Helen Wain
Summary
An adaptable and accomplished senior management accountant with extensive experience of providing financial and business advice to senior leaders on complex issues, coupled with strong strategic instincts and a recent background of scenario planning and supporting long term strategy development. Direct knowledge of budgeting in the Mining, Government and Tertiary Education Sector.
Take the initiative to develop and lead projects/work streams to deliver strong operational and financial outcomes, alongside operational team goals. Strong analytical and engagement skills with the focus on guiding and supporting teams to maximise profits and minimize loss.
Overview
27
27
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Management Accountant
Murdoch University
06.2022 - Current
- Lead in the provision of strategic financial advice on the Research Strategy and work with the relevant Executive, CFO and other senior personnel to develop financial plans and KPIs in support of both the University and the Research Strategy.
- Lead the establishment of evidence based financial modelling, analysis and advice ensuring sound financial outcomes are delivered consistently to support decision making, providing perceptive and constructive insights and integration into finance strategies, policies, processes and systems, including but not limited to overhead recovery.
- Lead the University's Research budgeting forecasting and reporting activities in consultation with the Manager, Finance Business Partnering (Central, Offices & Capital) and the Senior Research Finance Officer.
- Monitor activity of externally funded research grants and other funding arrangements to ensure financial management and reporting requirements are met efficiently and effectively. Facilitate and drive finance understanding to the development, execution and communication of financial outcomes of research strategy, plans and contractual agreements, including contribution to business case development to advise the University in the evaluation of research strategies, plans and partnerships.
- Lead and direct outcomes by establishing holistic multi-disciplinary finance teams and specialists and managing these resources and deadlines to partner with stakeholders in support of end to end strategic finance advisory services.
- Support Business Case development, including but not limited to ensuring alignment with the University's Strategy and the development of supporting financial models.
- Develop stakeholder engagement plans to build financial literacy and promote proactive business practices and mitigate financial risks.
- Build trusted and collaborative relationships and partnerships cultivating an environment of excellent stakeholder and staff engagement.
- Lead, as required, specific projects and internal reviews, as identified by the Finance Executive, to improve service delivery and contribute to the continuous improvement of finance processes, procedures and policy to deliver services of excellence.
Senior Project Accountant
AECOM
07.2018 - 06.2022
- Coordinate all activities related to tender and submission process including document control procedures around technical documents, drawings, and commercial correspondence.
- Initial project setup including creation & processing of Cost Time Resource Sheets (CTRs).
- WBS creation for control & reporting in financial & control systems.
- Financial tracking of all CTRs for internal and external reporting.
- Managing contract and variations, including the set-up process of the project within the financial system. Maintenance, progress chasing & updating of variations.
- Assisting Project Managers with invoicing, maintaining cash flow and managing budgets within Work Packages.
- Liaising with subcontractors for forecasting, and purchase order management.
- Reconciliation of monthly debtor statements, project reconciliations, monthly debtor outstanding's reporting to Project managers.
- Collation of data and financial statistics for the AECOM Quarterly Report Input document data into the document register for each project; ensuring that the information is accurate and up to date.
- Provide each new document with a unique document number ensuring that each document is tracked and has the correct revision.
- Maintain updated records of all approved documents and their distribution clearly.
- Managing and processing of staff and contractor timesheets, contractor project accounts payable, reconciliation of corporate credit cards.
Projects Coordinator
Public Transport Authority
03.2016 - 06.2018
- Responsible for maintaining all PTA administrative systems and ensuring compliance to document and records control. Document control and maintenance through life of projects and close out.
- Advanced level of ability using Objective to store and publish PTA documents, ensuring compliance with State Records Act of 2000. Tasks include maintaining, publishing and archiving.
- Weekly and monthly dashboard reporting.
- Creation and maintenance of rollingstock asset database.
- Preparation of contract variations and review of expenditure against contract value during the contract, reporting of variances and questioning vendors about invoices where required.
- Prepare departmental procurement and the administration of contract requests for the engagement of support services for the Rollingstock department.
- Support managers for regular management and executive meetings, preparing agendas, taking minutes, preparing action items register, follow up of action items register, distribution of minutes.
- Processing of invoices, purchase orders, sales orders and credit card expenditure using Elipse and Flexi purchase.
- Preparation of monthly management reports including operations, budget versus actual reports, commentary on monthly variances, leave reporting, fleet and delay reporting.
- Coordinating monthly reporting for the department including collating and preparation of department reports for General Manager.
