About the Role:- We are seeking a highly organized and detail-oriented professional to support vendor budget and commercial operations.
- This role is crucial in supporting the day-to-day financial management of vendor engagements, ensuring budget accuracy, timely purchase order setup, reliable tracking of vendor deliverables, and accurate invoice and accrual treatment.
- The ideal candidate is a self-starter with a strong understanding of foundational financial processes, sound judgment regarding accounting treatment, and a commitment to meticulous record-keeping across a growing portfolio of vendor agreements.
- We expect this person to actively use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in their daily work and treat the operational processes they inherit as opportunities for improvement-identifying manual, repetitive, or error-prone steps and partnering with the team to automate them rather than simply absorbing the volume
Job Title:Budget & Commercial Operations Analyst III
Minimum Qualifications:- 4+ years of experience in a finance, accounting, procurement, or vendor operations role with a focus on transactional processing.
- Demonstrated working knowledge of accruals, including the ability to explain and apply the difference between accrued, invoiced, and paid amounts, and build a defensible month-end position when delivery and invoicing are out of sync.
- Solid understanding of Operating Expense (OpEx) versus Capital Expenditure (CapEx) treatment, including the ability to reason about how an engagement should be classified, what drives capitalization versus expensing, and when to escalate to Accounting rather than deciding independently.
- Strong cash flow literacy, including understanding the timing gap between contract execution, upfront payment, delivery, acceptance, invoice, and cash out, and how Purchase Order (PO) structure and payment terms affect cash flow.
- Strong understanding of fundamental accounting principles, including Accounts Payable (AP), Accounts Receivable (AR), and General Ledger (GL), as well as financial workflows such as Purchase Order-to-Pay (PO-to-Pay).
- Comfortable working with large datasets and operating in ambiguous environments.
- Excellent organizational skills and a high degree of attention to detail.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, with internal and external stakeholders, including maintaining high data quality and following required approval processes.
- Ability to work with a sense of urgency on critical business requests.
- Customer-service-oriented approach, focused on quality communication and a bias toward action.
- Demonstrated use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in a finance or operations context, with sound judgment regarding where AI output can be trusted and where it must be verified, particularly for financial figures, vendor-facing communication, and information entering a system of record.
- Track record of identifying inefficiencies in existing processes and driving concrete improvements, with evidence of the resulting impact.
- Comfortable working with spreadsheets and workflow tools beyond basic data entry, including building repeatable reconciliations, validations, and checks rather than manually re-performing them each cycle.
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience working in a fast-paced corporate or technology environment.
- Experience using Anaplan, AppSheet, Oracle, and Airtable.
- Previous experience managing procurement and finance operations for a specific line of business.
- Comfortable working alongside technical or research stakeholders who serve as delivery reviewers.
- Hands-on experience building lightweight automations, including scripting, low-code or workflow automation platforms, or Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted workflows, to replace manual operational steps.
- Experience contributing to an automation or process transformation initiative within a finance, procurement, or vendor operations function.
Key Responsibilities:- Own the end-to-end process of initiating, processing, tracking, and maintaining Purchase Orders (POs) in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, structured to match each agreement's payment terms, including upfront, milestone-based, or per-delivery payments.
- Monitor Purchase Order funding status and proactively follow up on outstanding invoices and related exceptions, initiating funding increases before shortfalls affect vendor payments.
- Maintain a current view of the approved budget, including approved, committed, executed, and remaining amounts, and flag when spending approaches the approved limit.
- Validate pricing on incoming vendor agreements against the approved rate card and pricing structure, escalating pricing outside the approved structure for authorization.
- Serve as the day-to-day operational contact for vendors regarding delivery reporting, Purchase Order references, invoice format, service periods, and required reporting information.
- Own the delivery tracking log, capturing vendor, scope, delivery date, volume, and supporting details for every reported delivery.
- Drive deliveries through the review and acceptance workflow, follow up on pending items, prevent backlog accumulation, and confirm acceptance before invoices are submitted for payment.
- Validate invoices against contract terms and approved parameters, ensuring accuracy of scope, volume delivered, rates charged, service period, and Purchase Order billed.
- Route invoices for internal approvals and ensure timely processing for payment.
- Reconcile and resolve discrepancies between invoices and delivery records by coordinating with vendors and internal teams, including handling credit memos and adjustment lines.
- Own the monthly accrual position for vendor spending by recognizing delivered-but-uninvoiced work, applying the appropriate accrual input type, and reconciling accrued, invoiced, and paid amounts.
- Support quarterly forecast inputs for vendor spending, including the timing of upfront versus delivery-linked payments.
- Support the preparation of documentation and reports required for month-end close processes.
- Track contract renewal and expiration dates and surface them ahead of key decision deadlines.
- Liaise with Source-to-Pay (S2P), Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), Accounting, Sourcing, and Legal teams to ensure Purchase Order accuracy, alignment with approved budgets, and appropriate accounting treatment.
- Maintain organized and accessible financial records and process documentation.
- Assist with ad hoc reporting and analysis requests from finance and program teams.
- Use approved Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation tools to accelerate routine work, including reconciliation, data extraction from vendor submissions and invoices, summarization, and drafting vendor correspondence, while retaining human review and accountability for financial figures and commitments.
- Proactively identify manual, repetitive, or error-prone steps in operational workflows and propose automation or process redesign opportunities, with a clear understanding of the time saved and risks reduced.
- Partner with workforce planning and program teams to scope and test automations end to end and support the migration of manual trackers into supported systems as technology matures.
- Document processes clearly enough to enable automation or effective handoff, and maintain documentation as workflows change.
- Ensure adherence to internal financial controls and organizational policies.
Location: Sunnyvale, CA [Hybrid]
Salary Range: The salary for this position is between $95,600 - $145,600 annually. Factors which may affect pay within this range may include geography/market, skills, education, experience, and other qualifications of the successful candidate.
Benefits: The Company offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements: [medical insurance] [dental insurance] [vision insurance] [401(k) retirement plan] [long-term disability insurance] [short-term disability insurance] [5 personal days accrued each calendar year. The Paid time off benefits meet the paid sick and safe time laws that pertains to the City/ State] [10-15 days of paid vacation time] [6 paid holidays and 1 floating holiday per calendar year] [Ascendion Learning Management System]
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Preferred Skills Operating Expense
- Capital Expenditure
- Purchase Order
- Purchase Order-to-Pay
- Accounts Receivable
- Accounts Payable
- General Ledger
- Artificial Intelligence
Job details Job ID 333072
Role Budget Commercial Operations Analyst III
Location Sunnyvale, California, US
Job type Direct Hire
Recruiter Khushi
Email khushi.shah@ascendion.com
