Intercompany Accountant (F/M)

Job description

Context

The Finance function within Group Operations is undergoing a profound transformation linked to AXA Group transformation and more specifically related to:

· The legal merge simplification: former AXA Technology Services and AXA Group Solutions have been merged on January 1 st , 2018 into a single legal entity “AXA Group Operations”
· The progressive transformation of the organization, moving from a regional / local one to a global, standardized and simplified organization with common tools and processes .

The Finance function manages operating expenses of around EUR 1.6 Billion within Group Operations (approximately 4,000 staff). It is composed of around ~150 people (mainly internals) across global geographies (15 countries / 16 legal entities) and organized around 3 main global functions (directly reporting to Group Operations CFO) - Controlling, Accounting and Finance Transformation.

Accounting, Tax & Treasury Department

The team is divided into 5 main activities and is composed of ~35 people located in 7 different European countries:

· Local accounting team ensures that financial statements and tax returns are drawn up in accordance with local accounting GAAP and tax rules & requirements.
European local accounting teams are based in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, UK and Belgium.
AXA GO Asia and US accounting teams report directly to regional CFOs.
· Treasury team is in charge of cash management, follow up of cash forecast and financial analysis KPIs.
· Consolidation team reports consolidated figures to AXA group on a quarterly basis under IFRS.
· Billing team is in charge of issuing invoices to customers and collecting cash.
· Operational accounting team centralizes and industrializes some key processes to harmonize and increase financial data quality.

Operational Accounting, from a project to team set-up

Operational Accounting is run on a project mode by “Finance Transformation Team” since January 2020 and will be converted into a new stream from January 2021, belonging to “Accounting, Tax & Treasury” team.

The target to industrialize some activities in order to standardize processes in the 16 legal entities, shorten closing process, improve data quality and reduce workload of the Controlling team so that they can focus on their core activities.

The deployment of “Operational Accounting” started with France (first semester 2020), is now being deployed on European scope (Second semester 2020) and will be then deployed on Asian and American scope in 2021.

Main tasks of the Operational Accounting team :

· Manage end to end process on intracompany financial flows (central team)
· Purchase to Pay (P2P) process: analyse & coordinate with countries to clean Purchase Orders
· P2P process: liaise with Operationals to foster Purchase Orders (PO) receptions in Oracle
· Order to Cash process: liaise with Operationals to foster legal contracts signatures
· Vendors & customers management
· Calculate & book manual accruals on closing period

In addition, the team must design clear written processes (inputs, task description, frequency, output, tools and controls) and ensure a proper overlap with other teams through strong collaboration with Accounting and Controlling teams in all countries.

Operational Accounting is a global team composed of:

· Central Team ( 4-5 people ): mainly based in France, their mission is to:
· Design, implement, delegate, control and coordinate
· Run key process such as intracompany
· Team under construction – The Intercompany Accountant belongs to this team.
· Offshored Team in Morocco ( 9 people ): to perform tasks for Europe + UK + Morocco.

Team built since March 2020.

· Offshored Team in India ( 2-3 people ): to perform tasks for Asia + US + Mexico.

Team under construction

JOB ACTIVITIES

The intercompany Accountant will be in charge to design and manage the end to end intracompany process.

Intracompany relates to financial flows between AXA Group Operations 16 legal entities (ex: AXA GO France sells a service to AXA GO Mexico).

Her/his role is key, she/he will work in tandem with the other intercompany Accountant , their target will be to manage the end to end intracompany process:

·
· Implement a process to centralize and coordinate intracompany Purchase Orders (PO) creation , in collaboration with:
· Financial Controlling teams in all countries, based on budget & Forecasts, to get their approval
· Back-Office team based in Morocco & India to create POs in the system (PeopleSoft).

·
· Coordinate PO receptions and invoice instructions for the 16 legal entities in collaboration with
· Back-Office team based in Morocco & India to manage PO receptions in PeopleSoft
· Billing team to create all invoices to be sent – total of almost 500 million euros per year

· Identify on a monthly basis all intracompany invoices discrepancies : booked on one side (vendor/customer) but not on the counterpart one. Then liaise with Finance local teams to clean discrepancies.

· Centralize intracompany accruals calculation (expenses and revenues) for the 16 legal entities during each closing.

· Reconcile intracompany P&L and Balance Sheets (invoices + accruals).
· Process to be defined and automated as much as possible, target is to get 0€ discrepancy.

Note : this intracompany process will be fully managed by the Central Team.

Desired profile

Qualifications :

PROFILE, SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

Business skills:

·  Excellent proficiency using Pack Office particularly Excel and Power Point
·  Excellent knowledge in accounting processes
·  Strong analytical skills, able to dive into specific details being hands on and as well to summarize using the 80/20 approach
·  Solution driven in agile mode

Transversal skills:

·  Able to work in autonomy
·  Team spirit required
·  Proactivity is necessary as processes are not mature
·  Extremely rigorous
·  Dynamic and curious
·  Able to drive and monitor projects on site as well as remotely

LANGAGES

- French

Advanced (C1-C2)

- English

Advanced (C1-C2)

NB: Being able to lead meetings in English as well as to write presentation and documentation.

REQUIRED LEVEL OF EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

Education: degree in accounting (like DCG) or Business School with specialization in Corporate Finance or accounting.

Experience: between 3 and 6 years in an accounting department in an international and multi-currency company or experience in an accouting firm or Financial Audit. You master non-insurance general accounting.