Senior Specialist - Reconciliation and Controls

Management Level

G

The Senior Specialist – Reconciliation and Controls position is a highly visible role at Equiniti providing the right individual with plenty of exposure to senior stakeholders. The right candidate should be able to deliver best in class reconciliations, spot trends, challenge the business and be able to demonstrate what a good reconciliation looks like, as well as hold people accountable for the process.

The individual would work on their own initiative within the team environment, make decisions, meet specified and demanding deadlines and foster good working relationships and help us make a difference and create the reconciliation presence in the business through the very best ways of working.

The individual would be responsible for establishing and maintaining effective governance as well as financial control of processes /procedures, ensuring operating controls through Account Reconciliations being managed effectively and efficiently. Need to have both keen attentions to detail and the bigger picture in mind. Capable of ensuring accuracy as well as improving efficiency.

Equiniti Overview

Equiniti is a leading provider of technology and solutions for complex and regulated administration and payments.  Our technology platforms are used by 70% of the FTSE 100, Government and other large corporates, particularly in banking, insurance and other financial services.  We have 1,700 clients, make £160 billion worth of payments through our systems every year, hold records for 70 million shareholders, look after pension schemes for 8 million pension scheme members, and provide services which touch 28 million customers.  Over a third of the UK population has dealt with Equiniti at some point during their lives. 

Equiniti is a company that has been built with strong values at the very core of our offering.  Dealing with some of the most successful companies and government agencies in the UK, excellence, integrity, professionalism, partnership, commercial and innovation are therefore at the heart of everything we do.  We employ over 5,000 people in the UK, India, US, Poland and Netherlands. 

There are five internal business divisions which compromise the Equiniti business (EQ Boardroom & Invest, EQ Paymaster, EQ Digital, EQ US and AST), which are all supported by the Group Functions.  Our strategy is aimed at driving pace and growth with a strong focus on further investment in our people and leadership. 

Equiniti’s journey to build and develop a captive offshore finance facility started in 2016, with a view to centralise the core transactional accounting. This resulted in the creation of a Finance Shared Services Centre (SSC) in Chennai which comprises the following teams: Record to Report (RTR), Procure to Pay (PTP), Master Data Management and Data Analysis (MDM), Order to Cash (OTC) and Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A).

The Finance SSC Team is one of the most engaged teams in the business per the last Gallup survey. In recent years the Finance SSC has extended its Global footprint to support geographies beyond UK, expanding the remit in operating areas to help sustain, and improve, the control environment for the Group. The Finance SSC has continued to successfully drive value-add and continuous improvement along the value chain by providing high quality services in specialised areas of External Financial Reporting, Procurement and Internal Audit.

All of this made possible by over 100 dedicated, articulate and forward-thinking colleagues in the Finance SSC who play a pivotal role in our transformative journey. The most recent achievement of the team includes successfully implementing Workday in 2020 – the global finance, procurement and human capital management ERP which is now used globally by all of Equiniti’s businesses & employees. 

Core Duties/Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be responsible for the following duties:

• Account Reconciliations are managed effectively & efficiently.
• Ensure that the recorded data is accurate, on time, and within the rules set by the company.
• Investigate and ensure resolution of discrepancies within BS reconciliations through follow up on open items.
• Understand and prepare complex reconciliations.
• Work on standardisation of recs across regions.
• Establish detailed process documentation for performing reconciliation and maintain documents to ensure they are current and result in best in class recs.
• Building & Sustenance of Risk And Control Matrix (RACMs) for all processes, ensuring teams are aligned to it.
• Proactively identify areas where internal controls and procedures can be improved in the preparation of the account reconciliations and propose solutions to mitigate risk and close gaps.
• Maintain strong working relationships with internal / external auditors and other third-party relationships.
• Provide information & respond timely to Internal and External Audit requests.
• Support the end to end review of processes by suggesting ideas for improvements that could benefit reconciliations. Work closely with onshore GPOs.
• Help in integration of acquired business and enhance the overall control environment.

