Functional Business Analyst | Finance Transformation- Ledger Implementation
Role Overview
We are seeking an experienced Manager / Senior Manager Ledger Implementation (Functional Business Analyst) to lead functional analysis and business design activities for large-scale General Ledger and Finance transformation programs.
The role will act as a key bridge between Finance, Accounting, Product, Operations, Data and Technology teams. The individual will be responsible for understanding current-state accounting and ledger processes, defining target-state requirements, translating business events into accounting and ledger requirements, supporting configuration and testing, and driving successful migration to the new ledger platform.
The ideal candidate should combine strong financial accounting and General Ledger knowledge with hands-on experience in business analysis, ledger implementation, finance transformation, accounting rules, data mapping, reconciliation, testing and migration.
Key Responsibilities
1. Functional Leadership & Business Analysis
- Lead functional workstreams for General Ledger / Enterprise Ledger implementation and transformation programs.
- Work with Finance Controllers, Accounting Policy, Product Control, Operations, Tax, Treasury and Technology stakeholders to understand functional requirements.
- Analyse current-state finance and accounting processes and define the target-state ledger operating model and processes.
- Conduct workshops to capture and validate business, accounting, data and reporting requirements.
- Translate business requirements into:
- Business Requirement Documents (BRDs)
- Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS)
- User stories and acceptance criteria
- Business process flows
- Accounting requirement documents
- Data mapping and transformation requirements
- Identify functional gaps between business requirements and ledger/platform capabilities and define appropriate business solutions.
2. Accounting & Ledger Design
- Understand end-to-end transaction flows from source systems / sub-ledgers through accounting engines and General Ledger to financial reporting.
- Analyse business events and define the corresponding:
- Accounting treatment
- Debit / credit entries
- Accounting rules
- Posting logic
- Chart of Accounts mapping
- Ledger dimensions and attributes
- Support design of Chart of Accounts (CoA) structures and mapping of legacy accounts to the target CoA.
- Define requirements for:
- Legal entity and branch accounting
- Multi-GAAP / multiple accounting views where applicable
- Multi-currency accounting
- Intercompany / inter-entity accounting
- Accruals and adjustments
- Period-end processing
- Revaluation / translation
- Journal processing
- Balance carry-forward and opening balances
- Work with Accounting Policy and Finance teams to ensure target ledger design appropriately supports financial reporting requirements.
3. Source-to-Ledger & Data Mapping
- Analyse upstream systems and understand how transactions and accounting information flow into the ledger.
- Define source-to-target mappings covering accounts, entities, products, currencies, cost centres, business units and other accounting dimensions.
- Define transformation, enrichment and validation rules required before data is posted into the ledger.
- Work closely with Data and Technology teams to define interface and integration requirements.
- Support identification and resolution of data-quality issues impacting accounting and financial reporting.
4. Reconciliation & Financial Control
- Define appropriate reconciliation requirements across:
Source System Sub-ledger Accounting Engine General Ledger Financial Reporting
- Define control requirements for completeness, accuracy and integrity of accounting data.
- Support development of control frameworks around:
- Posting completeness
- Suspense accounts
- Unbalanced entries
- Duplicate postings
- Failed transactions
- Manual journals
- Account reconciliation
- Work with Finance teams to analyse and resolve accounting breaks during implementation and testing.
5. Testing & Validation
- Own or support the functional testing strategy for ledger implementation.
- Define business scenarios and accounting test cases covering:
- Normal transactions
- Exceptions
- Period-end scenarios
- Adjustments
- Reversals
- Foreign currency transactions
- Intercompany transactions
- Complex accounting events
- Support System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), regression testing and parallel-run validation.
- Validate accounting entries generated by the target solution against approved accounting requirements.
- Perform balance, transaction and financial-reporting reconciliation between legacy and target platforms.
- Lead defect triage from a Finance / functional perspective and work with Technology teams to drive resolution.
6. Data Migration & Cutover
- Support the development of the finance and ledger migration strategy.
- Define requirements for migration of:
- Opening balances
- Historical balances
- Chart of Accounts
- Master/reference data
- Open items, where applicable
- Establish business validation criteria for migrated financial data.
