Schellman is a Top 50 CPA firm and a leading provider of attestation and compliance services. Our professional services focus on security and privacy audits, assessments, and certifications.  Schellman has become one of the largest cybersecurity assessment firms in the United States without providing any traditional accounting services.  We are an accredited multi-framework ISO Certification Body for security, privacy, business continuity, and quality; a globally licensed PCI Qualified Security Assessor and a top provider to clients serving the federal DoD space as a leading FedRAMP 3PAO and the first assessment firm authorized as a CMMC C3PAO. Our specialty and expertise remain in providing best in class Cybersecurity and IT Audits and Attestations. Our culture, approach with clients, and dedication to our values has led us to consistently be a Great Places to Work certified company and rated as a Best Firms to Work For by Accounting Today and a Glassdoor Best Places to Work. We deeply appreciate our employees, as shown by our first core value – People Come First. This is demonstrated in our culture, benefits, and how we handle business. Come see what makes Schellman special!

JOB SUMMARY

This is a Remote based role, but candidate is required to be located in the US Central Time Zone or Eastern Time Zone.

This role serves as the functional lead for shared services accounting operations, with responsibility spanning accounts receivable (including billing, collections, and cash applications), accounts payable, travel & expenses, cash management, and tax and regulatory compliance. The role also provides functional coordination for the team of professionals performing this work, supports internal and external audit requests related to these areas, drives process improvement initiatives across all functions, and leads any other projects as assigned.

The ideal candidate possesses strong leadership and coordination capabilities, a solid operational and technical accounting background, and a demonstrated ability to identify and implement process improvements. This person is a self-starter, flexible, has a high level of integrity, and is action and goal-oriented in a dynamic, collaborative environment.  This position provides functional oversight and support to all departments within the Company. The Lead is expected to be hands-on across all functional areas while also coordinating the work of the team, driving continuous improvement, and supporting audit and project needs as they arise.

The Interim Shared Services Accounting Lead must be prepared to perform hands-on, detailed work across all functional areas to ensure deadlines are met.  This role serves as the day-to-day point of contact and functional coordinator for a team of 4 shared services accounting professionals, providing technical accounting and process guidance, answering escalated questions, and ensuring work is appropriately prioritized and completed.   This position reports to the Vice President, Corporate Controller.

Essential Functions:

• Oversee daily billing activity; review and approve invoices prior to posting and delivery to customers. Resolves highly complex and sensitive service-related billing issues.
• Work cross-functionally to review customer contracts and ensure proper billing set-up adhering to underlying system requirements and policy standards
• Direct and monitor all aspects of customer collections, ensuring timely follow-up and resolution
• Review and oversee customer payment processing and accurate application to customer accounts
• Review and approve customer refund processing, with proper support and agreements attached
• Review and approve bad debt write offs, in accordance with policy
• Perform quality assurance activities to review the accuracy of customer invoices 
• Resolve issues arising from actions or events involving administrative functions
• Oversee accounts payable activity; review and approve supplier invoices, ensure proper coding, approvals routing, and maintenance of supplier records
• Oversee T&E activity; review and approve submissions for proper coding and policy compliance
• Oversee cash activity; review and approve transactions to ensure proper coding and accuracy
• Oversee tax and regulatory notice activity; ensure all items are tracked, filed, and resolved in a timely manner, including escalations to outsourced tax advisory team.
• Lead and coordinate month-end close procedures; review and approve journal entries and account reconciliations submitted by team members, ensuring all deadlines are met and books are closed on time  
• Responds to all forms of inquiries from internal and external stakeholders pertaining to the job function
• Facilitate day-to-day workflow coordination for a team of 4 shared services accounting professionals, serving as the primary point of escalation for operational questions and issues.
• Conduct weekly standing team meetings and individual check-ins (1:1s) to review workload, track progress, address questions, and ensure tasks are on track and priorities are aligned
• Monitor team availability to proactively plan workload distribution and coordinate coverage, ensuring uninterrupted operations during planned absences
• Identify and escalate any performance or conduct concerns to the VP, Corporate Controller in a timely manner; this role does not conduct formal performance evaluations
• As needed, conduct process improvement measures on ad-hoc or case-by-case basis if obstacles or issues are encountered. Share process optimizations and error-elimination improvements with the VP, Corporate Controller.
• Coordinate and respond to internal and external audit requests related to accounts receivable, billing, collections, cash applications, accounts payable, T&E, cash, and tax and regulatory areas; gather and organize supporting documentation and liaise with auditors as needed.
• Support ad hoc projects and initiatives as assigned by the VP, Corporate Controller

