Trident Consulting is seeking a
"R&D Finance & Accounting Consultant” for one of our clients in
"Aliso Viejo, CA - Onsite” — a global leader in Medical Devices industry.
Job Title: R&D Finance & Accounting Consultant
Location: Aliso Viejo, CA - Onsite
Type: W2 Contract
Rate: $53.50/Hr
Position Summary
We are seeking an experienced Finance & Accounting Consultant to support the R&D FP&A team with month-end close activities, financial data cleanup, and process improvements.
This individual will partner closely with FP&A, Accounting, Procurement, and R&D stakeholders to improve financial accuracy, transparency, and efficiency while developing sustainable processes and tracking tools.
Key Responsibilities - Accrual Tracking & Reconciliation: Develop and maintain an accrual tracker to monitor outstanding invoices, prior-month reversals, recurring accruals, and expenses requiring re-accrual.
- Prepaid Expense Management: Review and reconcile prepaid schedules, identify discrepancies, validate amortization periods, and redesign tracking tools for accuracy and visibility.
- Purchase Order Review & Cleanup: Audit open POs for incorrect cost centers, inaccurate coding, outdated commitments, and other discrepancies; coordinate corrections.
- R&D Financial Data Cleanup: Review historical transactions, open commitments, and allocations to resolve inconsistencies across R&D projects and cost centers.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Work with R&D project owners, Accounting, Procurement, and FP&A to validate obligations, confirm services received, investigate missing invoices, and resolve issues.
- Process Improvement & Standardization: Evaluate close workflows, identify gaps, and design scalable processes for accruals, prepaids, and expense tracking.
- Reporting & Documentation: Create user-friendly trackers, reconciliation tools, and documented procedures with clear ownership and deadlines.
Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field; 5+ years of relevant experience.
- Strong knowledge of accruals, prepaids, journal entries, reconciliations, and month-end close.
- Experience with purchase orders, vendor invoices, cost centers, and financial data cleanup.
- Advanced Excel and experience with ERP systems such as Oracle or SAP.
- Ability to independently investigate issues and partner effectively across functions.
Preferred Qualifications - R&D finance experience; medical device, biotech, or pharmaceutical background; process improvement or ERP transition experience; CPA or public accounting experience.
Expected Deliverables - Reconciled, easy-to-maintain prepaid expense tracker.
- Structured accrual tracking process with invoice, reversal, and re-accrual visibility.
- Resolution of material PO and cost center discrepancies.
- Improved R&D financial data and open commitment accuracy.
- Documented month-end close procedures and clear ownership.
About Trident Consulting
Trident Consulting is an award-winning staffing and consulting firm headquartered in San Ramon, CA. Since 2005, we've partnered with Fortune 500 and high-growth companies to deliver high-quality talent across technology, engineering, business operations, and professional services.
We specialize in contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire placements, supporting roles across IT, data & analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, finance & accounting, HR, operations, and more. With a strong focus on hard-to-fill and niche positions, our global recruiting engine enables us to deliver speed, quality, and scale.