Financial Analyst (Project Financials Advisor) - Atlanta

Job description

Join our EY internal Finance team* and you will help enable EY client serving account teams and management to run the business effectively. You’ll help to improve engagement profitability, manage enterprise wide risk and support market development activities. You will support EY planning, reporting and forecasting and analysis, or help EY people manage day-to-day activities, such as managing engagements, process and auditing time and expense or invoice processing. You’ll also work with other parts of our organization, sharing your financial experience and insights to achieve specific goals.

With so many offerings, you have the opportunity to develop your career through a broad scope of engagements, mentoring and formal learning. That’s how we develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders, and in so doing, play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities. Sound interesting? Well this is just the beginning. Because whenever you join, however long you stay, the exceptional EY experience lasts a lifetime.

Job Summary:

 

The Mercury Business Advisor Senior Associate plays a key role to advise and support our client serving engagement teams to make best use of Mercury (SAP system) and its processes in order to effectively manage their projects with EY’s external clients. This finance professional possesses end-to-end system, process and policy knowledge and provides the right advice as it is needed and teams with other functions to address the issues facing the business.

 

There are two main components to this role: providing impactful, proactive outreach to engagement teams to ensure engagement management focus and, on-demand financial advisory support to engagement teams throughout the engagement. The role is deployed based on Service Line needs within the organization and will provide support either in person or virtually in a time zone conducive environment. 

 

This role is also closely connected to a broader network of functional experts (Risk Management, Client Relationship Management, SAP Technical, etc.). Together, these groups team to share knowledge and continuously improve the support they provide to the client serving community.

 

As Mercury Business Advisor Senior Associate, you'll serve in a financial advisory and support capacity, helping senior executives with financial analysis, proposing pricing strategies, and analyzing budgets against actual figures. You'll also advise on the billing strategies for assigned clients. As well as being the main contact for client-related financial analysis and advice, you'll also help EY’s executives comply with EY finance and quality policies.

 

Through your strategic approach, and your ability to influence others, you'll provide meaningful analysis and make strong recommendations, to help executives achieve their financial goals for each client.

 

Key Responsibilities:

·  Analyzes reporting to identify root causes and consults with client serving teams on how to adjust and improve their financials
·  Provides guidance on local policy and leading practices
·  Facilitates training for client serving teams on Mercury and effective financial management practices
·  Contributes to continuous improvement by sharing knowledge and providing support to other team members across borders, service lines, and industries and constantly leverage leading practices
·  Makes relevant decisions to ensure client servers receive a timely and accurate response such that questions / issues are resolved quickly and effectively.
·  Manages new-user lack of knowledge / frustration and directs the interaction to the best outcome for the end-user, leveraging strong soft skill abilities and global mindset to adapt personal style where needed
·  When analyzing reporting, leverages system and finance expertise to prepare for the outreach: making judgments regarding the topics to address and their prioritization - understanding when to reach out to other functional experts in order to help prepare for the interaction. 
·  Prioritizes follow up activities and schedules engagement team meetings to spend time: 
·  Reviewing pricing plans
·  Advising on service line GDS leverage targets
·  Screen sharing to show teams how to add a rate card to the price plan
·  Ensuring engagement teams are properly prepared for client negotiations from a financial perspective
·  Advising on how to select the correct client entity for opportunities
·  Explaining downstream impacts of different user choices required by Mercury
·  Providing instruction and guidance on estimate to complete (ETC) processes and corresponding financial impacts
·  Ensuring teams work to meet various targets by advising on timely and effective billing strategies

To qualify, candidates must have:

·  Strong knowledge of financial metrics and dependencies including ability to calculate variances quickly and accurately
·  Fluent and effective communication style in English
·  Strong ability to learn quickly and share knowledge
·  Excellent listening skills to provide focused advice, combined with the ability to apply judgment and seek guidance when escalation to a functional expert is appropriate
·  Strong understanding of the client server perspective and the ability to view issues through their lens
·  Logical approach to problem solving such that the end-solution is delivered to the customer’s satisfaction
·  Professional approach, demonstrating tact and diplomacy
·  Ability to prioritize workload and deliver outputs within strict deadlines
·  Strong communication and partnering skills with people of all levels of the firm
·  Highly effective at virtual teaming and influencing skills
·  Experience in translating technical system "jargon" into business relevant terms so that concepts are understandable to client serving teams
·  Individuals in this role are expected to recognize when extra effort/time is needed to produce optimal outcomes and manage the situation accordingly, working with peers and supervisors to balance workloads as necessary
·  June into early July represents the close of the EY fiscal year.  Any time requested must be approved before taking.
·  Self-educate and seek additional knowledge by staying up to date with the firm's policies, processes and tools
·  Build relationships and stay connected with the business and functional experts
·  Completion of a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant area of study (finance, accounting), or equivalent experience, is required to perform this position.
·  Approximately 3 years of experience in customer relationship support required to perform this position

 

EY provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status