Financial Controller

Scale Suite; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid on your terms

Direct founder access

Job summary

Scale Suite is hiring a senior finance lead to own the finance function for a portfolio of Australian businesses. You will manage close, payroll, cash, and compliance while partnering with founders across Australian hours.

You will work closely with a distributed client base, meeting them on site as needed and maintaining autonomy with light reviews. This is a high-ownership, scale-ready role for rapid growth.

Qualifications

• CA or CPA with 3+ years running an Australian finance function end to end.
• Experience handling multiple entities or a portfolio of companies.
• Able to explain financials clearly to founders and non-finance stakeholders.
• Proficient in Xero; curious about systems and automation.
• AI-aware and able to work at pace without bureaucracy.

Responsibilities

• Close books for a portfolio across month-end, BAS and IAS, payroll oversight and payments.
• Serve as the finance counterpart to founders, addressing questions and escalations.
• Onboard new clients and design scalable finance operations from day one.
• Provide exposure to capital raises and due diligence scenarios.
• Maintain ownership and quality of the financial book for your clients.

Skills

End-to-end finance

Portfolio management

Founder fluent

Xero proficiency

AI in finance

Communication

Education

CA or CPA certification

Tools

Xero

Job description

You have been the entire finance function for one growing business. This is that job across several of them at once, without the corporate wrapped around it.

About Scale Suite

Scale Suite is the finance function for growing Australian businesses. One embedded team covers everything from the daily engine room through reporting to senior counsel, so our clients never build a department of their own. We are structured nothing like an accounting practice: no timesheets, no charge-out rates, nobody selling hours. Automation and AI take more of the load every month, an engineering team joins shortly to accelerate that, and the client base is growing quicker than we can staff it.

The role

Everything you currently own for one company, you will own for a small portfolio of them: the close, the compliance calendar, payroll oversight, cash and payments, and the relationship with the founder who relies on the numbers. Each client treats you as their controller, and you answer to them directly. Most of the week you meet your clients wherever they are, across Australian hours, with around one day at their Sydney offices depending on need. The rest of the team carries each client with you, and you are reviewed lightly on your own book rather than managed. One client is ready for you now.

What you'll do

• Close the books across your portfolio: month-end, BAS and IAS, payroll oversight and payment runs, accurate and on time, every cycle.
• Sit as each founder's finance counterpart: their questions and escalations come to you, and your answers hold.
• Stand up new clients: migrate their finance operation onto our rails and design it to run cleanly from day one.
• Get the exposure a single company rarely offers: recent client work includes the numbers behind a multi-million dollar capital raise and assisting due diligence on a private equity transaction.
• Hold the line on quality: your book, your standard, your name on it.

Who we're after

• CA or CPA who has personally run an Australian finance function end to end for three or more years: close, BAS, payroll, cash.
• You have probably carried more than one entity at a time, and you liked the variety more than the monotony.
• Founder-fluent. You explain what the numbers mean for the business, plainly, and people act on what you say.
• Strong in Xero or quick to be, and systems-curious by nature.
• AI is already part of how you work. So is pace: days, not weeks.
• Direct, humble, allergic to politics.
• On the way up, not winding through. We hire for trajectory, not tenure.

What this isn't

Not one company's problems on repeat, not a reporting-line maze, and not a role where a manager hovers. Light review, real ownership.

The offer

• Paid above market, we will better your current package for the right person, and variable upside rides on client outcomes.
• Hybrid on your terms: remote-first, around one day a week at client offices in Sydney as needed.
• Work directly with our founder, and with the founders of every business in your portfolio.
• The breadth of a portfolio with the depth of a controller, autonomy from the start, and growth that moves at the speed of the business.