Trading Settlement & Accounting Analyst
Posted on: January 13, 2026 | Job ID: R192563
Company Name: Shell India Markets Private Ltd
Application Deadline: Rolling Basis Until Filled
Team: Market Global Freight Settlement
Reports To: Settlement Team Lead | Job Family Group: Finance
Division: Finance Operations | Business Unit: Finance
Location: Chennai Shell Centre India | Schedule: (Shift-Based)
Employment Type: Full-Time | Experience Level: 03 + Years
About This Exciting Opportunity
Shell is seeking a talented Trading Settlement & Accounting Analyst to join our dynamic Global Freight Settlement team in Chennai. This role represents an exceptional opportunity for finance professionals with accounts payable and receivable expertise to transition into the fast-paced world of global energy trading operations.
As part of Shell's Finance Operations center in Chennai, you'll be at the heart of one of the world's largest energy trading operations, handling settlement activities that span continents, currencies, and complex maritime freight transactions. This position offers the perfect blend of technical accounting skills, global business exposure, and career development opportunities within a Fortune 500 energy leader.
Where You Fit In - Understanding Your Role
The Global Freight Settlement Process is a critical function within Shell's trading ecosystem, ensuring seamless financial operations across our worldwide maritime and freight activities. As an Analyst in this specialized team, you'll be responsible for the financial backbone of Shell's global freight trading operations.
The Global Freight Settlement Team - Your New Home
Our Global Freight Settlements team operates as a center of excellence responsible for:
Daily Settlement Operations: Processing and settling vendor invoices for freight services across global shipping routes, ensuring timely payments and accurate financial records.
Customer Billing & Recoveries: Managing the billing process for customers, tracking freight cost recoveries, and ensuring revenue recognition aligns with services delivered.
Dispute Resolution: Acting as the primary point of contact for resolving invoice discrepancies, rate disputes, and settlement issues with vendors, customers, and internal stakeholders.
Monthly & Quarterly Book Closures: Supporting critical financial close activities, ensuring all freight-related transactions are accurately captured, reconciled, and reported within tight deadlines.
This role offers exposure to the dynamic world of global trading, where market volatility, complex contractual arrangements, and multi-jurisdictional regulations create a challenging and rewarding work environment.
What's the Role? - Your Key Responsibilities
Daily Operations & Transaction Processing
Invoice Settlement Excellence: Perform daily operations with precision and efficiency, processing vendor invoices for global freight services. You'll verify invoice accuracy against contracts, purchase orders, and freight booking confirmations, ensuring payments are authorized and compliant with Shell's financial controls.
Exception & Dispute Management: Handle complex issues and exceptions that arise in the settlement process. When invoice discrepancies occur—whether due to rate differences, quantity variations, or service disputes—you'll investigate root causes, collaborate with stakeholders, and drive timely resolution. Your analytical skills will be crucial in identifying patterns and preventing recurring issues.
Customer Billing Operations: Execute billing processes for freight cost recoveries, ensuring customers are invoiced accurately and promptly. You'll maintain billing schedules, track payment receipts, and follow up on overdue accounts, supporting healthy cash flow management.
Month-End & Quarter-End Financial Close
Reconciliation Activities: Take active involvement in month-end close activities, including Inter-Group and Inter-Company reconciliations. You'll ensure transactions between Shell entities are properly matched, discrepancies are identified and resolved, and inter-company balances are accurate.
Finance Accruals Management: Support the preparation and review of accruals for freight costs, ensuring all expenses incurred but not yet invoiced are properly estimated and recorded. Your understanding of accrual accounting will help maintain accurate financial statements.
Reporting & Documentation: Contribute to monthly and quarterly reporting packages, providing settlement statistics, aging analysis, and key performance metrics to finance leadership and trading management.
Stakeholder Communication & Collaboration
Internal Stakeholder Engagement: Communicate effectively with Shell's trading teams, logistics coordinators, commercial managers, and finance business partners. You'll serve as the settlement expert, providing guidance on billing procedures, payment status, and dispute resolution.
External Vendor Relations: Interface with freight vendors, shipping companies, and service providers to resolve payment queries, clarify billing terms, and maintain positive business relationships that support Shell's operational needs.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Treasury, Tax, Legal, and Compliance teams to ensure freight settlements comply with regulatory requirements and internal policies.
Compliance & Risk Management
Trade Compliance Adherence: Demonstrate ability to understand and comply with trade compliance guidelines, particularly OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) regulations. You'll screen transactions to ensure Shell doesn't inadvertently conduct business with sanctioned entities, helping protect our license to operate.
