CONTROLLER

Musical Instrument Museum; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) seeks a Controller to lead financial operations, maintain the general ledger, and guide budgeting, analysis, reporting, and forecasting. This role serves on the leadership team and coordinates with senior leaders and the Board on financial results and strategic planning.

Responsibilities include month-end close, payroll oversight, asset management, audit coordination, and developing procedures to improve efficiency.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting or related field; 5+ years nonprofit accounting experience.
• Experience with Blackbaud NXT a plus.
• Strong communication and leadership skills.
• Ability to manage confidential information.
• Proficiency with Windows tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, Access).

Responsibilities

• Oversee monthly, quarterly, and year-end close processes.
• Manage budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis.
• Supervise accounting team and payroll processing.
• Prepare financial statements and reports for leadership and Board.
• Coordinate annual audit and Form 1042 filing.
• Ensure compliance with accounting principles and internal controls.

Skills

Verbal and written communication

Leadership

Payroll oversight

Accounting software proficiency

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor’s degree in accounting or related field

Tools

Blackbaud NXT

Windows-based office apps (Word, Excel, Outlook, Access)

Job description

The Mission of MIM

The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) enriches our world by collecting, preserving, and making accessible an astonishing variety of musical instruments and performance videos from every country in the world. MIM offers guests a welcoming and fun experience, incomparable interactive technology, dynamic programming, and exceptional musical performances. MIM fosters appreciation of the world’s diverse cultures by showing how we innovate, adapt, and learn from each other to create music—the language of the soul.

Core Values

Our four core values represent the standards by which each team member is expected to contribute towards the excellence of the MIM experience. MIM’s culture of high energy, innovation, questioning, and problem solving ensures we will overcome challenges and establish new paradigms for museums everywhere.

• Guest-Friendly : MIM provides a welcoming, engaging, and accessible experience for each guest.
• High-Performing : MIM team consistently exceeds expectations.
• Ever-Changing : MIM is in constant evolution as it strives to improve continually.
• Sustainable : MIM is committed to ensuring the sustainability of the organization for generations to come.

Position Summary

The Controller serves as a key member of the leadership team and the primary point of contact for all financial matters. This position oversees and maintains the museum’s accounting records and leads budgeting, financial analysis, reporting, and forecasting activities. The Controller also develops and maintains accounting principles, practices, and procedures to ensure the preparation of accurate and timely financial statements. In addition, this role supervises the accounting team, ensuring responsibilities are appropriately assigned and completed accurately and on schedule.

• Ensures accurate and timely monthly, quarterly, and year-end close processes.
• Reconciles bank activity on monthly basis.
• Ensures proper recordkeeping for fixed assets and depreciation.
• Oversees and verifies the weekly check-run process.
• Advises staff on the appropriate handling of non-routine accounting and reporting transactions.
• Maintains a thorough understanding of the general ledger structure and related accounting processes.
• Oversees payroll processing, reconciliations, and related reporting to ensure accurate and timely payments and compliance with applicable requirements.
• Manages the annual budget and ongoing forecasting activities.
• Analyzes departmental variances from budgeted amounts and communicates findings to management.
• Develops and presents timely financial reports and forecasts, incorporating peer-organization comparisons and relevant market trends to support strategic planning and decision-making.
• Maintains a thorough understanding of the financial reporting structure and requirements.
• Ensures accurate and timely preparation and distribution of monthly financial information.
• Responds to inquiries from the Executive Director, other senior leaders, and Board members regarding financial results and special reporting requests.
• Ensures a clean and timely year-end audit and serves as the central point of contact throughout the audit process.
• Prepares and files the annual Form 1042, Annual Withholding Tax Return for U.S. Source Income of Foreign Persons, with the IRS.
• Monitors and analyzes departmental work to improve procedures and resource utilization while maintaining a high level of accuracy.
• Oversees the development and implementation of new procedures and system features to enhance departmental workflow.
• Collaborates with the finance team on special projects and workflow process improvements.
• General Expectations: Maintain regular attendance and punctuality. Follow all policies and procedures. Cultivate inclusive and respectful working relationships that support a sense of belonging for all team members, volunteer team members, and guests. Perform other duties of a similar nature and level as assigned.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree and 5 years of experience in related experience and/or training in a nonprofit setting, or an equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties such as those listed in the job description.

• Experience with Blackbaud NXT experience is a plus!
• Ability to work both independently and in a team environment.
• Ability to excel in a high-performance culture.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; customer service and detail oriented.
• Ability to work responsibly with confidential information.
• Strong interpersonal, supervisory and customer service skills are required.
• Ability to multi-task, work under pressure and meet deadlines is required.
• Strong computer skills in Windows-based applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, & Access.

Other

• Salary is commensurate with education and experience.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with a disability to perform the essential functions of this position.

• This is a sedentary position that requires the incumbent to sit and work at a computer for extended periods of time.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision due to computer work, distance vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.
• Occasional light to moderate lifting of up to 25 pounds.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that the team member encounters while performing the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with a disability to perform the essential functions of this position.

• The work environment is generally indoors in the general office environment.