Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Licensed CPA with over 15 years' experience in a variety of accounting and reporting roles, as well as both internal and external audit. Proven team leader who has effectively managed and motivated staff to complete monthly close process and other workload within stated deadlines in an accurate, timely, and efficient manner. Key strengths include: strong work ethic, ability to build interpersonal and collaborative relationships across functional teams, success in recruiting, training, and mentoring staff, ability to manage and implement process improvement initiatives, and strong analytical and technical skill set. Areas of expertise include: - Month-End Close Process - Account Reconciliations - Manage Internal/External Audits - JD Edwards, SAP, Baan, Oracle - General Ledger Modules - Financial Statement Analysis - Process Improvements - Supervisory Skills - T&E Administration
Supervise a team of three accountants. Streamlined revenue team month-end close process by discontinuing certain entries and shifting timing of other entries to pre-close, resulting in one full day reduction in close. Led drive to clean up many of the team's balance sheet account reconciliations, including investigation and clearing of unreconciled differences and overhaul of legacy reconciliation processes to improve quality. Initiated and executed an account rationalization effort, resulting in the clearing and deactivation of several of the team's balance sheet accounts.
Devised and executed an intiative to improve and ensure accuracy of roughly 60 inventory-related account balances, and to rationalize the use of each account, resulting in the clearing and deactivation of 12 of these accounts. Developed new processes for ensuring the accuracy of several account balances on a monthly basis as part of this initiative. Was recognized by Finance Department senior management for achievements in restoring integrity to inventory balance sheet accounts. (Hired full-time by Office Depot in November 2016 after intially joining accounting team as a contractor.)
Produced detailed financial analysis of all variances on actual financial results in comparison with forecast and budget expectations; prepared monthly financial reporting on overall results and key metrics for operations review with L&D leadership team to facilitate identification of action items, coordinated annual budget and monthly forecast processes.
Managed a team of seven accountants (four direct reports), managed the month-end close process, ensured balance sheet accounts were properly reconciled on a monthly basis, and supported businesses throughout the month by providing requested data to assist with forecasting and budgeting and assisting those with budgetary responsibility to better understand charges affecting their cost centers. • Successfully coordinated transition of all general accounting activities at Scott Safety to newly formed accounting shared service organization in Boca Raton in 2011. • Original scope of role was to manage teams supporting two businesses. With subsequent acquisitions, responsibilities grew to include supporting and managing the accounting for four businesses on four different ERP systems (total combined annual revenues of about $800 million). • Made improvements to account reconciliations to get them in conformance with company policy. For two subsequently-acquired businesses, such reconciliations were virtually non-existent or poorly documented, resulting in many having to be created from scratch and several dozen accounts having to be written off or otherwise adjusted. Number of active balance sheet accounts associated with these four businesses totaled approximately 750. • Realigned responsibilities among team members for more equitable split of account reconciliations and month-end closing responsibilities and shifted tasks to off-peak periods, resulting in one full day reduction in month-end close. • Facilitated discussions with business management after completion of month-end close, explaining monthly P&L and balance sheet fluctuations and variances from expectations to assist in identifying necessary changes to monthly forecasts.
Managed a team of three accountants, managed the month-end close process, ensured balance sheet accounts were properly reconciled on a monthly basis, and provided department heads with periodic reports to assist with monitoring monthly spend and forecasting. • Investigated and resolved issues from prior years surrounding commission payments to independent sales representatives and also worked directly with several of these representatives to repair Scott’s relationships with them. • Led a cross-functional team (IT, Sales, and Customer Service) to improve process for reporting and paying commissions to independent sales representatives. Found the company had previously paid in excess of $40K in duplicate commissions, which was subsequently recovered from the overpaid representatives. • Coordinated the implementation of Gelco expense reporting system for this facility, which included approximately 100 users. Also was full-time administrator of this system and our corporate card program for four months after implementation of Gelco, all while performing normal day-to-day responsibilities. • Improved efficiency and effectiveness of month-end financial closing process and account reconciliation preparation by setting specific deadlines for deliverables, driving the elimination of wasteful activities, and closing out unnecessary accounts. • Supervised Accounts Receivable collections team for a six-month period when the Finance department management was short-staffed. • Conducted bi-weekly meetings with the Collections team to understand the issues they were facing and to assist in resolving them. Also visited the owner of a slow-paying customer to communicate the seriousness of the issue and to work towards an amicable resolution. • Presented monthly financial results to plant and business unit senior management.