Workday Financials Specialist - New York, NY

Workday Financials Specialist

Overview

The Workday Financials Specialist serves as a subject matter expert (SME) responsible for the configuration, implementation, enhancement, support, and optimization of the Workday Financial Management platform. This role partners closely with Finance, Accounting, Budgeting, IT, and business stakeholders to improve financial processes, maintain system integrity, and deliver scalable solutions that support organizational objectives.

The Specialist will lead or participate in the initial Workday Financials build, business process redesign initiatives, system integrations, reporting and analytics development, testing efforts, and ongoing application support. The ideal candidate combines strong functional financial knowledge with Workday expertise and a consultative approach to solving business challenges.

Key Responsibilities

Workday Financials Administration and Configuration

• Serve as subject matter expert in key Workday Financial Management modules, including:
• General Ledger
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Expenses
• Banking and Cash Management
• Assets
• Grants and Projects
• Budgeting and Forecasting
• Lead Workday Financial Management initial implementation, system delivery, future enhancements, and optimization initiatives.
• Facilitate requirements gathering sessions, process workshops, and stakeholder interviews to configure business processes, security roles, validations, workflows, and approvals.
• Evaluate trade-offs between out-of-the-box Workday functionality, configuration workarounds, and process changes to make clear recommendations to stakeholders.
• Support end-to-end project activities, including planning, design, build, testing, deployment, and post-production stabilization.
• Collaborate with consultants and develop strong working relationships with organizational leaders at multiple levels to ensure successful delivery.
• Design and maintain Workday reports, dashboards, scorecards, and calculated fields.
• Ensure data governance standards and reporting accuracy are maintained.
• Support data conversion, reconciliations, and system interfaces during implementations and upgrades.

Training and Stakeholder Engagement

• Assess stakeholder readiness and perform change impact analysis to identify risks
• Develop user guides, training materials, and process documentation.
• Conduct end-user and administrator training sessions.
• Communicate system changes, enhancement opportunities, and project updates to stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Information Systems, Business Administration, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience supporting finance systems, ERP platforms, or enterprise financial applications.
• 3+ years of hands-on Workday Financials experience.
• Experience participating in at least one full lifecycle Workday Financials implementation.
• Strong knowledge of financial management processes, including:
• Record-to-Report
• Procure-to-Pay
• Budgeting and Financial Planning
• Experience gathering business requirements, configuring solutions, testing, and supporting production environments.
• Adept at learning stakeholder processes, creating internal partnerships, fostering collaboration and recommending process improvement strategies.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and work effectively with cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Workday Financials Certification(s).
• Experience with Workday reporting, EIBs, integrations, and security administration.
• Direct experience in Not for Profit, Public Sector or Higher Education is highly preferred, with a strong understanding of fund accounting, compliance, and reporting requirements
• Experience with Infor Lawson or Blackbaud Financial Edge