Senior Accountant (German or French speaking)

Senior Accountant (German or French speaking)

Hays are excited to be working in partnership with Bio-Rad, since 1952 Bio-Rad laboratories have been advancing scientific discovery by manufacturing and distributing a broad range of products for the life sciences, research and clinical diagnostics market.

Due to experiencing significant growth they are opening a new Shared Service Centre in Watford next to Watford Junction in January 2017.

Bio-Rad are looking for an RTR Intercompany Accountant, you will need to be fluent in German or French and will be responsible for ensuring Intercompany Transactions within the EMEA Finance Shared Services Centre (FSSC) are captured and reported accurately and timely in the company’s financial statements in accordance to US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – as well as, helping to drive standardisation and harmonisation of all Fixed Asset accounting processes for EMEA. The primary focus of this role is France and the EHQ and also Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

As an RTR Intercompany Accountant, you will maintain Intercompany accounts for entities that are covered by the EMEA Finance Shared Services Centre (FSSC) – including: 

• Updating and maintaining Intercompany accounts for US GAAP & Statutory reporting
• Timely and accurate monthly balance sheet account reconciliations as per template used by the EMEA FSSC
• Timely analysis, identification, communication and resolution of balance sheet account reconciliation issues
• Assigns transaction codes to documents
• Prepares journal entries to general ledger
• Prepares intercompany sales statements
• Prepares intercompany balance statements
• Issues AOEs (non-product cross charges)
• Assures documents being processed are included in the appropriate accounting period
• Analyses and verifies internal consistency, completeness, and arithmetic accuracy of accounting documents
• Analyses and researches and corrects issues related to accounting
• Communicates issues with errors, procedure violations and discrepancies with all levels of management
• Coordinates the activities of junior accountants

Month-end closing activities including: 

• Assists when monthly reporting to Corporate (M’s and Q’s) as per Bio-Rad policies and procedures are submitted
• Updates and maintains month-end/quarter-end/year-end closing schedules
• Performs balance sheet and income statement account analyses and actual versus budget comparisons to determine if there are missing entries or significant variances that require further investigation.
• Processes accruals during month-end close
• Assists in preparation of QVRs
• Responsible for responding to any questionnaires from corporate
• Coordinates the activities of junior accountants

Internal controls including: 

• Performs internal control reviews for assigned control objectives required by section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley
• Coordinates internal and external audit requests – before, during and after – as well as the completion of audit-required analyses.
• Answers auditing questions and resolves auditing issues.
• Ensures compliance with applicable Corporate Policies and Procedures

You will be innovative and able to think both analytically and conceptually. You will also have: 

• Fluent (both orally and in writing) in English and German and/or French is essential
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills for interacting with individual team contributors, business partners, and senior management.
• Experience and in depth knowledge in SAP is essential
• Strong knowledge of internal controls and US GAAP accounting required.
• Strong analytical and problem solving background.
• Experience in process and project management skills.
• Experience in process redesign and/or efficiency
• Bachelor’s degree in accounting or finance required
• A relevant qualification or accreditation with a professional body
• Finance SSC Experience in large multinational company with a high volume, performance driven environment
• Experience in Intercompany accounting
• Experience in Intercompany accounting for a large US Multinational company
• Experience identifying and investigating discrepancies in accounting records
• General ledger accounting experience including accountant analyses and expense analysis

Please apply now with an up to date CV.