Position: Financial Consultant

Location: Chennai/Puttur, AP - Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

Shift: 8.00AM - 5.00PM PST (US Pacific Time)

Job Summary: We are looking for an experienced Financial Consultant with strong Accounts Payable (AP), dispute management, reconciliation, and accounting process knowledge.

The ideal candidate should have experience working in a high-volume, fast-paced, and demanding finance environment, managing multiple priorities while coordinating with internal stakeholders across Finance, Procurement, Operations, Sales, Business Units, and other departments.

The candidate must understand the end-to-end accounting lifecycle, including upstream and downstream processes, and be capable of identifying the financial and operational impact of AP transactions, disputes, reconciliations, and process gaps.

Key Responsibilities:

Accounts Payable:

• Manage and oversee high-volume Accounts Payable transactions with strong focus on accuracy, timeliness, and compliance.

• Review invoices, purchase orders, receipts, payment terms, and supporting documentation.

• Handle 3-way matching between Purchase Orders, Goods/Service Receipts, and Invoices.

• Investigate invoice exceptions, blocked invoices, duplicate invoices, pricing discrepancies, and payment issues.

• Monitor AP aging, outstanding invoices, and payment-related exceptions.

• Ensure timely resolution of invoices to meet agreed SLA and payment timelines.

• Identify recurring AP issues and recommend process improvements.

Dispute Management:

• Own and manage invoice and payment-related disputes from identification through resolution.

• Investigate discrepancies involving pricing, quantity, tax, purchase orders, contracts, receipts, credits, and payments.

• Coordinate with Procurement, Vendors, Business Units, Receiving, Finance, and other stakeholders to resolve disputes.

• Maintain dispute trackers, aging, root causes, ownership, and resolution status.

• Escalate critical or long-pending disputes appropriately.

• Identify trends and recurring dispute drivers and recommend corrective actions.

Reconciliation:

• Perform regular account and transaction reconciliations.

• Reconcile vendor statements, AP sub-ledger, general ledger, payments, credits, and outstanding balances.

• Investigate and resolve reconciliation differences and aged open items.

• Support month-end and year-end close activities.

• Ensure accurate accounting records and timely closure of outstanding items.

• Coordinate with General Accounting and other Finance teams to resolve reconciliation issues.

Upstream & Downstream Accounting Process:

• Understand how AP transactions originate and flow through the broader accounting process.

• Understand upstream processes such as:

• Procurement

• Purchase Requisitions

• Purchase Orders

• Vendor Management

• Goods/Service Receipts

• Contracts

• Understand downstream processes such as:

• Accounts Payable

• Payments

• General Ledger

• Accruals

• Reconciliations

• Month-End Close

• Financial Reporting

• Identify how upstream process gaps can create downstream accounting issues.

• Work cross-functionally to resolve issues at the root cause rather than only correcting individual transactions.

Stakeholder Management:

• Work closely with multiple internal stakeholders and departments to resolve financial issues.

• Coordinate with Procurement, Finance, Accounting, Operations, Business Units, Treasury, Vendor Management, and other teams.

• Handle challenging conversations and conflicting priorities professionally.

• Drive issues to closure while maintaining strong stakeholder relationships.

• Provide regular status updates on critical, aged, and high-value issues.

Required Skills:

• Strong experience in Accounts Payable and accounting operations.

• Hands-on experience managing high-volume financial transactions.

• Strong experience in dispute management and issue resolution.

• Strong reconciliation and account analysis skills.

• Good understanding of Procure-to-Pay (P2P) and end-to-end accounting processes.

• Understanding of upstream and downstream dependencies within Finance and Accounting.

• Experience with invoice processing, 2-way/3-way matching, payment processing, vendor statements, and AP aging.

• Strong knowledge of month-end close and financial reconciliation.

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Strong Excel skills, including Pivot Tables, lookups, filtering, and data analysis.

• Experience working with ERP systems such as Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics 365, or similar.

• High-Pressure / High-Volume Environment

• Comfortable working in a high-volume and deadline-driven environment.

• Ability to handle multiple urgent issues simultaneously without compromising accuracy.

• Capable of working under pressure during month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close.

• Strong prioritization and time-management skills.

• Ability to remain calm and solution-oriented when dealing with escalations and difficult stakeholders.

• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to drive issues through to resolution.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Commerce, Business Administration, or a related discipline.

• Professional qualifications such as CA, CMA, ACCA, CPA, or equivalent are an advantage.

• Experience with Oracle Fusion Financials, SAP FI, NetSuite, or other major ERP platforms.

• Experience with shared services, Global Business Services (GBS), or large-scale Finance Operations environments.

• Experience with AP automation and workflow tools is a plus.

• Knowledge of internal controls, audit requirements, and SOX controls is desirable.