Control Framework Operation: Execute operations in accordance with Shell's Control Framework governing the trading business. This includes maintaining segregation of duties, following approval hierarchies, and ensuring all transactions are properly documented and auditable.
SOX Compliance: Support Sarbanes-Oxley compliance by maintaining proper controls over settlement processes, documenting procedures, and participating in internal control testing.
Continuous Improvement & Project Support
Process Enhancement Initiatives: Support continuous improvement projects aimed at automating manual tasks, reducing settlement cycle times, and improving data quality. Your frontline experience will provide valuable insights for process redesign.
Project Deliveries: Participate in system implementations, process migrations, and transformation initiatives. Whether it's upgrading SAP modules, implementing new trading systems, or standardizing global settlement processes, you'll contribute to Shell's operational excellence journey.
Documentation & Knowledge Management: Support Team Leads in reviewing and updating Work Instructions periodically. You'll help ensure process changes, exceptions, and best practices are documented, creating a knowledge repository that supports team continuity and training.
Flexible Business Support
Ad-Hoc Analysis & Reporting: Undertake ad-hoc activities as business demands arise, whether it's special analysis for senior management, urgent reconciliations for auditors, or data extraction for commercial reviews.
Adaptability to Business Needs: Demonstrate flexibility in taking on new responsibilities as Shell's trading business evolves, showing willingness to learn new systems, handle different commodity settlements, or support adjacent teams during peak periods.
What You Bring - Required Qualifications & Skills
Professional Experience
Accounts Payable/Receivable Expertise: Strong experience of 3+ years in Accounts Payable and/or Accounts Receivable domains with demonstrated Subject Matter Expertise. You've handled high-volume transaction processing, managed vendor/customer relationships, and resolved complex billing issues in previous roles.
Settlement Operations Background: Experience in settlement functions, ideally within trading, logistics, or supply chain environments where multiple parties, currencies, and contractual terms create complexity.
Educational Qualifications
Academic Credentials: Professional qualification or Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Commerce, or related business discipline from a recognized institution. CA Inter, ACCA, CMA, or equivalent professional certifications are valued.
Technical Skills & System Knowledge
Microsoft Excel Proficiency: Sound knowledge and advanced skills in Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, complex formulas, data analysis, and reporting capabilities. You can manipulate large datasets efficiently and create meaningful analysis from raw data.
SAP Platform Experience: Demonstrated experience working with SAP platforms, particularly SAP Finance modules (FI, CO), SAP MM (Materials Management), or SAP SD (Sales & Distribution). You're comfortable navigating SAP transactions, running reports, and understanding how data flows through integrated systems.
Multi-System Navigation: Ability to understand and navigate through multiple trading systems completely. Shell's trading environment includes various Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) systems, freight management platforms, and financial systems that must work in concert.
Core Accounting & Finance Knowledge
Fundamental Accounting Skills: Strong understanding of accounting operations including double-entry bookkeeping, general ledger impacts, accounts reconciliation, and how settlement transactions relate to the larger financial accounting picture. You can explain journal entries and their financial statement impacts.
Financial Reporting Understanding: Knowledge of how daily settlement activities aggregate into monthly financial results, quarterly reports, and annual financial statements. You appreciate the importance of accuracy and timeliness in the financial close process.
Process & Data Management: Experience managing structured processes with defined workflows, control points, and quality checkpoints. You understand data integrity principles and the importance of maintaining accurate master data.
Business & Soft Skills
Communication Excellence: Good communication and interpersonal skills, capable of articulating complex settlement issues clearly to diverse audiences—from vendors seeking payment clarification to senior managers reviewing financial results.
Business Partnering Ability: Skill in building productive relationships with trading teams and other business partners, positioning yourself as a trusted advisor rather than just a transaction processor.
Financial Controls Awareness: Knowledge of financial controls principles including segregation of duties, approval authorities, audit trails, and the importance of maintaining robust control environments.
Preferred Qualifications - What Will Set You Apart
Maritime Process Experience: Experience in maritime-related processes is a significant added advantage. Understanding shipping terms (FOB, CIF, DES), freight rate structures, demurrage/detention charges, and vessel chartering basics will accelerate your effectiveness.
Trading Environment Exposure: Previous experience in commodity trading, freight forwarding, logistics services, or supply chain finance provides valuable context for understanding Shell's business operations.
