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Commonwealth of Pennsylvania |
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POSITION DESCRIPTION FOR JOB POSTING |
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Position Number: 00105079 |
Description Activated On: 1/7/2025 1:47:29 PM |
Position Purpose: Describe the primary purpose of this position and how it contributes to the organization’s objectives. Example: Provides clerical and office support within the Division to ensure its operations are conducted efficiently and effectively. This position is responsible for the following advanced professional accounting work: • Supervise, lead, monitor, train, and review the results of the daily and monthly activities of a staff of professional accountants engaged in the analysis, reconciliation, classification and reporting of various complex and highly automated investment account activity, between our investment accounting system and the custodial bank in the Public Market Reporting and Analysis Section (Public Markets) of the General and Public Market Accounting Division. The Public Markets Section includes the System’s Fixed income, International Equity, Domestic Equity, Collective Trust Funds, Short-Term, and Healthcare investment composites. • Review Public Markets' work procedures to help improve current procedures or help to implement new procedures as deemed necessary. • Serve as a Public Markets operational liaison for various third-party service providers. • Provide technical expertise through review, research, and resolution of routine, unique or complex investment accounting transactions, which also includes serving as a resource for Public Markets investment accounting staff on such transactions. • Review, prepare, monitor and analyze preparation of various internal and external financial, government and management reports. • Maintain a proficient knowledge of various investment and accounting software packages, and the investment markets and their impact on Fund performance. |
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Description of Duties: Describe in detail the duties and responsibilities assigned to this position. Descriptions should include the major end result of the task. Example: Types correspondence, reports, and other various documents from handwritten drafts for review and signature of the supervisor. • Supervise, lead, monitor, train, and interpret the results of the daily and monthly activities of a staff of professional accountants engaged in the analysis, reconciliation, classification and reporting of various complex and highly automated investment account activity, between our investment accounting system and the custodial bank in the Public Market Reporting and Analysis Section (Public Markets) of the General and Public Market Accounting Division. The Public Markets Section includes the System’s Fixed income, International Equity, Domestic Equity, Collective Trust Funds, Short-Term, and Healthcare investment composites. Public market investments total $46 billion and include domestic and international equities, domestic and international fixed income, collective trust funds, foreign exchange vehicles, derivatives (such as options, futures, forwards and swaps), and short-term investments. Assess and improve the Agency’s internal control structure for these investments. This position is responsible for training and leading the staff in Public Markets in identifying and resolving investment accounting issues. This position also serves as the primary person to resolve issues with regarding any of the daily activities listed above and below. • Perform daily and monthly analysis, reconciliation, classification and reporting of various investment account activity in the Public Market Reporting and Analysis Section of IA. This position is responsible for the daily and month-end reconciliation of the Cash Management portfolio. • Responsible for overseeing the daily STP process of the Public Markets accounting staff. This includes resolving any issues with STP connectivity as well as ensuring STP has all the daily import files from the investment managers and the custodian, BNY Mellon. Responsible for the training of any new Public Markets staff members as well as the continued training of the current staff. * *Perform biannual reconciliation of asset class listing, comparing Custodian records to the Investment Accounting book of records to PSERS general ledger.* • Coordinate the cross training of the Public Markets staff by maintaining a cross training schedule to ensure that all of the department's duties are fulfilled in a timely manner. • Initiate and oversee the streamlining of work processes through process review, analysis and implementation of the new or improved process. This includes providing insight for daily, monthly, and quarterly work where the process may be modified to improve efficiency. • Serve as a Public Markets operational liaison with the independent auditors, various third-party vendors, and certain custodial bank functional areas. o Audit liaison responsibilities include, but are not limited to, providing all of the necessary investment accounting reconciliation support, reports and analysis in order to address auditor operational requests, which allows for audit completion in the most effective and efficient manner possible. o Various third-party vendor liaison responsibilities include, but are not limited to, providing all of the necessary communications, both verbally and in writing, to ensure that third-party vendors receive and transmit appropriate and pertinent information in the most efficient and effective manner possible. o Certain custodial bank functional area liaison responsibilities include, but are not limited to, providing all of the necessary communications, both verbally and in writing, to ensure that the System receives entitled services from the custodial bank. * • Provide technical expertise through review, research, and resolution of routine, unique or complex investment accounting transactions which also includes serving as a resource for investment accounting staff on such transactions. