Financial Accountant ( Compensation Controller) recruitment
Morgan Stanley has earned a worldwide reputation for the excellence of its advice and execution in financial markets. With over 1,300 offices in 42 countries, the firm is truly global- and a market leader in the U.S, Europe and Asia as well as in Emerging Markets. We provide institutions and individuals with almost every kind of financial product and service across all the world’s major markets.
In 2000 the Institutional Securities division established an operations team in Glasgow with just 6 employees. Since then our office has grown to over 1000 employees across 6 divisions: Operations, PWM, Finance, Fund Services, Information Technology and Risk Management. Our offices are located in Glasgow’s city centre in the heart of the International Financial Services District.
We have built a world class reputation for quality and service and the talent and passion of our people has been critical to our success. We can provide a superior foundation for building a professional career – a place for people to learn, to achieve and to grow. Together we share a common set of values rooted in integrity, excellence and a strong team ethic.
Due to our growing business, we have a demand for career minded people to join our teams. Our opportunities offer unrivaled scope for progression and training within a fast paced, meritocratic and constantly changing environment.
The Glasgow Finance Division helps senior management and its individual business units manage the firm’s risk by implementing financial controls over our business activities. The division is crucial to safeguarding the firm’s franchise, reporting on current performance, and evaluating business opportunities.
Compensation Controllers:
A decision was made recently to transfer the compensation accounting controller and administration teams from London to Glasgow. Therefore, the Glasgow office is looking to build a new team of approximately 19 people who will be responsible for the processing and booking of compensation related expenses for all UK employees and for employees in certain other EMEA locations. Due to the nature of the firm’s compensation arrangements, the group is involved in processing and accounting for a range of complex compensation arrangements. The team works closely with its counterparts in other global locations, in particular in New York and Europe, and with other departments in Morgan Stanley including Human Resources, IT and across the finance division.
The group is split into 2 main teams, which have significant interaction between them, as follows:
Payroll Administration Team:
The Payroll Administration team consists of approximately 10 people with its core function being to manage the processing of the payroll for all UK employees and for certain payrolls in EMEA. This entails the processing of all monthly net salary and bonus payments to approximately 8,000 employees plus the payment of associated taxes and contributions to benefit plans related to these employees.
Compensation Controller Team:
The Compensation Controller team consists of approximately 8 people with its core functions being to manage the accounting for the UK payroll and certain EMEA payrolls including managing the booking of salaries and related benefits and taxes, cash bonuses, hypotaxes, severance accruals and recharges, managing currency exposure on the UK payroll entity and working with Treasury and senior management to hedge the currency exposure related to the compensation expense and providing compensation related information to legal entity controllers for disclosure in the annual statutory accounts and to the tax department for use in their tax computations. The team is involved in providing input on technical accounting issues and liaison with different groups and individuals within the organisation.
In addition, both groups are involved in managing a number of key initiatives and projects in order to ensure that processes and procedures are kept up to date in line with best practice and in line with new legislation changes.
The successful candidate will report into a Senior Compensation Controller within the group who is responsible for overseeing a number of key processes within the team. The successful candidate will initially be required to transition their role from the London team. This will provide them with a great opportunity to learn and develop within their new role.
Ongoing responsibilities will incorporate a combination of project work, ownership of certain monthly processes and liaison with different groups in the firm.
Specific responsibilities will include:
• Assisting with the production of annual compensation related accounting disclosures under both UK GAAP and IFRS. This includes the management of the director’s/Key Management Personnel emoluments disclosure process, staff costs and pension fund disclosures. This process requires working with the Firm’s external auditors to ensure that disclosures are audited and liaison with the legal entity team to provide them with the correct payroll disclosures for input into their statutory accounts.
• Reconciliation and reporting of outstanding awards granted under a number of different deferred compensation plans within the UK.
• Performing monthly deferred compensation fair value adjustments for share based awards and general ledger postings for National Insurance on deferred (share and cash based) awards in compliance with IFRS and UK and US GAAP.
• Gaining a detailed understanding of current and changing accounting policies according to UK and US GAAP with regard to deferred compensation
• Liaising with HR to ensure accurate treatment of plan conversions from an employee and employer tax liability perspective
• Balance Sheet and PL reconciliation and sign off of relevant accounts, investigation of balances and follow up on outstanding issues.
• Variance analysis and reporting of related expenses.
• Participating in development of accounting for new plans issued by the Firm.
• Involvement in a variety of projects undertaken by the group, including making improvements to existing processes.
• Liaison with a variety of groups and individuals (including payroll controllers in the US, Far East and within all European regions, HR, legal entity controllers, accounting policy and tax groups) in discussing changes in processes, discussing payroll related issues and rollout of changes to payroll systems.
Skills Required
• The candidate should be a qualified/part qualified accountant (CIMA or ACA)
• Strong accounting knowledge. Experience of compensation based accounting and disclosures would be an advantage (UK, IFRS and US GAAP knowledge).
• Good track record of dealing with complex processes and dealing with high volumes of data.
• Strong excel skills.
• Strong attention to detail.
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