Senior Revenue Recognition Specialist

We're Hiring: Senior Revenue Recognition Specialist

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization committed to maintaining accurate, compliant, and commercially meaningful revenue reporting across diverse markets, products, services, and customer arrangements. Our Finance teams collaborate across Accounting, Commercial, Sales, Legal, FP&A, Operations, Billing, Tax, and external auditors to ensure revenue is recognized consistently and supported by robust financial controls.

Our revenue accounting function combines contract analysis, accounting-policy interpretation, transaction assessment, revenue reporting, reconciliations, systems governance, and continuous improvement to provide reliable financial information and strengthen the organization's revenue-recognition framework.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Revenue Recognition Specialist to lead revenue-recognition analysis, contract accounting, revenue reporting, technical accounting assessments, controls, reconciliations, and process improvement activities.

The ideal candidate will evaluate customer contracts and transactions, determine appropriate revenue-recognition treatments, review accounting conclusions, support month-end close, monitor revenue-related controls, collaborate with Commercial and Legal teams, and ensure revenue is recognized accurately and consistently in accordance with applicable accounting standards and company policies.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead revenue-recognition activities across assigned entities, products, services, contracts, and business lines.
• Review customer contracts and commercial arrangements to determine appropriate revenue-recognition treatment.
• Analyze contractual terms, pricing structures, deliverables, performance obligations, payment terms, renewal clauses, and other relevant provisions.
• Identify and assess distinct goods and services within customer contracts.
• Determine appropriate allocation of transaction consideration across performance obligations.
• Assess the timing and pattern of revenue recognition for different products and services.
• Evaluate whether revenue should be recognized at a point in time or over time.
• Assess contract modifications, amendments, renewals, cancellations, upgrades, downgrades, and other changes affecting revenue recognition.
• Review variable consideration, discounts, rebates, incentives, refunds, credits, penalties, and other pricing adjustments.
• Assess constraints on variable consideration and ensure appropriate accounting treatment.
• Evaluate customer options, material rights, warranties, service-level arrangements, and other contractual features affecting revenue.
• Analyze principal-versus-agent considerations where applicable.
• Assess customer contract costs, commissions, and other incremental costs associated with obtaining or fulfilling contracts.
• Determine appropriate capitalization, amortization, impairment, and expense treatment for eligible contract-related costs.
• Review contract balances including contract assets, contract liabilities, deferred revenue, accrued revenue, and unbilled revenue.
• Maintain accurate revenue-recognition schedules and supporting calculations.
• Prepare and review revenue-recognition journal entries and supporting documentation.
• Coordinate revenue-related activities during monthly, quarterly, and annual financial close.
• Reconcile revenue sub-ledgers and operational billing systems to the general ledger.
• Reconcile contract assets, contract liabilities, deferred revenue, accrued revenue, and other revenue-related balances.
• Investigate revenue variances, unusual movements, reconciliation differences, and accounting exceptions.
• Perform analytical review of revenue by customer, product, service, contract, geography, business unit, and reporting period.
• Prepare revenue-performance analysis comparing actual results with budgets, forecasts, prior periods, and expectations.
• Identify unusual revenue trends, recognition anomalies, cutoff issues, and potential reporting risks.
• Perform revenue cutoff testing and ensure transactions are recorded in the appropriate reporting period.
• Review billing and invoicing processes to identify potential revenue-recognition impacts.
• Work closely with Billing and Accounts Receivable teams to resolve revenue-related discrepancies.
• Coordinate with Sales and Commercial teams to understand contract structures, pricing arrangements, customer commitments, and business practices.
• Work with Legal teams to interpret contractual terms that may affect revenue recognition.
• Partner with FP&A teams to reconcile revenue-recognition results with forecasts and management reporting.
• Coordinate with Tax teams regarding revenue-related tax implications and reporting requirements where applicable.
• Support external auditors with revenue-recognition analysis, schedules, reconciliations, and supporting evidence.
• Respond to auditor queries and provide technical documentation supporting revenue-recognition conclusions.
• Prepare technical accounting memoranda for complex or judgmental revenue matters.
• Research applicable accounting standards and authoritative guidance relating to revenue recognition.
• Monitor changes in accounting standards, regulatory guidance, and industry practices affecting revenue accounting.
• Assess the impact of new or amended revenue-recognition requirements on products, contracts, systems, and processes.
• Develop and maintain revenue-recognition accounting policies, procedures, guidance, and internal controls.
• Establish consistent revenue-recognition methodologies across entities, products, services, and jurisdictions.
• Review revenue-accounting practices across business units and identify inconsistencies or control weaknesses.
• Develop revenue-recognition decision trees, accounting guidance, contract-review checklists, and standard methodologies.
• Maintain documentation of significant accounting judgments, assumptions, estimates, and conclusions.
• Review complex contracts before execution where accounting input is required.
• Provide finance and business stakeholders with practical guidance on revenue implications of proposed commercial arrangements.
• Support new product and service launches by assessing revenue-recognition requirements and accounting impacts.
• Evaluate accounting implications of new pricing models, subscription structures, bundled offerings, usage-based arrangements, and other commercial models.
• Support accounting assessments for multi-element arrangements and complex customer contracts.
• Review revenue-related system configurations, accounting rules, product mappings, and automated recognition logic.
• Work with Finance Systems and Technology teams to ensure revenue-recognition systems accurately reflect approved accounting policies.
• Support implementation and optimization of revenue-recognition software, ERP functionality, billing platforms, and financial systems.
• Participate in system testing, user acceptance testing, parallel runs, and implementation activities affecting revenue accounting.