Reconciliations:

• Use Blackline to monitor the timeliness & quality of reconciliations - develop a Blackline way of working in the business
• Ensuring required adjustments are posted in a timely manner.
• Optimisation of Blackline set-up.
• Keep all reconciliation procedural documentation up to date and valid.
• Review & ensuring completion of all reconciliations:

• Sub-ledger to general ledger
• Bank accounts
• Aged debt and aged creditor balances
• Payroll and pensions accounts associated with adjustments, deductions and allowances
• eg: HMRC/Overpayments/Childcare etc.
• Intercompany reconciliation, identification and communication of the variances to the accounts owners to solve discrepancies

Skills, Knowledge & Experience

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following experience skills and behaviours:

Education / Qualifications:

• University qualified & CA / ICWAI/ CMA qualified preferred or minimum Inter completed.

Experience

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in core Accounting & Reconciliations
• Experience of reviewing reconciliations, especially reconciliation accounts with a high volume of transactions and providing feedbacks.
• Experience of Dashboard reporting
• Experience in using Blackline / other Reconciliation tools
• Experience of working in Audit / Control functions
• Experience in establishing RACMs / Control matrix
• Understanding of SOX requirement (preferable)

Skills & Abilities

• Should be a self-starter
• Excellent and clear written and oral communication skills
• Professional, credible individual with an ability to influence peers, superiors and subordinates
• Achievement orientation: Driven by goals and deadlines
• Ability to work well with people across the organisation.
• Leadership skills to drive a team in a change environment
• Ability to understand the detail behind processes
• Highly organised and analytical approach to task and issue management – high level of multi-tasking required, particularly during month-end processing
• Good interpersonal and negotiation skills, including the ability to communicate effectively across different levels of the organisation.

Core Values & Behaviours

Trust

• Acts with integrity and high personal standards in dealings with others.
• Treats others with respect, openness, honesty and fairness (empathy).

•     Says what they mean; walks the talk.  

• Accepts responsibility rather than apportioning blame.
• Creates the right blend of support and challenge – for self and others.
• Maintains the organisation’s reputation for high standards of business conduct.

Building Relationships

• Adds values and builds true partnerships.
• Effectively manages expectations to achieve a positive outcome. 
• Takes personal responsibility for the performance of the internal Client relationships.
• Makes a strong positive impact and professional impression.
• Builds effective networks (internally and externally).
• Effectively communicates with internal Clients and key stakeholders.   
• Manages, maintains and promotes each relationship to deliver added value solutions and maximise growth potential.
• Probes facts and opinions to determine underlying needs and expectations to find out what internal Clients really need today and identify future requirements.   
• Pro-actively manages all stakeholders.  
• Motivate others to meet and exceed customer service standards by creating the right working environment and relationships.

Belief

• Is passionate and believes in what we do and who we are.
• Champions collaboration across the business for the benefit of internal Clients and Customers.

•     Maintains their motivation and commitment, despite changes in direction.

•     Consistently demonstrates the Equiniti Group Values, even under pressure.

People

• Positive, enthusiastic and supportive of others.
• Promotes teamwork and works effectively with others to achieve own and wider business goals.

•     Sharing good practices, knowledge and experience with others.

• Embraces challenges and responds quickly and positively to change.
• Is receptive, flexible and resilient.
• Adopts personal style to suit the situation and needs of others.

Excellence

• Passionate about delivering service excellence and putting the internal Client / Customer first.
• Works hard to get it right first time and keep promises and commitments to others.
• Pro-actively takes actions and works with others to enhance our performance and reputation.
• Takes ownership for problems and finds solutions.
• Constantly searches for opportunities to add value and reduce costs for the Business and Clients.  
• Continuously learns and improves from experience and shares this with others.
• Involves and leverages knowledge of others in decision making and problem solving.
• Makes decisions by evaluating options and uses commercial and market awareness to make appropriate recommendations.
• Effective use of own time and commits to realistic deadlines.

We are committed to equality of opportunity for all staff and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships. Please note any offer of employment is subject to satisfactory pre-employment screening checks.