Job Specification

Purpose of Position :

To identify/verify jurisdiction for each task and with reference to applicable legal provisions and trust accounting standards, policies and procedures to perform appropriate audits, financial analyzes, adjustments and re-conciliations, ensuring correct financial processing and valuation, monitoring/control and distribution of client/estate trust assets and discharged of liabilities; to resolve trust accounting issues; and to provide appropriate reports to internal and external clients and beneficiaries, lawyers and management.

Duties / Responsibilities :

1. Performs closeout and reporting activities for client and estate trust accounts and provides work-ups for more complex and contentious cases for handling by Trust Financial Officers/Team Leader and Manager, Trust Accounting, including:

- Verifying jurisdiction and (appropriate) legal authority to close out accounts due to death, transfer and discharge of clients and estates;
- Auditing account transactions for compliance with applicable law, standards, policies and procedures during the period of trust management under statutory authority, and obtaining required documents and adjustments as necessary;
- Liaising with internal and external lawyers to resolve outstanding legal issues;
- Performing financial extractions, compensation calculations and account adjustments, calculating required holdbacks and making required payments;
- Co-ordinating with tax specialists for filings; remittances and clearances;
- Directing the transfer/disposition of real and personal property and securities
- Communicating with estate trustees, guardians clients, families and institutions to effect the transfer of trust assets and to obtain release;
- Preparing interim and final financial reports for estate trustees, guardians, clients and families
- Preparing account statements, calculating interest and preparing complex distribution spreadsheets for the estates.

2. Performs financial analyzes and re-conciliations of client trust account transactions, identifies financial processing issues, and makes recommendations to Trust Financial Officers and/or Manager, Trust Accounting, including:

- Reviewing clearing accounts to ensure these are properly reconciled, resolving issues and correcting all entries that do not relate to timing differences.
- Analyzing/reconciling liability accounts, verifying that liabilities are appropriately recognized and correcting errors in valuation and allocation.
- Investigating unrecorded receipts with internal clients, income sources and other vendors to identify and allocated to the appropriate client trust account;
- Negotiating contracts with major vendors to achieve increased control and efficiencies through bluk processing applications.
- Checking re-conciliations of major supplier statements, investigating differences, reporting to internal clients and flowing up to ensure resolution of differences;
- Responding to (help Desk) queries relating to financial processing from internal clients and external suppliers, monitoring/reporting on Trust Accounting issues, and identifying/recommending system/procedural changes and training needs.
- Auditing Trust Accounting functions and systems for compliance with delegation of authorities, trust accounting standards, policies and procedures;
3. Implementing vendor management process for trust clients through:

- Verifying the authenticity of new vendors through verification processes including contacting other third parties and using electronic sources of information to validate the vendor;
- Updating the payee table with current information re addresses, bank accounts, name changes, etc.,;
- Verification approval vendors on clients' approved lists and associating the client's account with that vendor to ensure payment goes directly against the client's account;

4. Performs review/approval function for new accounts and assets paid into Court, preparation of payments, closeout and reporting for litigation accounts, and management of client non-cash assets, and provides work-ups for more complex and contentious cases for handling by Trust Financial Officers and/or Manager, Trust Accounting including:

- Reviewing/approving creation of all trust accounts for assets paid into court, ensuring compliance with applicable federal and provincial statutes;
- Reviewing /approving payments into court, ensuring compliance with applicable federal and provincial statutes;
- Recording/controlling/monitoring non-cash assets paid into, held in custody and paid out of court, consistent with the requirements of the Courts;
- Recording and managing appeals, stays, garnishments/attachments and interim orders applicable to any action, ensuring that the court process is correctly applied;
- Liaising with internal and external lawyers to resolve outstanding legal issues;
- Advising lawyers, parties to actions, the Courts, government ministries and financial institutions on the status of litigation files and management of assets;
- Preparing payments out of court for litigations by interpretation of court orders and applicable federal and provincial statutes, calculating/allocating income and fees and deducting applicable taxes;

5. Performs review/approval function for minor notification, searches for missing beneficiaries, closeout and reporting for minor accounts, and provides work-ups for more complex and contentious cases for handling by Trust Financial Officer and/or Manager, Trust Accounting, including:

- Determining the eligibility of minor clients for payment out of court, by interpretation of court orders and applicable federal and provincial statutes;
- Providing functional guidance to Trust Accounting Clerks in mailing of notices and other communication with beneficiaries, families, estates trustees and guardians;
- Conducting searches for missing beneficiaries;
- Liaising with internal and external lawyers to resolve outstanding legal issues;
- Communicating with beneficiaries, families, other government offices and institutions, estates trustees and guardians in complex issues;

6. Performs financial analyzes and reconciliations, monitoring/controlling activity in Canadian and US $ bank accounts, reviewing/reporting on reconciliation of securities and personal property between the OPGT and agents/custodians and quality control assurance in Trust Accounting, including:

- Monitoring and controlling all cheques/deposits/EFTs/EDIs/credits/charge-backs, investigating outstanding and unmatched items, correcting/resolving discrepancies within contractual/legal timelines;
- Validating negotiated items, stop payments and deleted items, and maintaining required records;
- Analyzing and reconciling all Canadian and US $ bank accounts
- Analyzing and reconciling clearing and liability accounts, correcting errors and initiating appropriate corrective action as required;
- Analyzing securities and jewellery reconciliations, providing functional guidance to correct errors and improve procedures;
- Maintaining auxiliary financial databases, developing reports and preparing detailed analyses to meet a wide range of business and management needs and affecting the quality control program in a trust environment;

