Financial Control

Financial Control

Reviewed the entire London and New York balance sheets and established weekly monitoring around the associated event drivers in Operations, Financial and Product Control.

Resolved a major problem in the last week of a year end close. Failure would have meant posting of a provision of between $10-20m.

Developed comprehensive Accounting Manuals for the Equities, Fixed Income and Treasury products.

Interim managed the Management Accounting function in Zurich for a Swiss bank.

Comprehensive review of the Account Ownership process and associated controls to establish gaps against best practice. Assisted in the resolution of the risks identified including inter entity issues, invoice processing, payroll, Credit Portfolios and Equities accounting.

Implemented an Account Ownership system covering over 130 legal entities and 50,000 balance sheet accounts. Developed reporting of balance level statistics for monthly management review. Conducted complete General Ledger accounts review across several European locations, including Moscow, Athens, Madrid and Amsterdam.

Conducted a Quality Assurance Review of all general ledger accounts and associated reconciliations performed within an organisation. Defined criteria to help measure the effectiveness of each reconciliation and to establish and develop a minimum standard across the firm.

Developed and delivered a training presentation to increase awareness across the organisation of General Ledger Account Ownership responsibilities and requirements.

Produced complete documentation and audit trail of post balance sheet events up to 6 months after the year end date. This managed a significant exposure to the satisfaction of both the German regulators and auditors.

Developed an expense management system to ensure internal and regulatory compliance. This featured extensive analysis and management reporting functions.

Successfully assisted in various month / year end close processes

Developed an activity based costing model for charging transactions costs back to the businesses supported. This provided the framework for benchmarking performance over time.

Participated in an extensive organisation wide review (market risk, credit risk, financial control, product control and operations) of the booking of over the counter derivative transactions to ensure that they had all been booked and with the right attributes. This extended to give comfort that the appropriate risk reporting and management processes were in place.

Reviewed withholding tax accounts to ensure their correct treatment vis a vis profit & loss and balance sheet. Also ensured that the appropriate amounts were segregated in accordance with the law / regulatory requirements.