Multi-Currency & International Operations: Experience handling transactions in multiple currencies, understanding foreign exchange impacts, and working across different time zones and regulatory jurisdictions.
Personal Attributes for Success
Detail-Oriented & Accurate: You possess meticulous attention to detail, recognizing that small errors in settlement processes can cascade into significant financial discrepancies. Accuracy isn't just a goal—it's your standard.
Analytical Mindset: Strong problem-solving abilities, capable of drilling into complex issues, identifying root causes, and developing effective solutions. You don't just fix problems; you understand why they occurred.
Adaptable & Flexible: Comfortable working in shifts as per business requirements, recognizing that global trading operations follow the sun. You're flexible in adapting to changing priorities, urgent requests, and evolving business needs.
Process-Oriented: You appreciate structured processes but also recognize when processes need improvement. You follow procedures while continuously questioning whether there's a better way.
Team Player: Collaborative approach to work, willing to support colleagues during busy periods, share knowledge, and contribute to overall team success rather than just individual achievement.
Resilient Under Pressure: Calm and effective during month-end close periods, audit reviews, or when resolving escalated disputes. You thrive in fast-paced environments where deadlines are firm and expectations are high.
Working Arrangements & Schedule
Shift-Based Operations: This role operates on a shift basis aligned with global trading operations and business requirements. Flexibility to work different shifts ensures continuous support for Shell's 24/7 trading activities across time zones.
Location: Based at Shell Centre in Chennai, you'll work in a modern, collaborative office environment equipped with advanced technology and ergonomic facilities designed for operational excellence.
Work Flexibility: Shell considers itself a flexible employer and encourages discussions about work arrangements that support work-life balance while meeting business needs.
Why Join Shell's Trading Settlement Team?
Career Development Opportunities
Skill Diversification: Move beyond traditional accounts payable/receivable roles into the exciting world of commodity trading and global energy markets. You'll develop commercial awareness, trading knowledge, and strategic finance skills.
Internal Mobility: Shell is a huge advocate for career development. From settlement operations, you can progress into trading support roles, financial control positions, business partnering functions, or specialized risk management careers.
Learning Culture: Access to extensive training programs, professional certifications support, and mentorship opportunities that accelerate your growth.
Exposure to Global Trading Operations
Market Insights: Gain understanding of how global freight markets operate, how commodity trades are structured, and how trading decisions impact financial results.
International Collaboration: Work with Shell teams across continents—from traders in London and Houston to logistics coordinators in Singapore and Manila—building a truly global professional network.
Complex Problem-Solving: Face interesting challenges daily, from navigating complex contractual terms to resolving disputes involving multiple parties and jurisdictions.
Industry Leadership & Stability
Fortune 500 Employer: Work for one of the world's most respected energy companies with over a century of operational excellence and financial stability.
Energy Transition Participation: Be part of Shell's journey toward becoming a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, supporting the trading operations that fund investments in renewable energy and low-carbon solutions.
About Shell in India
Shell maintains significant operations in India with businesses spanning Information Technology, Projects & Technology, Finance Operations, Integrated Gas, Downstream, and Upstream across more than 7 major locations. Chennai serves as a strategic hub for finance operations, supporting Shell's global trading activities with world-class talent and capabilities.
Our Values & Culture
Honesty & Integrity: We operate with transparency, maintaining the highest ethical standards in all transactions and relationships.
Respect for People: We value diversity, treat everyone with dignity, and create an environment where all voices are heard and respected.
Inclusive Workplace: We're pioneering inclusive practices—supporting people with disabilities through transparent recruitment and workplace adjustments, closing gender gaps through equal pay and advancement opportunities, and promoting equality regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
How to Apply
Submit your application through Shell's career portal including:
- Updated resume highlighting your AP/AR experience and SAP proficiency
- Cover letter explaining your interest in trading settlement operations
- Academic transcripts and professional certifications (if applicable)
Important Notes:
- Applications reviewed on rolling basis until position filled
- Shell and approved consultants never charge application fees
- Shell reserves the right to amend or withdraw postings
- Personal data handled per Shell's data protection policy
Equal Opportunity Employer
Shell is committed to diversity and inclusion. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates and provide equal opportunities regardless of gender, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Ready to launch your career in global energy trading operations? Apply now and join Shell's world-class settlement team in Chennai!
This role offers the perfect opportunity to leverage your accounting expertise while gaining exposure to the dynamic world of commodity trading. If you're detail-oriented, analytically strong, and ready for a challenging yet rewarding career move, we want to hear from you.
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