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Finance & Legal - Finance & Accounting

Principal, Finance & Planning Applications

Principal / Staff

Independently audited

Keeps the numbers correct, the controls intact, and the plan honest. Sets technical or professional direction across teams without managing them.

Audited package

Built, independently audited role package. Everything on this page is written for this seat.

Your Stack (Swappable)

This role works against whatever tools you already run. We list the tool categories the role operates in, never a named vendor, so you are never asked to replace a system that works.

Accounting / ERP
EPM and planning
Consolidation and close
API & Integration (iPaaS)
Analytics & BI
Identity & Access (SSO/IAM)
Architecture & Diagramming

Deliverables

Close schedules and reconciliations
Reporting packs
Forecast and budget models
Variance analysis

Responsibilities

Own finance application architecture within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect the ERP, EPM, consolidation, close, reporting, tax, treasury, billing, data platform, and integration inventory with owners and dependencies; define system boundaries, authoritative records, integration contracts, environments, and ownership before selecting or changing a platform; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own chart-of-accounts and dimensional design within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect approved reporting requirements, legal entities, accounts, cost centers, products, customers, projects, hierarchies, and historical mappings; design dimensions and governance that support posting, consolidation, planning, and reporting without uncontrolled shadow hierarchies; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own planning model engineering within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect business drivers, approved assumptions, workforce and expense data, scenario logic, allocations, calendars, and output requirements; build transparent calculation layers, dimensional security, versioning, driver traceability, and reconciliation to actuals; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own consolidation and allocation logic within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect entity hierarchy, ownership, currencies, intercompany relationships, elimination rules, allocation drivers, and reporting basis; encode approved consolidation, translation, elimination, and allocation rules with test cases and exception reporting; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own integration and data reconciliation within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect source-to-target mappings, APIs, files, schedules, control totals, error queues, retries, lineage, and downstream dependencies; treat each interface as a controlled accounting contract with completeness, accuracy, timeliness, idempotency, and ownership checks; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own application change and access control within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect change request, requirements, configuration diff, test evidence, approval, migration record, role design, access listing, and segregation analysis; separate development, testing, approval, migration, and production administration according to risk and audit reliance; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Own finance-platform adoption and lifecycle within delegated Principal, Finance & Planning Applications scope: inspect usage telemetry, support demand, close-cycle outcomes, model inventory, release roadmap, vendor commitments, and technical debt; prioritize product improvements by finance outcome, control risk, maintainability, adoption, and total cost rather than feature volume; record the evidence, exception, reviewer, and hand-off.
Produce and maintain Finance Application Capability and Architecture Map, Chart-of-Accounts and Dimension Design Record, Planning, Allocation, and Consolidation Model Specification, Finance Integration Contract and Reconciliation, and Finance Application Change and Access Evidence Pack as reviewable working artifacts rather than unsupported narrative.

The essence of this seat

Signature move

Start with the ERP, EPM, consolidation, close, reporting, tax, treasury, billing, data platform, and integration inventory with owners and dependencies; then define system boundaries, authoritative records, integration contracts, environments, and ownership before selecting or changing a platform

What good looks like

names one authoritative source per domain, distinguishes book of record from reporting copies, traces the disagreement to layer/refresh timing, and routes contested business ownership to the accountable owners

Decision rights

- define system boundaries, authoritative records, integration contracts, environments, and ownership before selecting or changing a platform for finance application architecture
- design dimensions and governance that support posting, consolidation, planning, and reporting without uncontrolled shadow hierarchies for chart-of-accounts and dimensional design
- build transparent calculation layers, dimensional security, versioning, driver traceability, and reconciliation to actuals for planning model engineering
- encode approved consolidation, translation, elimination, and allocation rules with test cases and exception reporting for consolidation and allocation logic

Working vocabulary

ERPEPMchart of accountsdimensionhierarchyentityscenarioversiondriver-based planningallocation

What this role does

The Principal, Finance & Planning Applications is the principal-level owner of the finance systems that run accounting and FP&A - the ERP and EPM/planning applications (configuration, chart-of-accounts and data model, allocations, planning models, integrations, close and consolidation tooling) - translating finance requirements into a reliable, controlled systems architecture. The seat operates at Senior IC altitude and is accountable for making finance applications - ERP and EPM/planning platform ownership, chart-of-accounts and dimensional data model, allocations and consolidation, planning-model build, integrations and data flows between finance systems, close-automation and reporting tooling, system controls and access reviewable, evidence-based, and decision-ready. Its defining outcome is that finance applications express approved accounting and planning logic reliably, reconcile across systems, change under control, and scale without transferring finance decisions into technology configuration. The craft is not the list of nouns in the title. In practice, the role must work from authoritative records, preserve definitions and versions, expose assumptions and exceptions, understand which controls and approvals support the result, and hand the final policy, risk, publication, payment, employment, settlement, regulator, technical, or executive decision to the accountable owner. The seat's core work spans finance application architecture, chart-of-accounts and dimensional design, planning model engineering, consolidation and allocation logic, integration and data reconciliation, application change and access control, finance-platform adoption and lifecycle. Against FP&A Manager, this seat owns the EPM platform, models, dimensions, and integrations; FP&A Manager owns the planning cycle, assumptions, and team. Against Accounting Manager, this seat owns ERP and close-system configuration and automation; Accounting Manager owns the close, entries, reconciliations, and accounting conclusions. Against IT Auditor or IT Operations, this seat owns finance-application architecture and controlled configuration; IT owns underlying infrastructure and IT controls, while IT Auditor independently tests ITGC and reliance. This is an individual-contributor package. It may lead through expertise, artifacts, negotiation, analysis, or technical direction, but it does not gain people-management authority from seniority or proximity to leaders.

Best-fit customer

finance teams that need close, reporting, and planning work to be consistent and auditable

Need more than one role?

Buying the whole team or the complete department lowers your effective cost per role at every tier of the ladder.

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