Senior HR Finance Analyst

Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer, with dotted-line relationships to Finance and Human Resources leadership, this role connects employee and payroll data maintained within HR systems to the company's financial records, planning processes and reporting. The Senior HR Finance Analyst ensures payroll, benefits, incentive compensation and other employee-related transactions are accurately reflected in the general ledger while providing Finance and HR with reliable financial information to support workforce planning and decision-making.

Essential Functions, Duties, and Responsibilities

Payroll and Employee-Related Accounting

• Own the accounting and reconciliation of payroll and employee-related transactions, ensuring amounts recorded in the general ledger are complete, accurate and properly classified.
• Reconcile payroll activity to general ledger accounts, including wages, payroll taxes, bonuses, commissions, deductions and employer-paid costs.
• Review payroll-related journal entries, accruals and account activity and coordinate required corrections with the appropriate functional owner.
• Maintain and reconcile payroll-related balance sheet accounts, including payroll liabilities, accrued compensation and employee deductions.
• Support month-end and year-end close activities associated with payroll, compensation and employee-related expenses.

Benefits and Retirement Plan Accounting

• Reconcile employee benefit expenses, deductions and liabilities to payroll records, vendor invoices and general ledger activity.
• Maintain accounting and reconciliations for medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, FSA and other employee benefit programs.
• Reconcile employer and employee retirement plan contributions between payroll records, plan administrators and the general ledger.
• Support financial accounting and reporting associated with employer retirement contributions and other company-sponsored benefit programs.
• Partner with HR and external administrators to investigate and resolve discrepancies involving benefit deductions, contributions, invoices and financial records.
• Support financial information requests associated with plan audits.

Workforce Planning and Analysis

• Reconcile employee-level information between HR systems, payroll systems, financial systems and workforce planning models.
• Support headcount, compensation and benefit forecasting.
• Analyze actual employee costs against budget and forecast and identify drivers of material variances.
• Support annual people planning, merit, bonus and benefit budgeting processes by providing accurate financial data and analysis.
• Develop recurring reporting that provides visibility into headcount, compensation, benefits and other workforce-related costs.
• Partner with FP&A to ensure workforce assumptions and employee-related costs are accurately incorporated into budgets and forecasts.

Controls, Compliance and Data Integrity

• Establish and maintain appropriate financial controls over payroll and employee-related accounting processes.
• Ensure appropriate reconciliation and review processes exist between HR, payroll and financial systems.
• Identify data inconsistencies across systems and work with HR, Finance, Payroll, IT and external providers to determine and resolve root causes.
• Maintain documentation supporting payroll and employee-related accounting processes, reconciliations and controls.
• Support internal and external audit requests related to payroll, compensation, benefits and employee-related accounts.

Cross-Functional Partnership and Process Improvement

• Act as the primary financial liaison between HR and Finance for employee-related financial matters to translate HR activity and workforce changes into their financial and accounting impacts and communicate those impacts to Finance.
• Provide HR with financial analysis and accounting expertise related to compensation, benefits and workforce initiatives.
• Establish clear processes and ownership between HR and Finance where activities or data cross functional boundaries.
• Identify opportunities to improve the flow of employee and financial information between HR, payroll, planning and ERP systems.
• Develop and improve reconciliations, reporting and automated processes that reduce manual work and strengthen data integrity.
• Participate in system implementations, integrations and process changes affecting payroll, HR and employee-related financial information.

Qualifications: Education & Experience Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance or a related field required.
• Five or more years of progressive finance experience, preferably including payroll, compensation, benefits or employee-related accounting.
• Experience with ERP, payroll and/or HRIS systems required; SAP experience preferred.
• Experience with Power Query, Power BI or similar reporting and automation tools preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate detailed employee and payroll information into meaningful financial reporting.
• Ability to work effectively cross functionally while maintaining appropriate confidentiality and handling sensitive employee information.
• Strong communication, organization and problem-solving skills.
• Strong understanding of general ledger accounting, account reconciliations, accruals and financial controls.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze and reconcile information across multiple systems and identify the underlying cause of discrepancies.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including experience working with large employee-level or transactional data sets.