Senior Business Support Officer
Edith Cowan University
12.2013 - 03.2015
- Provide Executive Support to the Dean and Associate Deans of the school, support with Board of Examiner Meetings,
- Coordinating Consultative Committee Meetings, Curriculum and Learning Meetings and managing visiting guests;
- Responsible for all aspects of School administration including, maintaining university databases with student details, course information, maintaining document management system (TRIM)
- with university paper records in line with records policy, reconciliation of staff credit cards, on boarding of new academic staff to the school, including issuing staff contracts, setting up of new staff offices and
- updating of staff locations, processing invoices and payments via Oracle Financials for payment by Finance Department;
- Processing of all documentation via HPRM Trim within university document management policy requirements;
- Point of contact for processing Student Appeals, Academic Misconducts, General Misconducts, attending student meetings and supporting Associate Dean Teaching and Learning in all aspects of curriculum activities ie minuting meetings with students,
- Answering telephone enquiries, monitoring, and managing whole of school email accounts, follow up of room bookings;
- Manage the school website, within the greater ECU website framework, including ongoing review of structure of website information and day to day maintenance.
Senior Management Accountant
Iluka Resources
08.2006 - 10.2013
- Supervision of four accounting support staff and graduate program rotation through the Accounting department.
- First point of contact for Iluka staff and external customers in assisting with AR and AP enquiries.
- General accounting and administrative support for payroll department, project managers and specialist contractors as required.
- Processing of tenement expenses as part of the monthly cost cycles via SAP.
- Processing of accruals and prepayments via SAP including sales, expenses and shipment invoices.
- Accounts Receivable and Payable function for corporate office, including the raising and follow up of Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, credit note claims and progress payments on projects.
- Processing of bank transactions against customer accounts, raising of credit notes, follow up of unidentifiable deposits, via bank tracing.
- Daily and monthly reconciliation of General Ledger accounts including bank statements, credit Card statements and vendor accounts (for the purpose of ageing reporting).
- Maintenance and updating of the Asset Register for the Corporate and site offices, including the creation of assets, write down of assets, depreciating of assets and the scrapping of assets.
- Updating and preparation of procedural and process training manuals.
Senior Production Accountant
Rio Tinto
01.2001 - 03.2006
- Travel to site (Pilbara) to support site staff with business processes and procedures;
- Responsible for all accounting functions including the valuation, processing, and selling of Hamersley's Iron Ore; providing numbers and commentary for monthly Rio Tinto Board Report; in charge of leading the accounting team for the close of each month end process – first week of every month; primary responsibility for maintaining Hamersley Irons stock model ie pricing, cost allocations etc. Contact for accounting team ie questions about shipping, stock blending and future production.
- Duties ranged from general ledger reconciliations, entering new products into SAP to calculating the cost of products and updating cost data in costing model; working with auditors to finalise quarterly and annual financial accounts; attending project meetings to assist Accounting Manager with change to accounting system, preparation of the annual budget pack and its roll out to the Hamersley Iron sites.
Business Analyst
BANKWEST
02.1997 - 01.2001
- Managing a portfolio of commercial banking customers (lending of $1 million plus) and ensuring that all their banking needs were met in a timely, accurate and professional manner. More specifically responsible for the preparation of lending submissions, meeting sales targets and quality assurance through quarterly and annual reviews of customer files;
- Duties included preparing lending and new product submissions including financial analysis of accounting records, preparation of lending ratios and benchmarking to industry normal, industry specific research to identify risk factors; regular telephone and face-to-face contact with customers, audits reports, completion of monthly and annual lending covenants for each customer, reporting of breeches.
- Conducted interviews with key business users to collect information on business processes and user requirements.
- Applied honed problem-solving skills to analyze and resolve issues impacting business operations and goal achievement.
Education
Post Graduate Diploma - Project Management
Curtin University
Perth, WA09.2022
Bachelor Of Business - Accounting And Finance
Edith Cowan University
Perth, WA06.1997
Skills
- Accredited POWER BI User
- Financial Analysis and modelling
- Empowering leadership and team management approach
- System and reporting development
- Supporting and collaborative style
- Strong personal values and integrity
- Excellent focus on key stakeholder relations
- Contract and Procurement Negotiation
- SAP, Oracle and WORKDAY
Certification
CPA - Certified Public Accountant
Timeline
Senior Management Accountant
Murdoch University
06.2022 - Current
Senior Project Accountant
AECOM
07.2018 - 06.2022
Projects Coordinator
Public Transport Authority
03.2016 - 06.2018
Senior Business Support Officer
Edith Cowan University
12.2013 - 03.2015
Senior Management Accountant
Iluka Resources
08.2006 - 10.2013
Senior Production Accountant
Rio Tinto
01.2001 - 03.2006
Business Analyst
BANKWEST
02.1997 - 01.2001
Post Graduate Diploma - Project Management
Curtin University
Bachelor Of Business - Accounting And Finance
Edith Cowan University
CPA - Certified Public Accountant
Similar Profiles
Katelyn WainKatelyn Wain
Student Wellbeing and Equity Ambassador at Murdoch UniversityStudent Wellbeing and Equity Ambassador at Murdoch University
Pairie KohPairie Koh
Research Assistant at Murdoch UniversityResearch Assistant at Murdoch University
Annemarie ScheepersAnnemarie Scheepers
Student Teacher at Murdoch UniversityStudent Teacher at Murdoch University