Responsibilities
Manager – Accounting
About Principal: understand who we are
With more than 19,000 employees worldwide, Principal helps people and companies in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America build and protect their financial well-being. We've been doing this for 143 years. A FORTUNE 500 company, we are known for our innovative ideas and real-life solutions that help customers make financial progress, no matter their income or portfolio size.
Principal Global Services (PGS) is the global business services (GBS) for Principal Financial group with offices in India and the Philippines and 3500+ employees.
For more information, visit www.principal.com Follow us on Xcorp (previously Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Essential deliverables: the section helps understand the job ownership and accountability
The SOX Process Documentation Specialist is responsible for documenting, updating, and maintaining end-to-end business and IT financial processes in line with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requirements. The role ensures that process narratives, risk and control matrices (RCMs), and flowcharts accurately reflect current operations and support effective internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR).
SOX Process Documentation
- Document end-to-end business processes
- Prepare and maintain process narratives, flowcharts, and Risk & Control Matrices (RCMs).
- Ensure documentation aligns with SOX 404 and internal control frameworks (e.g., COSO).
- Identify and document key risks, control objectives, key controls, and SOX-relevant assertions (completeness, accuracy, existence, valuation, cutoff).
Control Design & Updates
- Assess control design effectiveness during documentation and identify gaps or redundancies.
- Update documentation for process changes due to system implementations, reorganizations, or regulatory updates.
- Work closely with process owners and coordinators to validate accuracy and completeness of documentation.
- Ensure documentation reflects US GAAP, company policies, and SOX standards.
Stakeholder & Audit Support
- Act as a liaison between process owners, internal audit, external auditors, and SOX teams.
- Support walkthroughs by explaining documented processes and controls to auditors.
- Incorporate audit feedback and remediation actions into updated documentation.
Governance & Quality
- Ensure documentation standards, templates, and naming conventions are followed consistently.
- Maintain version control and audit trails for all SOX documentation.
- Support annual SOX scoping, refresh, and certification cycles.
- Work at US overlap hours in general and concurrent hours during key SOX milestones (walkthroughs, audit cycles, close periods)
- Drive standardization, scalability, and documentation quality across global processes.
Leadership at Principal
As a leader at Principal, you are responsible for activating our strategy, meeting evolving customer needs, and creating an inclusive culture. Our Leadership Expectations are our guide to the standards expected from all our leaders. Our leaders need to be a positive brand ambassador of our core values and purpose. They need to understand our code of conduct and know the responsibility to comply. They stay respectful of diversity and differences and work towards building inclusive teams and partnerships.
Qualifications
Qualifications-Certifications-Relevant Work Experience
Experience
- 10 – 16 years of experience
Education & Certifications
Technical / Functional
- Strong understanding of SOX 404 and Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (ICFR).
- Hands-on experience with process narratives, RCMs, and flowcharts.
- Knowledge of key finance processes
- Familiarity with COSO framework.
- Experience working with ERPs and other financial tools.
Soft Skills
- Excellent process thinking and documentation skills.
- Strong stakeholder management and interviewing skills.
- Attention to detail with the ability to simplify complex processes.
- Good written and verbal communication.
