Accountant

Unum • Portland, ME

6d

About The Position

When you join the team at Unum, you become part of an organization committed to helping you thrive. Here, we work to provide the employee benefits and service solutions that enable employees at our client companies to thrive throughout life’s moments. And this starts with ensuring that every one of our team members enjoys opportunities to succeed both professionally and personally. To enable this, we provide: Award-winning culture Inclusion and diversity as a priority Performance Based Incentive Plans Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!) Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution Mental health support Career advancement opportunities Student loan repayment options Tuition reimbursement Flexible work environments All the benefits listed above are subject to the terms of their individual Plans. And that’s just the beginning… With 10,000 employees helping more than 39 million people worldwide, every role at Unum is meaningful and impacts the lives of our customers. Whether you’re directly supporting a growing family, or developing online tools to help navigate a difficult loss, customers are counting on the combined talents of our entire team. Help us help others, and join Team Unum today! General Summary: Unum is looking for an Accountant to support the Finance organization’s accounting modernization initiatives with a focus on improving reconciliation quality, timeliness, transparency, and sustainability. This position performs intermediate-level accounting and financial analysis with a focus on improving and modernizing the financial close and related processes. The role partners with stakeholders across Finance to provide insights, identify improvement opportunities, and support the design, implementation, and adoption of accounting processes, systems, and controls. Responsibilities include contributing to initiatives that enhance operational efficiency, consistency, and effectiveness while maintaining strong accounting discipline and governance.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required or comparable work experience that well prepares or qualifies the individual for the work to be performed.
• Must be CPA eligible or have an active plan to pursue.
• 0-3 years of accounting experience
• Demonstrates some knowledge and/or a proven record of success in financial accounting, managerial accounting, taxation, and financial reporting systems including Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and current accounting policies and procedures.
• Basic understanding of the components of multiple financial statements and how they interact with one other.
• Detail oriented with good intuitive reasoning.
• Ability to respond quickly and positively to change.
• Developing customer service/teamwork skills within job area.
• Highly motivated individual able to take direction from managers and developing skills to solve problems with little guidance from managers.
• Strong project management skills, including ability to prioritize work while working on multiple projects keeping track of and meeting due dates.
• Demonstrate strong oral and written communication skills, analytical and interpersonal skills, and ability to interact in an effective manner with all levels of personnel.
• Intermediate EXCEL Skills
• General ledger systems and reporting tools experience preferred.
• Proficient in Word and PowerPoint
• Exhibit customer service skills in working with functional area team and other resources to complete assigned work.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree a plus

Responsibilities

• Perform and enhance balance sheet and operational reconciliations by applying standardized methodologies, strengthening documentation, and ensuring clear audit trails and issue resolution.
• Identify opportunities to streamline, automate, or standardize reconciliation and close-related processes to improve efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.
• Participate in the implementation and optimization of reconciliation tools, subledger solutions, and supporting technologies, including testing, job coding, validation, and user adoption activities.
• Analyze reconciliation differences and recurring issues to identify root causes and recommend process, system, or control enhancements.
• Assist in the development, documentation, and maintenance of reconciliation procedures, close calendars, and control frameworks to support internal controls and audit readiness.
• Collaborate with Accounting, Finance, IT, and business partners to improve upstream data quality and end-to-end financial processes.
• Support continuous improvement efforts by tracking key metrics (e.g., aging items, reconciling differences, close cycle time) and communicating progress and risks to management.
• Contribute to change management activities related to process improvements, including drafting job aids, training materials, and knowledge transfer documentation.
• Apply a problem-solving mindset to evaluate existing processes, challenge inefficiencies, and promote best practices aligned with evolving accounting standards and organizational goals
• Make recommendations regarding the process of creating the assigned complex analytics.
• Maintain various systems and data assets that support the specific financial areas (e.g., accounting, planning, and administrative systems).
• Assumes ownership of the data in the system or assets related to the assigned analysis.
• Partner with business areas to provide requested accounting research, analysis, information, and data.
• Maintain a specialized working knowledge in assigned tasks and analysis of Unum’s products, services and business processes including, their specific business area, the issues and technical skills required to support the area.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Award-winning culture
• Inclusion and diversity as a priority
• Performance Based Incentive Plans
• Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability
• Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!)
• Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution
• Mental health support
• Career advancement opportunities
• Student loan repayment options
• Tuition reimbursement
• Flexible work environments

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level