Accounting Intern

Job Description

Accounting Intern | BlueScope North America

The Tone:
This is a valuable internship opportunity at BlueScope North America, designed to immerse an aspiring accounting professional in the intricacies of a corporate finance environment. The role is pivotal in supporting various finance departments by assisting with core accounting functions, ensuring that all financial statements adhere to strict regulatory and accounting guidelines. Furthermore, this position is instrumental in the formulation of internal controls and policies to ensure compliance with relevant legislation and established best practices, directly contributing to the company’s financial integrity and operational efficiency. A significant component of this internship also involves a dedicated process improvement project, offering a hands-on chance to analyze, document, and propose innovative solutions to real-world business challenges.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Team: Finance departments, collaborating with various members. No direct reports.
• Mission: To support core accounting operations, ensure financial compliance, and drive process optimization projects within the finance function.
• Tech Stack: MS Office, Excel, RPA, Power Queries

What You’ll Actually Do
• Accounting Operations Support: Provide comprehensive support across accounting management, including processing billing, assisting with tax forms, handling financial reporting, preparing journal entries, invoices, and reconciling accounts for monthly or annual closings.
• Financial Statement & Compliance: Actively assist in the detailed preparation of critical financial statements, ensuring absolute compliance with official guidelines and requirements, and help in the implementation of new accounting standards.
• Financial Planning & Audits: Contribute to the development and preparation of budgets or financial forecasts, and play a direct role in the preparatory stages for the annual audit by compiling and organizing assigned audit workpapers.
• Management Reporting: Help in the development of essential reports tailored for both internal management review and submission to external regulatory bodies.
• Process Optimization Project: Independently undertake a specific process improvement project within the finance department, involving a thorough understanding of existing processes, detailed documentation via work instructions and workflow diagrams, and the proposal of actionable opportunities for enhancement and effective solutions to identified problems.
• Automation Identification: Identify and propose opportunities for key process automation within financial tasks and workflows, leveraging modern tools and technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Power Queries to enhance operational efficiency.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Entry-level Accounting Intern status, specifically for students currently in their Junior or Senior year pursuing a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
• Experience: Demonstrated working knowledge and practical experience with the Microsoft Office suite, showing particular proficiency in using Excel for data management and analysis.
• Skills: Strong analytical skills for process improvement and problem-solving, foundational understanding of accounting principles, and effective communication for presenting results and collaborating with various finance departments.