US GAAP/IFRS Dual-Reporting Conversion Expert — Global Insurance Services

The mandate

The group must produce US GAAP information for a proposed minority capital transaction while preserving its statutory and management reporting under IFRS. Its teams currently reconcile results through spreadsheet bridges that do not distinguish enduring policy differences from data defects, and the board has asked for a narrowly bounded conversion rather than a broad finance-modernisation programme.

The principal deliverable is a dual-reporting blueprint comprising an approved policy-difference register, election papers, controlled adjustment engine, reconciled opening balance sheet, parallel income statement and close-runbook. It must explain treatment differences for insurance service results, financial instruments, leases, share-based payments, business combinations and deferred tax at account and disclosure level, with every adjustment traceable to source data.

Milestone one, due 30 October 2026, is a signed scoping and materiality memorandum with a complete entity-and-topic inventory. The second, due 18 December, is the Audit Committee-approved policy package and opening-balance adjustment catalogue; the third, due 12 February 2027, is a dry-run close with reconciled disclosures; final delivery on 31 March is the controlled parallel close, training set and transition dossier.

Acceptance requires the CFO, group controller and external reporting adviser to agree that all material differences reconcile, sampled adjustments reproduce from source, consolidation entries have preparer-reviewer evidence, and the board paper states unresolved judgments without qualification by the consultant. Payment of the final milestone depends on one close being repeated by client staff within the timetable and variance tolerance set at mobilisation.

The client will provide ledger extracts, actuarial model outputs, existing accounting papers, entity access and eight named workstream owners, with the controller empowered to resolve data requests inside two working days. The expert controls method and deliverables but carries no executive signing authority; management retains accounting conclusions, transaction communications and responsibility for published statements.

Why this is external work

Internal technical accountants are fully committed to the statutory close and cannot independently challenge policy positions they helped create. The prospective investor also expects a conversion trail that is separable from management's transaction narrative. A specialist is therefore needed to impose a finite method, expose unsupported bridges and leave a repeatable process rather than add permanent reporting capacity.

What you will own

• Diagnose the entity, account and disclosure perimeter and issue a materiality-led conversion map that prevents low-value differences from consuming the programme.
• Draft the US GAAP-versus-IFRS policy papers with quantified alternatives, elections, transition consequences and matters reserved for Audit Committee judgment.
• Build the adjustment catalogue with unique identifiers, source lineage, tax effects, consolidation treatment, control owner and reversal logic for each entry.
• Reconcile the opening balance sheet and document why every residual difference is timing, classification, measurement or an evidenced immaterial item.
• Direct a dry-run reporting cycle that includes actuarial feeds, foreign exchange, intercompany elimination, note disclosures and late-adjustment governance.
• Test the parallel-close package against the agreed timetable, reproducibility threshold and control evidence, recording exceptions in an acceptance ledger.
• Deliver a dual-reporting manual, model files, reviewer training and a board paper that client staff can operate after formal acceptance.

Candidate qualifications

• Led a completed US GAAP conversion for an IFRS-reporting insurer or insurance-services group and can provide evidence of reconciled opening balances and parallel reporting.
• Authored technical positions spanning ASC 944 or comparable insurance guidance, IFRS 17, financial instruments, acquisition accounting and related deferred-tax consequences.
• Built a controlled conversion ledger or adjustment engine integrated with consolidation, including ownership, version control, review evidence and repeatable disclosure mapping.
• Presented contested policy elections to an Audit Committee and translated standard-by-standard analysis into quantified earnings, equity and covenant effects.
• Managed technical accounting, actuarial, tax and data contributors across at least three jurisdictions without allowing the engagement to become an ERP redesign.
• Handed a conversion process to client operators who subsequently repeated the close without material consultant intervention or unexplained balancing entries.

Non-negotiables

• Available for the six-month calendar and the specified London, Frankfurt and New York working pattern.
• No audit-independence conflict with the group's statutory auditor, proposed investor or transaction accounting adviser.
• Will contract against named artefacts and acceptance tests rather than supply open-ended technical-accounting capacity.
• Has operated at enterprise director or partner-equivalent level with direct CFO and Audit Committee exposure.

1. 49 words maximum. Identify one dual-reporting conversion you led and the largest opening-balance difference your method uncovered.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you distinguish a true policy difference from a data-quality failure during the first four weeks?
3. 49 words maximum. Which client-produced output would you require before declaring the adjustment engine operationally accepted?