Senior Analyst – Operational Accounting

Title: Senior Analyst – Operational Accounting

Location: Chicago, IL

Pay Rate: $60-75/hr

Duration: 12-Month Contract with Potential for Full-Time Conversion

Required Skills & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience in accounting, finance, or operational accounting environments
• Proficient experience with SAP S/4HANA (S4 Ledger) & BlackLine
• Strong experience with: Journal entries, Account reconciliations, Financial reporting, Invoice processing, Settlements, and Financial analysis
• Highly proficient in Excel, including large data sets, VLOOKUP, and pivot tables (macro experience not required).
• Experience working in high-volume transaction environments
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision
• Proven examples of leadership, initiative, and ownership of work
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• French language proficiency required for candidates based in Montreal

Nice to Have Skills & Experience

• Oracle experience
• Coupa experience
• Experience supporting finance transformation initiatives
• Knowledge of financial data mapping and system implementations
• Banking or financial services industry experience
• Experience working with intercompany or bank-to-bank transactions

Key Responsibilities

Month-end activities: Journal entries, analyzing breaks, month-over-month analysis, due diligence on accounting entries.

Ongoing: Reconciliation and attestation of intercompany balances across over 30 entities, creating invoices, analyzing breaks, and participating in meetings to discuss improvements.

Project work: Involved in a finance transformation project, comparing old and new reporting, mapping, and understanding legacy systems.

Job Description

Our client is seeking two Senior Analysts to join their Operational Accounting team supporting a large-scale financial operations environment. These positions are data-intensive, focusing on journal entries, reconciliations, invoicing, settlements, and reporting on high-volume internal transactions.

The team is responsible for managing accounting activities related to transactions occurring between financial institutions, focusing on high-volume operational accounting processes rather than individual customer transactions. The environment is highly collaborative, with core team members based in Toronto, Montreal, and Chicago.

The Senior Analyst will play a key role in the monthly accounting cycle, performing journal entries, reconciliations, invoicing, settlements, and financial reporting activities. This individual will work with large volumes of financial data, analyze account balances, investigate discrepancies, and partner with internal stakeholders to ensure the accuracy of financial records.

During the first five business days of each month, the role will focus heavily on journal entry preparation and month-end accounting activities. Throughout the remainder of the month, responsibilities shift toward account reconciliations, balance attestations, invoice creation through Coupa, counterparty analysis, and identifying opportunities for process improvement within the accounting function.

The team is currently leveraging new reporting capabilities tied to an SAP S/4HANA ledger environment and is actively involved in finance transformation initiatives. As a result, candidates with experience supporting system enhancements, data mapping exercises, financial reporting tools, or process optimization efforts will be highly valued.

The ideal candidate is a self-starter who can operate independently, demonstrate strong analytical capabilities, and provide examples of leadership and initiative in previous roles. The hiring manager is particularly interested in candidates who can clearly articulate how they have added value, improved processes, or taken ownership of key responsibilities in prior positions.