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Intermediate knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles
• Meets all team and individual deadlines and responsibilities, listens to others and values options, helps meet goals and promotes a team atmosphere 
• Maintains extreme confidentiality, both internally and externally, with all matters
• Judgment to plan, prioritize and accomplish goals. Ability to think ahead and be proactive. Able to manage multiple concurrent projects.
• Meets commitments, works independently, accepts accountability, handles change, sets personal standards and stays focused under pressure
• Communicates effectively both verbally and in writing, creates accurate and punctual reports, delivers presentations, shares information and ideas with others, has good listening skills
• Tackles problems and takes independent action, seeks out new responsibilities, acts on opportunities, generates new ideas, practices self-development
• Deals with others in a straightforward and honest manner, is accountable for actions, supports Company values, and conveys good news and bad
• Ability to adapt approach to the situation, work through conflicts, gain trust and persuasively influence outcomes  
• Ability to problem solve, take ownership of workstream tasks, and deliver results
• Seeks to understand problems thoroughly before implementing solutions. Asks questions to clarify requirements when ambiguities are present.
• Adapts to new environments and changing requirements. Pivots quickly as needed. When coached, responds to need & seeks info from other sources.
• Shows commitment and dedication to shrink learning curve
• Demonstrated ability to identify inefficiencies and implement process improvements and automation; able to document workflows, evaluate controls, leverage technology to reduce manual effort, and drive sustainable change across accounting operations
• Experience supporting internal and/or external audit processes; familiar with audit request management, documentation standards, and working effectively with auditors
• Ability to work additional hours as needed during peak periods such as month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close, and to support audits

Education, Work Experience, and Certifications

• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, business management, or other relevant subject areas, OR equivalent years of experience directly related to the duties and responsibilities specified
• 5+ years of progressive accounting leadership experience required, including demonstrated experience coordinating or overseeing a shared services accounting team
• Experience with process improvement and automation initiatives in a shared services or accounting environment strongly preferred; formal methodology (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma) strongly preferred
• Experience supporting audit requests across AR, AP, T&E, cash, and/or tax and regulatory areas preferred
• Advanced MS Excel skills required
• Workday Financials experience strongly preferred
• Experience with billing portals, such as Ariba, Coupa, etc., preferred
• Experience with a professional services organization a plus
• Experience with private equity backed organization a plus
• Experience with a middle market organization preferred

Equipment:

• Must have access to a laptop and internet; laptop equipment may be available for qualified candidates with IT approval.
• Must be able to participate in virtual meetings with audio and video capability; accommodations available upon request.
• Comfortable working with dual monitors; experience with a dual monitor setup preferred. Equipment can be provided for qualified candidates.

Schellman is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) and strongly supports diversity in the workplace; therefore, providing equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other legally protected basis, including arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable law. Schellman uses E-Verify in our hiring process.
 

At Schellman, we strive to provide a flexible and balanced environment and therefore offer the opportunity to work remotely, unless otherwise stated in the job requirements. Connecting, collaborating and continuous education are also highly valued and therefore we require some travel annually for our Internal Service Delivery roles, which can include in-person training, team meet-ups, and strategy meetings. Service Delivery team members will also be required to travel based on business and client needs.