excel skills — advanced proficiency for financial modelling, variance analysis, and data manipulation
- Experience with Power BI for financial reporting and dashboard development — advantageous
Competencies:
- Financial Management — demonstrated ability to apply financial management principles in a large, complex, capital-intensive operational environment
- Reporting — ability to access data from multiple sources, prepare comprehensive management reports, and present findings clearly to senior operational stakeholders
- Compliance — strong understanding of IFRS, internal accounting policies, and the governance requirements of a JSE-listed multinational
- Decision Making — able to identify when to make independent decisions and when to escalate, in a fast-paced environment with real financial consequences
- Integration — ability to consolidate and connect financial information across multiple cost centres, functions, and reporting layers
- Partnership Leadership — building trusted relationships with cost centre managers who rely on your financial intelligence to make operational decisions
- Cross-functional teamwork — operating effectively across finance, operations, engineering, and procurement boundaries
What You Will Experience at Sasol Secunda
Working as a Management Accountant inside the world’s largest coal-to-liquids complex offers a professional environment that few finance roles anywhere in Africa can match:
- Industrial scale financial management — Sasol Secunda operates with capital budgets, operating cost structures, and cost recovery models of a complexity and magnitude that are genuinely rare in the South African finance landscape. Managing costs at this scale develops financial acumen that translates into senior finance leadership anywhere in the world
- SAP mastery in a world-class environment — Sasol runs one of the most sophisticated SAP implementations in South Africa. Deep SAP experience gained here — across cost centre accounting, GL reconciliation, budget system management, and master data — is a credential that is immediately recognised by major employers across every industry
- Business partnership at senior operational level — presenting monthly cost reports to Senior Managers and cost centre owners of a major industrial operation develops a level of financial communication, stakeholder management, and commercial acumen that junior finance roles rarely provide
- IFRS in a complex industrial context — applying IFRS standards to the financial management of a chemicals and energy manufacturing operation introduces nuances around cost capitalisation, provision accounting, intercompany transactions, and cost recovery that are highly specialised and directly relevant to other large industrial, mining, and energy employers
- Cross-functional collaboration — finance at Sasol Secunda requires engagement with engineers, operations managers, procurement professionals, and HR teams. Developing the ability to speak the language of multiple disciplines while delivering financial insight makes you a genuinely versatile senior finance professional
- Career development within a global group — Sasol invests in its employees at every career stage and offers structured development pathways. Finance professionals who perform at Secunda build profiles that are competitive for senior roles within Sasol’s global operations as well as at other major South African and international corporates
Possible Interview Questions
Expect rigorous technical and behavioural assessment for a 6-year minimum experience role at Sasol:
Technical Questions
- Walk us through your monthly management reporting process — from data extraction through to presenting results at a cost review meeting. What does a high-quality monthly report look like to you?
- How do you approach variance analysis when actual costs differ significantly from budget — what is your methodology for identifying root causes and presenting them meaningfully to a non-finance audience?
- Describe your SAP experience in management accounting — which modules have you worked in, what transactions do you perform regularly, and how have you used SAP for budget management and master data maintenance?
- What is your understanding of account hygiene and why does it matter in a large industrial environment? Can you give an example of an account hygiene issue you identified and resolved?
- How do you approach the provision process at month-end — what is your methodology for assessing completeness and ensuring provisions are accurate and adequately supported?
- Walk us through how you manage the budget and forecast process for a cost centre portfolio — from engaging with cost centre owners through to submission and SAP update.
- What is a cost recovery model and how have you maintained and applied one in a previous role?
- How have you used Power BI in a financial reporting context — what dashboards or reports have you built and who were the primary users?
Behavioural and Situational Questions
- Tell us about the most complex cost centre portfolio you have managed — how many cost centres, what was the total cost base, and what were the most significant financial management challenges you navigated?
- Describe a situation where a cost centre manager disputed your variance analysis or your cost allocation — how did you handle the conversation and what was the outcome?
- Sasol Secunda operates in a highly pressurised, deadline-driven environment particularly at month-end, half year-end, and year-end. Tell us about a period where you had to manage multiple competing financial deadlines simultaneously — how did you prioritise and what was the result?
