Finance Systems Consultant

Finance Systems Consultant (6-Month Contract), London, £500-600 per day
Overview
Our leading law firm customer are seeking an experienced Finance Systems Consultant to lead the effective operation, enhancement, and strategic development of their finance systems landscape. This role combines hands-on systems management with project delivery, working closely with Finance, Technology, and Transformation teams to ensure our financial systems continue to support the firm's evolving business needs.
The successful candidate will have extensive experience with Aderant and enterprise finance systems, strong project delivery capabilities, and the ability to translate business requirements into effective technology solutions.
Finance Systems Environment
Our finance technology landscape is a hybrid environment consisting of on-premise and cloud-based applications, managed by a dedicated Finance Systems team.
On-Premise Applications

• Aderant ERP (Time Recording, Billing, Accounting and General Ledger)
• Finance system integrations
• Intapp Matter Opening (managed by another team and integrated with Aderant)

Cloud Applications

• Intapp Time (Mobile Time Recording)
• Chrome River (Expenses, Purchasing and Invoice Processing)
• Anaplan (FP&A, Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning)
• Integrations with the firm's HR, Business Development, Resource Management and Master Data Management platforms
• Ayora (AI-powered WIP Analysis and Proposal Management)

Key Responsibilities
Finance Systems Transformation

• Develop and drive the finance systems roadmap, ensuring solutions remain aligned with business strategy and future operational requirements.
• Lead the continuous improvement of finance systems, reporting capabilities, and analytical tools, identifying opportunities to enhance efficiency and user experience.
• Deliver finance systems integration initiatives, ensuring seamless data flow across the firm's technology estate.
• Gather and analyse business requirements through stakeholder engagement, workshops and process mapping, translating these into functional system solutions.
• Support the design, build, testing and implementation of finance technology projects, including:
  • Resource planning
  • UAT planning and execution
  • Change coordination
  • Go-live support
• Contribute to strategic programmes including:
  • ODDR implementation (Bill Distribution and Collections)
  • Finance systems rollout to new international offices
  • Treasury and Treasury Reporting solutions
  • KPI and management reporting initiatives
  • Cashflow management solutions
• Act as the primary liaison between Finance, Technology and Transformation teams, ensuring effective communication and successful project delivery.
• Collaborate with other technology teams on cross-functional initiatives and system integrations.
• Manage relationships with key technology partners and vendors, including Aderant, Report Factory, Intapp, Harbour, ODDR, Roox, Anaplan and Emburse.
• Support system upgrades, releases and deployments, ensuring successful transition into business-as-usual support.
• Oversee ongoing management of finance systems integrations.

Business-as-Usual (BAU) Support

• Support month-end and year-end finance processes, including issue resolution, reconciliations, reporting, testing and analysis.
• Provide second-line support for finance systems, responding to service requests, data changes, reporting queries and incident management.
• Administer user access, security permissions and governance controls, ensuring regular access reviews and accurate documentation.
• Perform routine system maintenance, including software updates, patches and template management.

Skills & Experience

• Extensive Finance Systems experience (8+ years), including significant expertise with Aderant within a large, international organisation.
• Proven experience delivering ERP implementations, upgrades, migrations and finance transformation projects.
• Strong understanding of finance systems integrations across multiple platforms.
• Experience supporting hybrid environments comprising both on-premise and cloud-based applications.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft infrastructure technologies.
• Advanced technical skills, including:
  • SQL
  • Microsoft Power BI
  • Advanced Excel (including macros)
• Demonstrated project management experience with successful end-to-end delivery.
• Previous experience managing or mentoring teams.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Degree educated. A professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) is desirable.

Personal Attributes

• Highly organised with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Methodical, inquisitive and commercially minded.
• Adaptable and comfortable working within a changing business environment.
• Confident working across diverse cultures and international teams.
• Collaborative, approachable and hands-on, with a proactive attitude.
• Self-motivated with the ability to work independently while contributing effectively as part of a wider team.