Key Performance Indicators

• Revenue-recognition accuracy
• Revenue reporting accuracy
• Revenue close completion
• Revenue close timeliness
• Revenue cutoff accuracy
• Contract review turnaround time
• Contract accounting assessment completion
• Revenue-recognition issue resolution time
• Revenue reconciliation accuracy
• Contract asset reconciliation accuracy
• Contract liability reconciliation accuracy
• Deferred revenue reconciliation accuracy
• Unbilled revenue reconciliation accuracy
• Revenue journal-entry accuracy
• Revenue variance-analysis completion
• Revenue variance explanation quality
• Revenue accounting exception rate
• Revenue accounting error rate
• Revenue restatement frequency
• Revenue adjustment frequency
• Revenue control compliance
• Revenue-control deficiency resolution
• Contract modification assessment accuracy
• Variable-consideration assessment accuracy
• Performance-obligation identification accuracy
• Transaction-price allocation accuracy
• Revenue-recognition policy compliance
• Accounting-standard compliance
• Technical accounting memorandum completion
• Technical accounting conclusion accuracy
• Auditor query response time
• Revenue audit adjustment rate
• Audit issue resolution
• Revenue documentation completeness
• Revenue-supporting evidence availability
• Revenue-system calculation accuracy
• Automated revenue-recognition success rate
• Revenue-system exception rate
• Revenue-system issue resolution time
• Revenue-reporting automation coverage
• Manual revenue-accounting effort reduction
• Revenue data-quality score
• Revenue reporting SLA compliance
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Revenue-process improvement completion
• Training completion
• Revenue accounting standardization

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in revenue accounting, revenue recognition, technical accounting, financial reporting, contract accounting, audit, or accounting advisory, preferably within a multinational, technology, professional-services, subscription, e-commerce, construction, real estate, or other complex commercial organization.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Proven experience managing revenue-recognition activities and complex customer contracts.
• Strong knowledge of applicable revenue-recognition accounting standards.
• Experience analyzing contracts and identifying performance obligations.
• Strong understanding of transaction-price determination and allocation.
• Experience assessing point-in-time and over-time revenue recognition.
• Strong understanding of variable consideration, contract modifications, discounts, rebates, and customer incentives.