Financial Controller

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

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first with occasional Sydney on

Founder access and client contact

Job summary

Scale Suite Pty seeks a senior Controller to oversee a small portfolio of businesses, handling close, lodgements, payroll, and cash. You’ll review outputs, fix messy data, and design repeatable processes.

You’ll interact with owners directly and stay aligned with Australian payroll and compliance across multiple entities. Experience managing diverse entities, fluency with Xero, and an ability to translate numbers into business actions are essential.

Qualifications

• CA or CPA with 3+ years leading Australian finance functions.
• Experience handling multiple entities concurrently.
• Proficient in Xero and comfortable with AI-assisted reviews.
• Able to explain financial results clearly to owners.

Responsibilities

• Deliver the close across your portfolio, accurately and on time.
• Own each client's obligations: lodgements, payroll compliance across states, workers' comp declarations.
• Review what the team prepares and sign off on what goes out.
• Rebuild broken files: system migrations, reconciliation backlogs, historical payroll problems.
• Give owners the commercial answer, not just the number, on the day they ask.
• Convert every fix into a process so it does not come back.

Skills

CA or CPA

Xero proficiency

Australian payroll

Financial close

Data integrity

Education

CPA qualification

Tools

Xero

AI in review

Job description

Everything you own for one company, owned across several.

About Scale Suite

Businesses plug Scale Suite in rather than hiring a finance department. One embedded team covers the engine room, the reporting and the senior thinking, and stretches into HR and operational support when a client wants more. Finance is the spine of the whole thing.

We are built as the opposite of a practice: nobody bills in six-minute units, nobody carries a charge-out rate, nobody waits on a partner track. We are adopting AI across the way we work, with an engineering team joining shortly, and the client base keeps outrunning headcount. Senior people arriving now set the patterns everyone after them follows.

The role

You are the controller for a small portfolio of businesses at once. Their close, their obligations, their payroll oversight, their cash and payments, and the owner who comes to you first. Our team prepares the production work and you are the review layer over it: what leaves for a client meets your standard or it does not leave.

Expect the files to be imperfect when they arrive. A business joins us mid-migration with a couple of thousand transactions unreconciled, a lodgement outstanding from March, and a payroll history nobody has audited. Straightening that out, then designing the rhythm that keeps it straight, is a large part of the job and the part most controllers say they enjoy most.

Alongside it sit the judgement calls: an employment termination payment under a deed, a wage audit across several hundred staff, whether a two million dollar facility is priced fairly, how to structure payments so a cash-tight month still lands cleanly. You work with clients wherever they are, across Australian hours, with about a day at their Sydney offices as the work requires.

What you'll do

• Deliver the close across your portfolio, accurately and on time, every cycle, without heroics.
• Own each client's obligations: lodgements, payroll compliance across states, workers comp declarations, the lot.
• Review what the team prepares and sign off on what goes out.
• Rebuild broken files: system migrations, reconciliation backlogs, historical payroll problems, overdue lodgements.
• Give owners the commercial answer, not just the number, on the day they ask.
• Convert every fix into a process so it does not come back.

Who we're after

• CA or CPA who has personally carried an Australian finance function for three or more years: close, lodgements, payroll, cash.
• You have handled more than one entity at a time, and preferred the variety to the monotony.
• Unfazed by dirty data. You have taken a ledger from chaos to trustworthy and can describe exactly how.
• Fluent in Xero and fast on new systems, with AI already part of how you review.
• Clear with owners: you say what it means and what to do, without hedging.
• On the way up, not winding through. We hire for direction rather than length of service, and for people who intend to be here while the firm grows up.

This isn't for you if

• Payroll, lodgements or the ledger belonged to another team where you have been.
• You want one company's month-end on repeat.
• You are looking for an account management role where the numbers are someone else's problem.
• Being trusted rather than supervised would feel uncomfortable.

The offer

• Above market pay, and we will better your current package for the right person.
• Remote-first with around one day a week at Sydney client offices as needed.
• Our founder's door open daily, and your clients' owners on the phone.
• Controller depth with portfolio breadth, and light review rather than a manager over your shoulder.