Senior Manager of Financial Systems

Job Description

Crowell & Moring LLP is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe, MENA, and Asia that represents clients in litigation and arbitration, regulatory and policy, intellectual property, and transactional and corporate matters. The firm is internationally recognized for its representation of Fortune 500 companies in high-stakes litigation and government-facing matters, as well as its ongoing commitment to pro bono service and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Job Summary

The Senior Manager of Financial Systems is primarily responsible for technical operations, daily performance, and management of the firm’s accounting systems (including 3E and Intapp Time), as well as downstream and upstream integrations with those systems. The Senior Manager is responsible for assessing and coordinating all development and upgrades to these systems and works with Billing and GL/AP subject matter experts to provide first line user support, particularly as it relates to technical issues.   

Job Responsibilities

• Works closely with the Information Systems (IS) department and external vendors to monitor the infrastructure of the accounting systems. Coordinates efforts to identify and resolve the cause of performance issues.
• Acts as liaison between the IS and Accounting/Finance departments. Works closely with Finance and Accounting personnel in direct support of the financial system, including related applications and interfaces between the financial system and other applications.
• Manages day-to-day administration and support of the firm's accounting system (Elite 3E), time entry, and other related systems in production and pre-production environments, including the systematic performance of routing maintenance activities.
• Maintains proper protocols and internal controls for accepting modification and enhancement requests, and developing, testing, and implementing the changes and security.
• Administers month-end financial system close, proforma generation, month-end report processing, monthly system balancing, including WIP, A/R, G/L, and firm statistics.
• Partners with IS groups to oversee the operation of servers and storage dedicated to systems described above, including hardware and software installation, upgrades, service packs and patches, system monitoring, and job scheduling.
• Resolves end user financial system issues and provides software application support individually and by coordinating with the firm's Information Systems department and various firm technology vendors.
• Creates and maintains up-to-date system documentation.
• Supports the development of the finance system strategy including maximizing the effectiveness of finance solutions and driving automation of the process to improve efficiency, reliability, accuracy, and reduce costs.

Qualifications

Requirements:

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Experience managing Finance Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") software, ideally in a professional services firm, with a strong preference for past Elite 3E experience.
• Ability and judgement to independently resolve financial systems issues and engage external consultants as necessary.

• Strong understanding of professional services financial processes including time entry, billing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, collections, general ledger, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, month and year-end closings, client/matter intake, ethical walls, alternative fee arrangements, etc.
• Demonstrated knowledge of MS suite with the ability to independently produce complex reports, presentations, etc.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple concurrent objectives with operational activities, and effectively make judgments in prioritizing and time allocation. 
• Strong communication skills, both oral and written and the experience and understanding to simplify complex technical issues for attorneys and staff.
• Ability to provide quality client service to both internal and external contacts, regarding accounting and system matters of a complex nature. Requires patience, creativity, curiosity and discretion.

Education

The position requires a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Accounting, Finance, or Business. Equivalent training and experience may substitute for education.

Experience

The position requires a minimum of ten (10) years of increasingly responsible, directly related experience during which the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities were demonstrated.

The position requires a minimum of two (2) years of experience administering the Finance aspects of ERP software in a professional services firm, id