Finance Ops

A Finance Ops professional organises recurring financial operations and ensures they are reliable. Depending on the responsibilities assigned, they work on customer billing, incoming payments, supplier invoices, reconciliations or preparations for the financial close. They help the finance team maintain consistent data and documented operations. This profile covers internal financial operations, which are distinct from FinOps focused on cloud spending.

The role may cover an entire workflow or only part of it. On the customer side, the work includes checking contractual data before billing and investigating discrepancies between systems. On the supplier side, it may combine invoice processing, submission for approval and payment preparation. Responsibilities therefore vary between companies.

Finance Ops, accounting and treasury: who does what?

• Finance Ops professionals process and check the operations assigned to them. Their authority to handle corrections, exceptions and procedures independently must be specified.
• With accounting, define the reconciliations and supporting documents they prepare, then the work and approvals that remain with those responsible for accounting.
• With treasury, specify the information on incoming payments they pass on and the financial decisions that fall to their counterparts.

Reporting lines and delegated authority must be described in the role. Preparing a payment does not necessarily mean being authorised to approve it. Similarly, contributing to the financial close does not automatically confer responsibility for signing it off.

The people they work with vary according to the transactions handled: sales teams for billing information, employees for expenses and finance teams for reconciliations. To define a recruitment brief, first identify the operations to be handled, the people who approve them and the discrepancies the candidate will need to resolve independently.

An invoice issued using inconsistent information, an expense without approval or an unexplained reconciliation discrepancy can disrupt financial operations. A Finance Ops professional helps identify these situations, trace their causes and document how they are handled. Data reliability matters as much as continuity of work between teams.

Controls must remain in place as volumes or tools change. Automating a step without clarifying the data required and the exceptions to handle may simply move discrepancies elsewhere. Before requesting automation, identify recurring errors, the approvals required and the person who will take responsibility for unresolved cases.

Fictional example: a company finds that some customer invoices do not match the terms recorded by the sales team. The Finance Ops professional compares contractual information with billing data, describes the discrepancy and asks the appropriate manager to approve the correction. They may then propose an earlier check to identify similar inconsistencies. The objective goes beyond correcting the invoice in question: they need to understand when the information diverges.

The ability to escalate a discrepancy with the relevant supporting documents matters as much as the ability to carry out an operation. It enables the authorised manager to make a decision based on a clear record.

• Check customer and contractual information before invoices are issued, where billing falls within the role.
• Reconcile data from financial systems to identify and explain discrepancies.
• Process supplier invoices and submit them for approval through the designated workflow.
• Prepare authorised payments within the limits of delegated authority.
• Contribute to reconciliations for the financial close and resolve outstanding items with the relevant managers.
• Flag discrepancies, duplicates and missing approvals, retaining the relevant supporting documents.
• Document financial procedures and responsibilities at each stage.
• Propose process improvements and automation suited to the required controls.

Useful foundations combine accounting, an understanding of financial flows and proficiency with business management tools. A background in accounting, finance or economics can provide a starting point. Checkout.com cites these fields, or equivalent education, for its role. This employer requirement does not establish a mandatory qualification for all Finance Ops professionals.

In France, the competency framework for the collaborateur en gestion comptable et financière qualification combines accounting foundations with controls, analysis and tool optimisation. These areas of learning are relevant to understanding how information is collected and improving how it is processed. The framework sheds light on skills related to the role, but does not itself define the Finance Ops job title.

Transferable experience depends on the financial flows handled. Processing supplier invoices prepares someone for different work from checking contractual data before customer billing. Reconciliation work provides experience in investigating discrepancies, identifying the supporting documents required and making corrections with authorised people.

The responsibilities held also matter: following a procedure subject to approval, resolving exceptions independently and supervising a team's work represent different experience. Contributing to process documentation or changes to a control provides useful experience for a role that includes improving them.

GetPro's common assessment framework

GetPro structures its assessment around a framework limited to around ten criteria. It distinguishes what can be verified from a candidate's career history from what requires a discussion or test. Each criterion is linked to an assessment method. The framework directs interviews towards the points that still need clarification.

The interview explores three or four key criteria in particular, using open questions and concrete examples. Reference checks complement these observations: the conversations put skills into context, gather an appraisal and ask for a specific situation to support it. A summary brings together the strengths and points requiring attention that are useful to the decision.

Recommended applications for a Finance Ops role

The following suggestions help adapt this framework to the financial operations assigned. They are recommendations for the employer and do not describe a specialised Finance Ops protocol used by GetPro.

1. Build an assessment framework suited to the role

Distinguish daily processing, discrepancy analysis, procedure improvement and any management responsibilities. For each activity, specify the expected result and the decisions permitted without further approval.

Select observable criteria: the consistency of a reconciliation, the justification for a correction, the quality of information passed on and adherence to approval requirements. Ask the candidate to distinguish between a transaction that has been prepared and one that has been approved.

2. Examine a past piece of work

Ask the candidate to describe a financial process, its input data, the people involved and its controls. Explore an improvement in detail: what problem needed solving, what change did the candidate personally make and who approved it?

A useful answer connects the original problem to the decisions made and an observable result. A simple list of software or an account of the team's collective work is not enough to establish the candidate's contribution. Also explore how exceptions were handled.

3. Set a reconciliation exercise

Fictional example: provide a billing extract and a record of incoming payments showing a discrepancy, with the information needed to interpret them and the specified authorisations.

Ask which checks the candidate would carry out, which additional documents they would need and what they would pass on to the manager. Observe how they distinguish facts from assumptions and what record they keep of unresolved points. A correction made without investigating the cause or obtaining approval calls for further discussion. Adapt the exercise to supplier transactions if the role warrants it.

4. Assess communication and supervision

Ask the candidate to explain a discrepancy to someone outside finance: does that person understand which document is needed, the problem and the decision required? For a management role, examine how processing tasks are allocated, how team members' work is checked and how they are trained. Distinguish responsibility for supervision from occasional help given to colleagues.

5. Compare findings and references

Compare the work described with observations from the exercise, using the same criteria for each candidate. With the candidate's agreement, ask a professional referee for examples illustrating the candidate's autonomy, the responsibilities they held and how they flagged difficulties. Record what has been demonstrated and what remains uncertain. If necessary, involve a suitably qualified finance manager or an external professional in the technical assessment, providing them with the assessment framework and the limits of the role's authority.