Project briefs · Finance & Accounting
Unum · Summer 2027
Accounting Intern: a project built for this posting
A 10 to 12 week summer internship for sophomores through seniors on a CPA-eligible accounting or finance track, with mentored project work across Unum's finance groups. The summer ends with a presentation to business leaders, and strong interns can be considered for the Accounting & Finance Leadership Program.
- Company
- Unum
- Posting title
- Accounting Intern (Summer 2027)
- Location
- Chattanooga, TN
- Season
- Summer 2027
- Majors named
- Accounting, Finance
Checked open on the employer's careers site on 2026-10-21. Read the full posting ↗
What this role is really testing
The project
Departmental Budget Variance Tracker & Executive Summary
A realistic mock budget-vs-actual analysis for a fictional insurance company department, built in Excel or Google Sheets, with a one-page written executive summary interpreting the variances and recommending corrective action. This directly mirrors the Financial Planning & Analysis and Accounting work described in the internship, and shows recruiters the candidate can both build the model and communicate findings to senior leaders, exactly what the end-of-summer presentation demands.
- Build a spreadsheet with three tabs: (1) a 'Budget vs. Actual' tab listing 8–10 realistic expense line items for a corporate department (e.g., salaries, travel, software licenses, training) across six months, with a 'Budget' column, an 'Actual' column, a 'Variance $' formula column, and a 'Variance %' formula column, color-code rows red where actuals exceed budget by more than 5% and green where the department came in under; (2) a 'Trend Chart' tab with a clustered bar or line chart comparing monthly budgeted vs. actual total spend so the pattern is visible at a glance; (3) a 'Assumptions' tab documenting what each line item represents and why you chose those numbers, showing analytical transparency.
- On a separate sheet or in a linked Word/Google Doc, write a one-page Executive Summary (≤400 words) structured exactly as a finance professional would present it to business leaders: a two-sentence 'Bottom Line Up Front' stating whether the department is over or under budget year-to-date and by how much, a 'Key Drivers' section calling out the two or three largest variances with a plausible business explanation for each (e.g., 'Travel exceeded budget by 18% due to an unplanned client conference in Q2'), and a 'Recommended Actions' section with two or three concrete steps management could take to close the gap or reallocate savings.
- Add a cover tab to the spreadsheet that acts as a dashboard: display total budgeted spend, total actual spend, overall variance in dollars and percent, and a single-sentence 'Status' indicator (e.g., 'Department is 7% over budget YTD, action required') formatted prominently so a recruiter opening the file sees the key takeaway in under ten seconds without scrolling.
Free account. Provieo walks you through it and turns it into a page with a link you can put on your application. This posting comes with you.
Questions
Do I need to know how to code?
No. For roles like this one, Provieo builds the project as a live case-study page: slides, tables and findings you fill in. You bring the thinking.
Where did this project come from?
Provieo read the Unum posting and generated it on 2026-10-21. If you paste the same posting yourself you may get a different project, so two applicants don't show up with the same one.
Is Provieo connected to Unum?
No. This is an independent project idea based on a public posting. It does not guarantee an interview.