Finance Operations Committee Adviser — Reconciliation Risk Beyond Ageing

The mandate

A finance operations committee receives reconciliation dashboards organised by age and outstanding amount, yet cannot tell whether the most prominently reported items are the most consequential. A recent timing item can be harmless; a repeatedly cleared account with a zero net balance can conceal unsupported offsets or recurring source failure. The standing advisory question is how the committee should prioritise challenge when ageing, value and reconciliation completion describe different things. This retainer adds an experienced R2R voice that can interrogate those measures without substituting for the accountants who prepare and approve the records.

The engagement starts on 26 October 2026 for nine months. Three working days each month support evidence review and a discussion with the chair; the monthly committee meeting is additional to those working days and included in the quoted fee. Written ad-hoc questions receive a response within four business days, either a reasoned view or a precise request for missing evidence. Renewal is considered in month eight by the chair and finance services director. Any continuation needs their approval of a newly written engagement, limited to twelve months, and fresh agreement on reserved review capacity and the retainer. Additional investigations or implementation work require separate scope approval, rather than expanding the advisory commitment through routine meeting invitations.

You have no line authority over the reconciliation teams and no executive responsibility for their accounting records. Recommendations concern priority, evidence sufficiency and escalation questions; controllers retain clearance, adjustment and policy decisions. The adviser cannot direct journal entries, certify financial statements or provide an external audit opinion. This is not a board appointment. The committee should leave with a better understanding of what a dashboard can and cannot support, while management remains responsible for the remedial action and professional conclusions.

The proposed perspective examines whether the support is independent of the ledger assertion, whether opposing amounts have hidden a substantive exposure and whether apparent clearance simply restarts the age of an unresolved issue. A maintained challenge note should show the evidence examined, alternative explanations and the decision still required from its owner. Gurugram is the hybrid base with scheduled finance-team reviews. Up to two other noncompeting advisory commitments are permitted; competing service providers, accounting technology sales interests and positions that create access to rival financial-control information must be disclosed before appointment and whenever they change.

What you will own

• Challenge the committee's reconciliation priority logic through worked account cases, distinguishing administrative ageing from unsupported substance and identifying evidence that would materially change the proposed review order.
• Examine zero-net and repeatedly cleared accounts for opposing items, retaining the source and explanation needed to question whether apparent agreement conceals a recurring exposure or unauthorised offset.
• Test the independence of supporting records behind selected reconciliations, asking whether the confirmation genuinely corroborates the ledger assertion or simply reproduces the same underlying source error.
• Recommend escalation questions for aged and newly arising differences, explaining which accounting, operating or controller decision is missing without instructing the team to clear or adjust the account.
• Shape committee discussion of recurring clearance and reversal patterns, separating an approved timing treatment from a repeated workaround that resets visible ageing while leaving the original condition unresolved.
• Review management's proposed remedial evidence after a committee challenge, highlighting what now supports risk reduction and what remains uncertain rather than endorsing task completion as control effectiveness.
• Maintain advisory challenge notes and conflict disclosures for the chair, showing alternative explanations and retained decision ownership so the committee can revisit its reasoning without relying on an undocumented personal opinion.

Candidate qualifications

• Show a reconciliation judgement in which the largest or oldest item was not the principal risk. Explain the source dependency, opposing amounts, recurring clearance or unsupported assumption that changed your assessment. Your contribution must include the reasoning behind priority and escalation, with evidence of what management or the controller decided afterwards, rather than a general statement that balance-sheet controls are important.
• Bring substantial R2R, general-ledger or finance-services leadership within an 18–22-year career, supported by CMA, relevant professional accounting competence or equivalent rigorous practice. You should be comfortable examining journal effects and reconciliation support below dashboard level. The adviser must translate operational accounting detail into committee questions while recognising that challenge does not confer the power to approve an entry or override authorised policy.
• Describe how you tested evidence independence or recurring resolution patterns across several accounts. Explain an apparently satisfactory confirmation or clearance that you questioned, and how you avoided treating every procedural defect as a material financial exposure. Shared-services, BFSI or manufacturing complexity is relevant where your examples show judgement about source quality, account substance and the appropriate professional owner of the resulting decision.
• Reserve the agreed monthly capacity and committee attendance, with the four-business-day response commitment. Demonstrate constructive challenge of senior stakeholders without performing their reconciliation work, and disclose competing service, software or advisory interests that could colour your view. Secure handling of account information, precise distinction between facts and hypotheses, and willingness to report an unresolved question are necessary to useful, bounded committee influence.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 13 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-166.