- Support mock migrations, dress rehearsals and cutover activities.
- Review reconciliation results between legacy and target ledgers and facilitate Finance sign-off.
- Support go-live readiness assessments and post-go-live stabilization.
7. Stakeholder & Program Management
At Manager / Senior Manager level, this should be a major component of the role.
- Act as the primary functional interface between Finance and Technology for assigned ledger workstreams.
- Facilitate workshops with senior stakeholders across Finance, Controllership, Accounting Policy, Operations, Data and Technology.
- Challenge requirements and identify opportunities for process standardisation and simplification, rather than replicating legacy processes in the new platform.
- Manage functional dependencies across upstream systems, accounting engines, General Ledger, reconciliation and financial reporting.
- Identify functional risks, design issues and implementation dependencies and drive them to resolution.
- Support program governance through status reporting, RAID management, design decisions and stakeholder updates.
- Mentor Business Analysts and functional SMEs within the ledger implementation team.
Required Experience
Manager
Typically 8 12 years of relevant experience, with meaningful experience in Finance / Ledger transformation or implementation.
Senior Manager
Typically 12+ years of relevant experience, including leadership of Finance, General Ledger or financial systems transformation workstreams.
The ranges above are suggested hiring criteria and can be adjusted to your organisation's grade structure.
Candidates should demonstrate experience in several of the following:
- General Ledger implementation / transformation
- Finance transformation
- Record-to-Report / R2R
- Financial Accounting
- Chart of Accounts transformation
- Accounting rules / accounting engines
- Source-to-ledger integration
- Sub-ledger to General Ledger integration
- Financial data migration
- Ledger reconciliation
- Financial controls
- Regulatory / statutory financial reporting
- Finance systems implementation
- UAT / parallel run / financial reconciliation
- Banking or broader financial-services accounting
Functional Knowledge
Strong understanding of:
- Double-entry accounting
- General Ledger architecture and processes
- Chart of Accounts
- Journal lifecycle
- Accounting event processing
- Sub-ledgers
- Trial Balance
- Balance Sheet and P&L
- Accruals and adjustments
- Period-end / month-end close
- Intercompany accounting
- Foreign currency accounting
- Reconciliations
- Financial controls
- Financial and management reporting
For banking implementations, exposure to accounting flows relating to loans, deposits, securities, derivatives, payments, fees, interest and treasury products would be highly valuable.
Business Analysis Skills
The candidate should have demonstrable experience in:
- Current-state / target-state analysis
- Requirement elicitation
- BRD / FRS preparation
- User stories and acceptance criteria
- Process mapping
- Gap analysis
- Functional solution design
- Data mapping
- Accounting mapping
- Workshop facilitation
- Test scenario and test-case preparation
- Defect analysis and triage
- Functional validation
- UAT management
- Business readiness and cutover
Technology / Platform Exposure
Experience with one or more enterprise Finance / Ledger platforms would be advantageous, for example:
- Oracle Financials / Oracle Fusion
- SAP S/4HANA Finance
- SAP General Ledger
- PeopleSoft Financials
- Finastra / Temenos or comparable core-banking platforms where integrated with Finance
- Enterprise accounting engines / sub-ledgers
- Reconciliation platforms
Working knowledge of SQL, Excel, data analysis and data-mapping techniques would be beneficial. Technical development experience should not be mandatory, as this is primarily a functional role.
Education & Professional Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Finance, Accounting, Commerce, Business, Economics, Information Systems or a related discipline.
- Professional accounting qualifications such as CA, CPA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent would be preferred, particularly for candidates leading accounting design.
- Business Analysis / Agile certifications may be advantageous but are not essential.
Key Competencies
The successful candidate should demonstrate:
- Strong accounting and ledger domain knowledge
- Ability to translate complex finance requirements into system requirements
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities
- Ability to understand both business processes and financial data
- Strong stakeholder-management and workshop-facilitation skills
- Ability to challenge existing processes and drive target-state simplification
- Ability to communicate effectively with Finance and Technology stakeholders
- Strong attention to detail, particularly around accounting entries and financial reconciliations
- Ability to lead functional teams in complex transformation programs