- How do you ensure that non-finance stakeholders — engineers, operations managers, maintenance supervisors — actually understand and engage with the financial reports you present to them?
- What does being a custodian of financial governance mean to you in practice — can you give a specific example of a governance issue you identified and addressed?
Tip: Sasol is a highly process-driven, governance-conscious organisation. In your interview, demonstrate not just technical competence but a genuine understanding of why rigorous financial management standards matter in a publicly listed, globally operating industrial company. Candidates who combine strong SAP proficiency, IFRS knowledge, and the ability to partner effectively with operational stakeholders will be most competitive for this role.
Career Advice
- Apply today — the closing date is 2 July 2026 and there are days remaining. A role of this seniority and technical depth at Sasol will attract a significant volume of strong applicants. Your application, submitted promptly and tailored specifically to Sasol’s context, will receive more careful consideration than one submitted in the final hours before the deadline.
- SAP is your most critical technical differentiator for this application. Sasol explicitly requires strong SAP knowledge and the role touches SAP across cost centre accounting, budget system management, journal processing, master data maintenance, and GL reconciliation. If your SAP experience is strong, quantify it clearly in your CV — number of cost centres managed, modules used, volume of journals processed — and be ready to demonstrate specific SAP competency in your interview.
- Secunda is a specialised posting — own it as a competitive advantage. Many finance professionals prefer Johannesburg, Cape Town, or Durban postings and are reluctant to relocate to Secunda. If you are willing and able to base yourself in Secunda, your applicant pool shrinks significantly. Sasol Secunda finance experience — managing costs in the world’s largest coal-to-liquids complex — is a credential that opens doors to senior finance roles across South Africa’s mining, energy, chemicals, and heavy industry sectors for the rest of your career.
- CIMA qualification is strongly aligned with this role. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants qualification is specifically designed for professionals doing exactly what this role requires — management reporting, cost analysis, budgeting, forecasting, and business partnership. If you are CIMA-qualified or working toward qualification, this is your natural domain. If you hold a CA(SA), your technical foundation is equally strong — frame your application around the management accounting and business partnership dimensions of your experience rather than audit or statutory reporting.
- Power BI proficiency is becoming non-negotiable in management accounting. Sasol lists Power BI as advantageous, but across the South African finance sector, management accountants who can build their own dashboards and automate their monthly reporting — rather than relying on IT or BI teams — are commanding premium salaries and faster career progression. If your Power BI skills are limited, invest in them now through Microsoft Learn or a short online course. Even basic dashboard-building competency adds visible value in an interview.
- The business partnership dimension of this role is as important as the technical dimension. Sasol’s management accountants are expected to present at monthly cost meetings, train cost centre owners on SAP and Power BI, and proactively support operational decision-making. Finance professionals who are technically strong but uncomfortable presenting to senior engineers and operations managers will struggle in this environment. If this is a development area for you, practise presenting financial information to non-finance audiences before your interview.
- Sasol’s scale creates career pathways that few South African companies can match. Performing well as a Management Accountant at Secunda opens doors within Sasol’s finance function across South Africa, Mozambique, the United States, and Europe. Sasol actively develops internal talent and promotes from within — finance professionals who demonstrate commercial acumen, governance commitment, and stakeholder management capability at Secunda frequently progress to Finance Manager, Business Controller, and CFO-track roles within the group.
- Sasol’s EE commitment and disability inclusion policy are genuine. Preference will be given to applicants from designated groups and people with disabilities in accordance with Sasol’s Employment Equity Plan. Qualifying candidates from these groups should apply with confidence that their applications will be considered in a structured, equitable, and supportive process.
Management accounting at one of Africa’s largest and most technically complex industrial operations is not a role for everyone — but for the right finance professional, it is one of the most intellectually stimulating, commercially significant, and career-defining roles available in South Africa. If you have the qualification, the SAP competency, and the six-plus years of experience, this opportunity at Sasol Secunda deserves your immediate and best application.
Applications close 2 July 2026. Job Requisition ID: 12595. Apply directly through the Sasol careers portal at sasol.com/careers. Ensure your CV highlights your SAP experience, management accounting track record, and cost centre portfolio scope specifically — generic finance CVs will not be competitive for this role.