Cleanup Accountant: Turn Messy Books into Trusted Financials

Breakwater Accounting + Advisory; Wilmington (DE); On-site; USD 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary range: $65k–$85k

Five weeks PTO

Job summary

Breakwater Accounting + Advisory is seeking a Cleanup Manager who thrives on turning messy financials into trusted, clean books. You will investigate, trace, and rebuild accounts, producing defensible financials for leadership and ongoing teams.

You'll handle multiple cleanup projects, redesign chart of accounts, and ensure accurate financial storytelling for clients. Strong communication with non-accountants is essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting.
• 5+ years of high-level accounting, audit, or full-cycle bookkeeping experience.
• Strong understanding of how balance sheets work.
• Experience with accruals, revenue recognition, depreciation, amortization, and other complex concepts.
• Prior reviewer, senior accountant, audit, or similar experience.
• Proven experience cleaning up messy or inaccurate financials.
• Excellent investigative and problem-solving instincts.
• Ability to stay focused and see a problem through to completion.
• Confidence communicating complex financial issues to non-accountants.
• Ability to manage multiple projects without losing the details.

Responsibilities

• Dig into messy financial records to understand what happened and why.
• Trace transactions to uncover errors, missing information, and broken processes.
• Develop practical cleanup plans and work through them to completion.
• Reconstruct financial activity when the existing records don't tell the full story.
• Reconcile and substantiate major balance sheet accounts including cash, payroll, loans, revenue, prepaids, accruals, fixed assets, and equity.
• Create supporting schedules and documentation that show why the numbers are right.
• Go beyond “it balances” to create financials that are accurate, explainable, and defensible.
• Redesign charts of accounts when they no longer serve the business.
• Organize financial reporting so owners can understand what is actually happening.
• Identify the story behind the numbers and make that story easier to see.
• Reverse-engineer workflows to understand where things went wrong.
• Help create better processes so the same problem doesn't show up again.
• Communicate and collaborate with clients and Breakwater team to keep projects moving.

Skills

Accounting

Analytical thinking

Investigation

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Accounting

Tools

Xero

Dext

Ramp

BILL

Gusto

ACS/Realm

Excel

Job description

Breakwater Accounting + Advisory is seeking a Cleanup Manager who thrives on turning messy financials into trusted, clean books. You will investigate, trace, and rebuild accounts, producing defensible financials for leadership and ongoing teams.

You'll handle multiple cleanup projects, redesign chart of accounts, and ensure accurate financial storytelling for clients. Strong communication with non-accountants is essential.