Lead Accounting Subject Matter Expert; SME

The Lead Accounting Subject Matter Expert (SME) serves as the functional authority for accounting and financial business processes throughout the CIS implementation. This individual will represent the Water Revenue Bureau’s (WRB) Accounting Division during all phases of the project, including statement of work requirements, solution design, configuration, testing, data conversion, training, cutover planning, and post-go-live stabilization.

The SME is expected to possess extensive knowledge of the City’s current Basis2 accounting processes and understand how customer billing, payments, financial transactions, and general ledger activities support the City’s water revenue operations.

• Serve as the primary Accounting representative for the CIS implementation project
• Provide functional expertise regarding current Basis2 accounting processes and business rules
• Define and validate future-state accounting workflows and system functionality
• Review and validate functional requirements, design documents, configuration workbooks, and business process documentation
• Identify opportunities to standardize, streamline, and improve accounting processes while minimizing customizations
• Collaborate with Finance, Customer Service, Billing, Collections, Payment Operations, IT, and vendor implementation teams
• Participate in system configuration workshops and design sessions
• Validate accounting-related system configurations and ensure compliance with City accounting policies and governmental accounting standards
• Support data cleansing, data validation, and financial data conversion activities
• Validate financial interfaces, payment settlement processing, reconciliation processes, and General Ledger postings
• Assist in developing training materials, standard operating procedures, and end-user documentation
• Support cutover planning, production readiness, hyper care, and post-go-live issue resolution.

The Lead Accounting Subject Matter Expert (SME) will perform the following activities in support of the Customer Information System (CIS) implementation:

• Validate current and future-state billing and revenue accounting processes
• Review billing transactions, revenue recognition, and financial impacts
• Validate billing adjustments, reversals, cancel/rebill processing, and account corrections
• Verify billing calculations, meter read impacts, and billing exception processing
• Ensure accounting requirements are accurately reflected in the configured solution

• Validate payment processing across all payment channels, including ACH, lockbox, credit/debit card, and electronic payments
• Review payment settlement and reconciliation processes
• Validate returned payments, reversals, refunds, and adjustment processing
• Verify daily balancing, settlement, and cash reconciliation functionality
• Validate payment processing interfaces and related financial transactions

• Validate customer accounts receivable balances and financial transactions
• Review processing for credits, refunds, write-offs, adjustments, and payment applications
• Validate collections-related accounting transactions and financial impacts
• Verify aging calculations, receivable balances, and financial reporting
• Ensure accounts receivable transactions are processed accurately throughout the customer lifecycle

• Validate General Ledger posting logic and accounting distributions
• Review Chart of Accounts mappings and financial transaction processing
• Verify journal entries and financial interface transactions
• Validate integrations between the CIS and enterprise financial systems
• Review month-end, year-end, reconciliation, and revenue reporting processes

• Validate accounting controls, audit requirements, and financial compliance
• Review segregation of duties and financial security requirements
• Verify system controls supporting accurate financial reporting
• Validate financial data integrity throughout accounting processes
• Identify accounting risks and recommend appropriate resolutions

• Participate in functional requirements, design, and configuration workshops
• Review and validate functional requirements, solution designs, and system configuration
• Evaluate proposed system functionality against operational and accounting requirements
• Recommend process improvements that leverage standard system functionality
• Collaborate with business stakeholders, project teams, vendors, and technical resources to resolve accounting-related issues

• Validate converted customer, billing, payment, accounts receivable, and financial data
• Review data reconciliation results and verify accounting accuracy
• Validate the completeness and integrity of converted accounting data prior to production

• Participate in System Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, and other testing activities
• Validate end-to-end…