Senior Accountant

Senior Accountant

Location: Newport Beach, CA

As a Senior Accountant within the Enterprise Reconciliation Center of Excellence (COE), you will perform complex operational accounting activities supporting policyholder transactions, with an initial focus on the Annuities division while maintaining the flexibility to support multiple business lines as organizational needs evolve. This role is responsible for preparing, analyzing, and reconciling policyholder receipts and disbursements in suspense, cash, and other transitory accounts to ensure the completeness, accuracy, and integrity of financial reporting. The Senior Accountant researches and resolves complex accounting and operational issues, identifies root causes of reconciling items, and partners with Accounting, Operations, Treasury, Tax, and Technology teams to drive timely resolution. This position plays a key role in maintaining strong financial controls, improving accounting processes, and supporting the execution of strategic initiatives and system enhancements. As a senior member of the team, this role serves as a subject matter expert for operational accounting processes, providing guidance on complex accounting matters, supporting process improvements, and contributing to projects that enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Accounting Operations organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Prepare, analyze, and review complex policyholder receipt and disbursements suspense accounts and cash activity, tax withholding accounts, and other operational accounting reconciliations.
• Perform daily monitoring of transactional activity and reconciliations within ARCS (Oracle reconciliation tool).
• Investigate and resolve reconciling items resulting from operational, system, or process exceptions through partnership with Operations teams within the operating Divisions.
• Monitor account activity to identify trends, unusual transactions, and aging items requiring resolution and escalation.
• Ensure reconciliations and supporting documentation are completed accurately and within established service level expectations and defined performance metrics.
• Perform balance sheet reconciliations and support month-end and quarter-end close activities.

Analysis, Process Improvement & Business Partnership:

• Analyze operational accounting processes to identify opportunities for improved efficiency, automation, and stronger financial controls.
• Partner with Operations, Treasury, Tax, EFS, and other Accounting teams to resolve upstream and downstream process issues.
• Communicate complex accounting workflows and operational impacts to business partners.
• Recommend and implement process improvements that enhance accuracy and reduce operational risk.

Controls, Governance & Documentation:

• Support and maintain effective internal controls, including ICFR compliance.
• Develop and maintain process documentation, reconciliation procedures, and standard operating practices.
• Ensure accounting activities comply with company policies and accounting standards.
• Support internal and external audit requests.

Subject Matter Expertise & Project Support:

• Serve as a subject matter expert for operational accounting processes within supported business lines.
• Provide guidance and knowledge sharing to team members on complex accounting issues.
• Participate in strategic initiatives, system implementations, user acceptance testing (UAT), and process enhancement efforts.
• Support new product implementations and operational readiness activities from an accounting perspective.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 8+ years of progressive accounting or finance experience with operational accounting, reconciliations, or financial reporting.
• Strong understanding of general ledger accounting, balance sheet reconciliations, financial controls, and accounting operations.
• Demonstrated ability to research and resolve complex accounting issues.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to prioritize multiple responsibilities while meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively across cross-functional teams.
• Experience documenting processes and implementing operational improvements.