Accounting Specialist

Job description

Work Your Magic with us! Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us. Your role As an Accounting Specialist , you will drive operational excellence and financial integrity for assigned entities across Asset Accounting, Intercompany Accounting, Bank Processing, and Cash Application . Moving beyond routine execution, you will own complex accounting and operational activities, coordinate Month-End Close (MEC) deliverables, ensure strict compliance with local and Group policies, and serve as a key business partner to local entity finance teams, Treasury, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, I2C and Group Accounting. You will act as a process expert for complex exceptions and reconciliations, support process improvements and automation, and provide guidance and technical support to junior accountants. Key responsibilities Asset Accounting Execute and review the end-to-end accounting lifecycle for fixed assets, including additions, capitalization, transfers, disposals, retirements, depreciation and asset-under-construction activity. Review asset transactions and supporting documentation to confirm the correct asset class, useful life, depreciation start date, cost center and other required master data. Monitor asset-under-construction balances and coordinate with project owners and entity finance teams to support timely capitalization or resolution of aged items. Perform and review fixed-asset subledger-to-GL reconciliations and investigate interface failures, posting errors, depreciation variances and retirement discrepancies. Support asset verification, impairment assessments, statutory reporting and audit requests within the assigned scope. Maintain the accuracy and completeness of fixed-asset records and ensure all changes are appropriately approved and documented. Intercompany accounting Process, review and reconcile intercompany transactions and balances for assigned entities, ensuring accurate partner, account, currency and tax-related assignments. Investigate and resolve intercompany mismatches, timing differences, missing transactions, incorrect postings, exchange-rate differences and unreconciled balances. Coordinate with counterpart entities, Group Accounting, Tax and relevant process teams to resolve aged items within agreed timelines. Support intercompany confirmations, settlement and netting activities, ensuring balances are complete, properly supported and ready for close. Review intercompany charges and related documentation for compliance with Group policies and approved accounting treatment. Monitor intercompany deadlines and provide status updates and escalation of unresolved items that could affect reporting or close completion. Bank processing Process and review bank statements and related cash transactions, including statement loading, transaction coding, posting and exception handling. Perform bank reconciliations and investigate unmatched, unusual or incorrectly posted bank transactions. Coordinate with Treasury, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and local entity finance teams to clear aged reconciling items and resolve bank-processing exceptions. Ensure bank activity is recorded completely, accurately and in the correct accounting period to support reliable cash reporting and cash visibility. Monitor bank interfaces, rejected transactions, duplicate postings and other system or process exceptions, escalating recurring issues and control risks. Ensure activities within scope follow approved procedures, segregation-of-duties requirements and applicable internal controls. Cash application Process and review the application of customer receipts to open accounts receivable items using remittance information and approved matching rules. Investigate and resolve unapplied, unidentified, partially applied and misapplied cash in coordination with I2C, Collections, customers, sales teams and local finance. Ensure customer accounts are updated accurately and promptly, minimizing aged unapplied cash and reducing the risk of inaccurate customer balances. Review cash application exceptions, prioritize time-sensitive items and escalate issues that could affect collections, customer service, credit exposure or financial reporting. Monitor cash application queues, matching performance and service-level compliance, identifying recurring root causes and improvement opportunities. Support period-end cash application cutoffs, reconciliations and reporting requirements. Complex accounting and master data governance Prepare, review and post complex or sensitive journal entries and adjustments related to assets, intercompany, bank processing and cash application in accordance with approved policies and controls. Oversee the reconciliation of critical and high-risk accounts, ensuring open items have clear ownership, documented actions and target resolution dates. Investigate accounting discrepancies and distinguish one-time corrections from recurring process or system issues requiring remediation. Support the accuracy and integrity of relevant master data, including fixed-asset records, intercompany partner assignments, bank transaction mappings, customer account information and matching attributes. Ensure master data changes follow established approval, documentation and governance requirements. Audit, compliance and risk management Serve as a key contact for internal and external audit requests within the assigned processes, working with ABPs and relevant stakeholders to prepare audit schedules, supporting evidence and explanations. Resolve audit queries and provide clear documentation for transactions, reconciliations, approvals, exceptions and corrective actions. Ensure processes comply with internal controls, ICFR requirements, Group accounting policies and applicable local statutory regulations. Identify and communicate operational, accounting and control risks promptly, supporting remediation through to completion. Maintain accurate and readily retrievable process documentation and control evidence. Process optimization and technology driving Identify, design and implement improvements across Asset Accounting, Intercompany, Bank Processing and Cash Application to increase accuracy, reduce manual effort and shorten MEC cycle times. Use root-cause analysis and operational data to reduce reconciliation breaks, unmatched transactions, aged open items, bank exceptions and unapplied cash. Support automation, standardization and workflow simplification using VBA or other approved automation tools. Participate in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for ERP upgrades, migrations, bank interfaces, workflow changes and related system implementations. Track, analyze and report operational metrics and KPIs, such as reconciliation completion, aged open items, intercompany match rates, bank-processing exceptions and unapplied cash levels. Stakeholder management and escalation resolution Build strong, consultative partnerships with local entity CFOs and Finance Directors, ABPs, Group Accounting, Treasury, I2C, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Tax and Master Data teams. Communicate issues, financial impacts, dependencies, risks and required actions clearly to finance and non-finance stakeholders. Ensure effective end-to-end process alignment, from transaction initiation and master data through subledger processing, reconciliation, settlement and General Ledger reporting. Who you are Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting or a related field required and/or CPA accreditation preferred. At least 3 years of relevant experience in Ge