WHAT DOES AN ADMINISTRATION SPECIALIST DO?
Published: Nov 07, 2024 - The Administration Specialist oversees the daily valuation of mutual funds, ensuring accurate execution and coordination of controls, alongside preparation and review of financial statements and regulatory filings. This role is responsible for maintaining mutual fund compliance with all pertinent regulatory bodies such as the IRS and SEC, and engaging in various projects related to new products, funds, and regulations. The specialist also manages complex client accounts, reviews data reports for trends, and serves as a technical liaison to resolve production or data quality issues, ensuring data integrity and process improvements.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Administration Specialist
1. Administration Specialist Duties
- Pension Plan Administration: On-going administration of small/medium/large defined benefit pension plans.
- Benefits Calculation: Calculate benefits (termination of employment, retirement, death, etc.) and prepare event statements in a timely and accurate manner.
- Payment Authorization: Prepare payment authorizations for retirements, terminations, and deaths.
- Legal Interpretation: Interpret and apply the provisions of the plans and the various applicable laws.
- Annual Statements Preparation: Participate in the preparation of annual statements for active and inactive plan members.
- Pension Adjustments Calculation: Calculate pension adjustments (PA), pension adjustment reversals (PAR), and past service pension adjustments (PSPA).
- Process Documentation: Create/update process documentation related to assigned tasks/projects.
- Report Production: Produce ad hoc reports and address quality issues.
- User Acceptance Testing: Perform user acceptance testing.
- Professionalism: Maintain a high level of professionalism and sense of urgency to ensure client and/or participant expectations are consistently met.
- Workload Management: Manage workload and priorities in a high-pressure, high-volume environment.
- Peer Review: Ensure all work is peer-reviewed.
- Team Support: Back up and support other team members.
- Training Participation: Participate in training, special projects, and other duties as assigned by the manager.
2. Administration Specialist Details
- Call and Mail Administration: Administer phone calls, mail, postage, meeting room preparation, and courier services.
- Event Management: Organize company internal events and perform problem management.
- Supply Ordering: Order stationery, office, and kitchen supplies.
- Documentation Management: Handle documentation flow and manage end-user support.
- Financial Collaboration: Work closely with accounting and finance teams to manage invoices, raise purchase orders, set budgets, and monitor spending.
- Health and Safety Oversight: Be responsible for health and safety management.
- HR Process Management: Oversee onboarding and exit processes for employees, along with other relevant HR procedures.
- Interview Coordination: Schedule and participate in job interviews.
- Operational Support: Provide operational support for solutions and related services, such as servers, databases, and integrations, both on-premise and in cloud services.
- Client Collaboration: Work with internal and external clients to supply efficient solutions.
- Solution Improvement: Implement improvements on top of the solutions.
- Security Administration: Administer and maintain the security of solutions.
- Recovery Procedures: Perform recovery procedures, scheduling and backups, and monitor automated processes.
- Performance Monitoring: Monitor solutions for performance management and capacity planning.
3. Administration Specialist Responsibilities
- New Joiner Onboarding: System onboarding of new joiners.
- Employment Administration: Administration for the whole employment period and compensation area.
- Data Entry Assurance: Perform and assure adequate data entry into appropriate systems as necessary for assigned HR service.
- Payroll Preparation: Prepare HR data for payroll on a semi-monthly basis.
- Termination Process Support: Support the termination process.
- Data Auditing: Conduct regular audits of HR systems data.
- Report Preparation: Prepare personnel administration-related reports.
- HR Practice Improvement: Participate in the implementation and improvement of HR practices.
- Business Partner Support: Provide support to HR business partners.
- Specialized Responsibilities: Handle other responsibilities related to employee specialization and competencies as delegated by the manager.
- Client Relationship Management: Serve as a central point of client contact and build less complex relationships.
- Relationship Strategy Development: Identify and develop relationship strategies for clients.
- Client Needs Recognition: Recognize current and emerging client needs and develop solutions.
4. Administration Specialist Job Summary
- Closing Activities: Perform period/year-end closing activities.
- Journal Entry Preparation: Prepare and post journal entries.
- Closing Report Preparation: Prepare closing reports.
- Account Reconciliation: Prepare balance sheet accounts reconciliations.
- Fixed Assets Accounting: Manage fixed assets accounting.
- Periodic Reporting: Conduct internal and external periodical reporting.
- Process Documentation: Create and update process documentation.
- Quality Control: Perform quality control checks.
- Portfolio Development: Participate with relevant business partners in team-based portfolio development/expertise.
- Client Solution Coordination: Coordinate with internal partners to fulfill the solution agreed to by the client.
- Client Call Management: Plan and execute quality client calls.
- Transaction Process Management: Manage transaction processes with support.
- Interdepartmental Communication: Maintain contact with other departments of the company within Europe.
- Self-Development: Attend internal training and motivate self-development to become a specialist.
5. Administration Specialist Accountabilities
- Control Execution: Execute and coordinate controls over the daily valuation of mutual funds.
- Financial Statement Preparation: Prepare and review financial statements and related financial materials and disclosures.
- Financial Information Provision: Provide financial information to meet the needs of internal and external customers, including preparing regulatory filings for the Securities and Exchange Commission, performance calculations, and marketing information.
- Compliance Management: Ensure mutual fund compliance with the IRS, SEC, and all other regulators.
- Project Research and Engagement: Research and engage in various projects associated with new products, new funds, new regulations, system enhancements, and ad hoc requests.
- Project Leadership: Lead small project efforts and assist on complex projects as needed.
- Tax Calculation Oversight: Identify book-to-tax differences and oversee the preparation of excise and fiscal tax calculations for mutual funds.
- Collaboration with Stakeholders: Work with internal and external contacts such as information systems, investment traders, auditors, brokers, custodians, and investment advisors.
- Process Improvement Recommendations: Recommend and review new methods to allow for added process/control improvements.
- Client Management: Manage complex/high-volume client companies to ensure timely statement processing and improve data quality levels.
- Data Analysis: Review data reports to identify trends across both Administration Teams and analyze if data loaded to the RGA Administrative System requires correction, if internal business rules need correction, or if other action is needed to resolve identified data issues.
- Quality Initiative Support: Support scorecard data quality initiatives related to premium discrepancies and suspense goals, monitor daily and implement changes timely.
- Technical Resource: Serve as a technical resource/liaison to both associates and management for the resolution of production or data quality issues.