Senior Partnership Accounting Analyst

Senior Partnership Accounting Analyst – Financial Operations team at Morrison Foerster
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At MoFo, we couldn’t write our own success story without yours. Ready to write your story? Join MoFo as a Senior Partnership Accounting Analyst on our Financial Operations team! This role can be based in San Francisco or New York.

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• Maintain familiarity with Partnership Agreement, with focus on Article IV (Rights and Obligations of the Partner in Financial Matters) and Article V (Retirement).
• Prepare, process and review Partners’ scheduled distributions and deductions. Ensure accuracy and timeliness of payments. Provide reports to General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Treasury, Benefits, Tax, and other teams as necessary.
• Recalculate the monthly distributions based on the approved partner points for the year. Recalculate tax withholding amounts. Enter new pay and withholding amounts to Ascentis. Calculate any retro‑active adjustments to distributions and taxes.
• Communicate, as needed, with Finance Managers in foreign offices to inform them of any changes to partner distributions, including year‑end true‑up distributions. Work with Finance Managers to resolve any issues.
• Work with HR, Benefits, and Payroll teams to ensure proper setup of new partners and updates of existing partners in payroll system, including benefits deductions and direct deposit information. Collaborate on creating and maintaining effective processes for change management.
• Ensure partner income arrangements including special arrangements, partners’ status changes and FTE percentages are appropriately documented and entered into the partnership/payroll system.
• Collaborate with the Retirement Manager to ensure accurate deductions of retirement plan contributions and loan repayments. This includes reviewing deduction amounts and relaying any changes to the Retirement Manager, confirming final deductions with the Retirement Manager to ensure correct amounts are wired to each plan and working with Retirement Manager to resolve any issues.
• Work with the Billing group for the deduction of Partners’ personal expenses. Obtain backup for any large expense amounts and confirm with the partner as to the legitimacy of the amount.
• Work with the Benefits and Leave Manager on the status of partner leaves. Provide periodic distribution schedules, for partners on leave, as requested by the disability carrier.
• Develop and maintain cash flow schedules for London, Berlin, Brussels and Singapore partners. Prepare wire forms, based on the cash flow information, for multi‑currency and multi‑entity distribution payments. Obtain wire form approvals from the Partnership Accounting Manager. Work with Accounts Payable to ensure wired distributions are processed accurately and timely.
• Maintain the distribution file for London partners. After final review, send the file to the European Finance Manager for processing. Work with European Finance Manager to resolve any issues.
• Determine Partners’ charitable contribution allocations and make appropriate deductions. Coordinate with Foundation administration and with European Finance Manager.
• Research and respond to partner inquiries and issues in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Proactively identify opportunities for process improvement, and work with Partnership Accounting Manager to design and implement change. Prepare, process, and review periodic profit distributions. Includes setting up initial analysis to determine appropriate gross distribution amounts, and coordinating with Retirement Manager, Tax Manager and others to gather relevant deduction schedules for each distribution.

• A minimum of a four‑year university degree, preferably in Finance or Accounting. Five plus years’ experience in the Finance Department of a large international law firm or international professional services firm. Hands on experience in the partner compensation area strongly preferred.
• Demonstrate deep knowledge of partnership finance and compensation and related processes, and ability to advise and guide others in the application of this knowledge in best practices.
• Ability to take an…