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, reviewing monthly reconciliations of cost, market, purchases, sales, accrual, pending trades, income, income accruals, unrealized and realized currency and security gains/losses, complex corporate actions, derivatives, such as options, futures, forwards and swaps, margin maintenance and income accruals to the general ledger for completeness and accuracy. Review general ledger adjustment transactions. Ensure that generally accepted accounting principles are followed. * • Prepare, analyze, and post the quarterly journal entries for Directed Commissions, Swaps, Contract for Differences, Tax Reclaims, Master Trust Units and Collective Trust Fund Net Asset Value Gross-up. * • Maintain and oversee the investment manager fees workbooks to ensure that any fee accruals are accurate and posted quarterly. Also responsible for overseeing the reconciliation and preparation of required journal entries to the general ledger for the fees. * • Obtains, analyzes, and prepares the information needed for the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) Investment Section. * • Prepare, monitor, and analyze the various internal and external financial, government, and management reports. Ongoing report responsibilities include, but are not limited to, Financial Statements, back up for Federal Reserve Forms (Form S, Form SLT, and Form SHC), and Financial Statement Analytical Review. * o The BNY Mellon monthly reconciliation is a process where BNY Mellon reconciles their month-end statements to the investment manager's month-end statements. Quarterly, variances discovered during the reconciliation must be reviewed and the appropriate action must be taken. Variances on BNY Mellon statements over a predetermined threshold require a restatement. This restatement is then journalized in the general ledger. • Lead and/or participate in special projects, as assigned by the Sr. Investment Accountant Specialist and/or Manager, General and Public Market Accounting. o Projects may require working in groups and/or individually. o Projects may involve systems, investments, accounting or other areas. o Projects may include reviewing Public Markets historical data for Right-to-Know requests, class action lawsuits, or foreign tax return audits. • Communicate, verbally and in writing, with the custodial bank, senior management staff, investment managers, brokers, fund consultants, independent auditors, and various other third-party service providers in order to efficiently and effectively coordinate the transaction, reporting and performance activity of the System's investments. • Lead the implementation or modification of any software applications used by the Public Markets staff. • Maintain working knowledge of various investment accounting and general-purpose software programs including, but not limited to Mellon Nexen, STP Portfolio Software, Workiva, Excel, Word and Outlook. * This position is identified as essential - level 2. It supports a critical business function and when there is a declaration of an office closing, emergency or disaster, the incumbent may be required to participate/assist in those functions to aid the business continuity process. As such, the incumbent may be required to remain at or report to work at headquarters or an alternate site and be available or reachable by telephone during the recovery process. |
Decision Making: Describe the types of decisions made by the incumbent of this position and the types of decisions referred to others. Identify the problems or issues that can be resolved at the level of this position, versus those that must be referred to the supervisor. Example: In response to a customer inquiry, this work involves researching the status of an activity and preparing a formal response for the supervisor’s signature. • • Make decisions regarding the results of the daily analysis of various complex and highly automated investment activities, security types and transaction types, resulting in the resolution of complex reconciliation issues. Decisions would require the evaluation of accounting principles, international custody rules and regulations, accounting system flows, etc. • Assess and identify best practices to ensure that PSERS receives the contracted reconciliation and reporting benefits from the custodial bank. • Determine if monthly general ledger work is complete and accurate and that generally accepted accounting principles have been followed during the month-end reconciliation process. • Determine the need for, and approve, general ledger adjustment transactions. • Determine, and ensure compliance with, the requirements of various internal and external financial, government and management reports. • Develop recommendations for policies and procedures for the independent daily investment accounting processing environment, which includes, but is not limited to, the establishment and maintenance of records of holdings, activity (transactions, redemptions, corporate actions, paydowns, etc.) and the impact of activity on PSERS' holdings such as buys, sells, corporate actions, in the general ledger in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and investment industry practices. • Determine the need for requesting Investment Accounting System program and software modifications required in order to properly maintain the accounting, performance, verification, reconciliation, and transaction reporting for all current and future investments for the covered funds of PSERS’ complex and diverse investment portfolio. |
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Requirements Profile: Identify any specific experience or requirements, such as a licensure, registration, or certification, which may be necessary to perform the functions of the position. Position-specific requirements should be consistent with a Special Requirement or other criteria identified in the classification specification covering this position. Example: Experience using Java; Professional Engineer License Experience: Licenses, registrations, or certifications: 1. N/A 2. N/A 3. N/A 4. 5. 6. |
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Essential Functions: Provide a list of essential functions for this position. Example: Transports boxes weighing up to 60 pounds.
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