7. Under the direction of the Manager, Trust Accounting, in collaboration with the Estates Administration Unit, provide Estates Heirship/Research where the OPGT has been or may be appointed the Estate Trustee in accordance with the legislative requirements of the Succession Law Reform Act, other applicable Statute Law the Trust Analyst will;

- Initiate searches from evidence or leads about deceased persons to establish heirs;
- Reviews, analyzes, and corroborates heirship material obtained from a variety of sources ., i.e., Vital events, certificates, religious records, obituaries, cemetery records., etc.,;
- Research/identify and gather correspondence and evidence to identify possible heirs of the same degree in order to determine entitlement, by reviewing existing documentation, completing internet searches, contact consulates and obtain both federal and provincial records and contacting friends or other interested third parties;
- Pursues searches for heirs at law around the World by contacting external companies, professional genealogists or private investigators to conduct searches as required. Negotiate, award and monitor search contracts awarded to these professionals.
- Scrutinizes the veracity of evidence to ensure compliance with the Succession Law Reform Act, Identifies legal issues and implications and reports on same to counsel. Provides advice and direction to potential heirs.
- Assembles a complete evidentiary chain for the family structure for court purposes and/or to reinforce the veracity of the evidence in case of any potential challenge.
- Requisitions funds to effect the distribution in accordance with releases received and

8. Performs other administrative duties required for the effective functioning of the Finance Department, including:

- Making recommendations to resolve systemic trust accounting and general financial issues, raising the profile of significant complex issues and ensuring maximum efficiency of Trust Accounting and general financial systems;
- Researching and recommending changes to systems towards adapting new technology in order to improve efficiency and control;
- Participating in policy development, attending meetings and taking an active role on committees.
- Maintaining accurate policy and procedural manuals, recommending updates to reflect changes in legislation, accounting principles and standards and business operations.
- Providing functional guidance and training to Trust Accounting Clerks
- Preparing reports, documentation and analyses required for annual financial audits, internal audits and quality assurance reviews;

- Other duties as assigned by Team Leaders and/or Managers, Trust Accounting, Comptrollers and the Chief Financial Officer.

Staffing and Licencing :

Job requires proficiency (oral and written) in both French and English at the advanced level.

Knowledge :

Job requires sound knowledge of jurisdiction and legal authority, of trust accounting standards, delegation of authority, policies and procedures, of auditing, analysis, reconciliation, adjustment and reporting, of asset valuation, banking and custodial practices, and securities management, of computerized financial processing and controls, of use of databases, spreadsheets, internet, custodial software and word-processing, of mathematical and quantitative techniques, of search techniques to locate beneficiaries of estates and other trust, with a working knowledge of related areas such as taxation, court processes and social benefit administration, in order to ensure appropriate and accurate financial processing, accounting and reporting to trust assets and liabilities, by verifying, correcting and approving the opening of new trust accounts, by auditing, analyzing, reconciling, recalculating and adjusting transactions for the receipt, management and disbursement of trust assets and for discharge of trust liabilities, by locating beneficiaries of trusts and estates, and by reviewing, correcting and releasing trust financial reports.

Skills :

Job requires judgment/conceptual abilities to identify, interpret and apply appropriate jurisdiction and legislation, trust accounting standards and OPGT/MAG policies and procedures, seeking/obtaining professional interpretation/advice as required to ensure correct/accurate treatment of trust financial transactions; oral and written communications skills to liaise with lawyers, bankers, custodians, tax specialists and institutions for interpretation/advice (as described above), to respond to queries from beneficiaries, families, other government offices and institutions, estate trustees, guardians, lawyers and accountants, internal clients and suppliers concerning trust accounting issues, eligibility/entitlement to trust assets and clarification of reporting for management of trust assets and liabilities, and to conduct effective searches for beneficiaries, application of auditing, analytical and reconciliation methodology at a very detailed level to identify, reconcile and adjust discrepancies in financial processing; use of mathematical and quantitative techniques to verify, recalculate, reallocate and correct financial transactions, particularly with respect to computation of income, fees and distributions; research of asset valuations, corporate actions and missing documents to correctly account for securities and personal property, proficiency in PC-based networked computer systems, databases, spreadsheets, word processing, internet and custodial software to identify and resolve processing discrepancies; research and valuations, prepare reports and communicate with the various parties described above; time management applications to continuously organize/prioritize work to meet tight deadlines/performance standards.

Freedom of Action :

Job requires adherence to legislation, accounting standards and policies/procedures in reviewing, correcting and reporting trust accounting transactions and valuations, in itself requiring interpretation in application, with the need to refer to specialists as/when necessary for opinion; requires making recommendations for changes in policies/procedures, accounting and computer systems applications; requires Analysts to largely organize/prioritize own workload and set own scope for audits, analyses, searches, vendor contracts, etc; requires that communications follow formats provided for correspondence and reporting, however explanations and elaborations are often required from and provided by analysts. Work is performed with some latitude in decision-making in interpretation/application of law, accounting and policies/procedures with referrals to Trust Financial Officers/Managers as required mainly by complexity; work is reviewed primarily on an exceptions basis using edits, exceptions reports, third party concerns and other monitoring system; periodic reviews are conducted in identified areas to ensure quality control and consistency.