This position is a key player in the organization and requires a business-curious mindset. The Health and Welfare Benefits Accountant/Analyst is responsible for the accounting, reconciliation, and financial reporting of employee benefit programs, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, and retirement-related health and welfare plans. This role ensures accurate financial processing, compliance with regulatory requirements, and alignment with payroll, HR, and treasury operations. It allows the candidate to drive financial reporting, support continuous process improvement, and serve as a technical and leadership resource within the accounting team. This position will be based out of OxyChem's office in
Dallas, TX .
Essential Job Duties:Benefits Accounting & Financial Management- Record and reconcile all health and welfare benefit transactions, including employer and employee contributions.
- Manage monthly accruals, journal entries, and account reconciliations for benefit-related accounts.
- Ensure accurate accounting for benefit funding, including coordination with Treasury for disbursements and funding flows.
- Own benefits-related activities as part of the monthly, quarterly, and year-end close processes in accordance with GAAP.
- Support financial close processes related to benefits accounting (monthly, quarterly, year-end).
- Perform variance analysis and explain drivers of period-over-period changes in benefits expense.
Payroll & Benefits Integration- Partner with Payroll to ensure accurate deduction processing and mapping to general ledger accounts.
- Validate payroll-related benefits activity (e.g., medical premiums, 401(k), HSA, FSA).
- Investigate, resolve, and document discrepancies between payroll, HRIS, and accounting systems.
- Ensure completeness and accuracy of benefit expense and liabilities through gross-to-net payroll reconciliation processes.
Vendor & Plan Administration Support- Reconcile invoices from benefits providers, insurance carriers, and third-party administrators.
- Ensure timely and accurate payments and funding to benefit vendors.
- Coordinate with HR Benefits team on eligibility, enrollment changes, plan updates, and new benefit offerings.
- Support implementation of new vendors or plan changes from an accounting and controls perspective.
Reporting, Compliance, & Audit Support- Prepare financial reports, schedules, and variance analyses related to health and welfare benefit programs.
- Serve as a primary point of contact for internal and external auditors for benefits-related areas.
- Own and execute SOX controls related to benefits accounting, including documentation and evidence retention.
- Ensure compliance with applicable regulations and reporting requirements (e.g., ERISA, HIPAA, IRS).
- Maintain detailed documentation of accounting policies, processes, and controls related to benefits plans; union and non-union.
Process Improvement & Systems- Support integration and optimization of payroll, HRIS, and accounting systems (e.g., Workday, SAP or similar platform).
- Identify and implement opportunities to streamline processes, improve controls, and enhance reporting.
- Participate in system implementations, upgrades, and testing related to benefits accounting.
- Act as a technical resource for benefits accounting questions across Accounting, Payroll, and HR.
Other- Train or mentor junior team members.
- Ad-hoc reporting, and special projects as assigned.
Qualifications:- Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance (with a minimum 18 hours of Accounting).
- 3+ years accounting experience.
- Strong knowledge of GAAP, GAAS, account reconciliation and financial reporting requirements.
- Experience with ERP and HRIS systems (SAP S/4 Hana and Workday preferred) and advanced proficiency in Excel.
- Proven ability to manage multiple priorities and meet tight deadlines with the ability to work extended hours during close and key reporting deadlines.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills to identify issues and deal with them directly.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present financial information clearly to nonfinance stakeholders, human resources and accounting management.
- Experience working in a multinational environment with union and non-union benefits.
- Experience in a Sox-compliant environment.
- Effective cross-functional collaboration skills with experience partnering with HR, Payroll, and other business groups.
- Independent self-starter, with a growth mindset that seeks learnings opportunities to drive change by embracing digital transformation and innovatively enhance accounting processes.
Additional Desired Qualifications:- Experience partnering with HR on benefit plan reviews, union audits, compliance assessments, and governance of health and welfare programs.
- Experience using OneStream or similar corporate consolidation reporting system.
- Public accounting experience preferred.
- MBA, CPA or CPA eligibility preferred.
- Ability to adapt quickly and maintain flexibility with regards to ad-hoc project, and areas of responsibility.
- Experience with IBM Planning Analytics (preferred), SQL, Tableau, Power BI or similar BI/data tool.
- Experience with continuous improvement by reducing recurring errors, rework and redundancies.
- Exposure to emerging technologies used to enhance accounting processes, close efficiency, or financial analysis i.e., AI-enabled tools or analytics.
Fraud Statement:
It has come to our attention that various individuals and/or organizations are contacting people falsely pretending to recruit on behalf of OxyChem. Please be aware that these recruiting scams and communications do not originate, nor are they associated with our recruitment process. All OxyChem job postings and offers will require a completed application through our company website.
OxyChem does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruiting process. We will never:
• Ask you to pay for applications, interviews, meetings, processing, training or for any other fees
• Use recruiting or placement agencies that charge candidates an advance fee of any kind or
• Request personal information such as passport and bank account details at an early stage of our recruitment process.
We recommend against responding to unsolicited business propositions or offers from people you don't know. Do not disclose your personal or financial details. If you believe you have been the victim of a recruiting scam, please contact your local police department.
