Controller - Onboarding

All In One Accounting; United States; On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Health insurance

401K

Life insurance

Disability insurance

HSA/FSA

Job summary

All In One Accounting seeks an experienced Professional Services Controller to guide onboarding and transition clients to ongoing delivery teams. You will own the Tenacity phase, ensuring a stable financial and operational foundation across professional services clients.

You'll lead client kickoff, monitor progress, address blockers, and teach best practices while coordinating with CFO, delivery teams, and Client Experience partners.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive accounting experience, preferably in multi-client environments.
• Experience onboarding clients and executing implementation projects.
• Ability to assess unfamiliar financial environments quickly.
• Ability to explain complex accounting concepts to non-financial audiences.

Responsibilities

• Own the Tenacity phase of onboarding for professional services clients.
• Lead kickoff and recurring client check-ins, set expectations and deadlines.
• Conduct financial assessment and establish foundational accounting workflows.
• Coordinate internal teams across engagement milestones.
• Document processes, decisions, and handoffs for a clean transition.

Skills

Client onboarding

Project management

Technical accounting

Client communication

Mentoring

Process improvement

Education

Bachelor's degree in accounting/finance/business

Tools

QuickBooks

Job description

All In One Accounting is a 7-time winner of the 50 Fastest Growing Companies in the Twin Cities and one of the Best Places to Work in the Minneapolis area. Our purpose is simple: to make the lives of entrepreneurial and nonprofit leaders better. We do that by supporting profitable growth, protecting assets, and amplifying impact, bringing financial clarity and strategic leadership to the clients who need it most. We run on EOS, which means clear goals, strong accountability, and a team that executes with intention.

More About the Role

We're seeking an experienced and strategic Professional Services Controller to join our Client Experience team and own the most critical phase of the client journey: guiding new Professional Services clients through onboarding and advancing them to their ongoing delivery team with a stable financial and operational foundation. This role serves consulting firms, law practices, marketing agencies, staffing companies, and other expertise-driven businesses. You will work within people- and project-based businesses where billing, utilization, realization, payroll, and cash flow are central to performance.

Our onboarding journey, called Tenacity, is currently designed to advance clients to their ongoing delivery team within approximately eight weeks. You will own that timeline by creating visibility into progress, maintaining clear accountability, addressing barriers early, and confirming that each client is operationally and technically ready to advance. As the Client Experience team grows, you will also help improve the pace, consistency, and quality of the Tenacity experience through process improvement, standardization, automation, and lessons learned from each engagement.

What You Will Own

• Own the client relationship during the Tenacity phase of AIOA's Accounting Clarity methodology.
• Lead kickoff and recurring client check-ins, set expectations, maintain momentum, and communicate decisions, owners, deadlines, and next steps.
• Conduct the financial assessment, identify cleanup needs, confirm scope, and establish the technical and operational foundation required for ongoing service.
• Coordinate the Tenacity Accountant, ongoing delivery team, CFO, Business Development, and Client Experience partners at the right points in the engagement.
• Monitor timeline, hours, scope, blockers, client responsiveness, and advancement readiness, escalating concerns early rather than allowing surprises.
• Teach clients AIOA's systems, workflows, internal control expectations, and accounting best practices in a clear and approachable way.
• Document client-specific processes, decisions, checklists, workpapers, and task ownership in SharePoint for a clean handoff.
• Prepare and lead advancement to the ongoing team, including complete handoff documentation, ongoing cadence, open-item visibility, and a post-advancement check-in.
• Capture lessons learned and identify opportunities for stronger templates, automation, consistency, quality, and timeline reduction across Tenacity engagements.

Professional Services Tenacity Focus

• Assess and strengthen accounting structures for service lines, clients, engagements, projects, departments, or locations.
• Establish or refine time capture, project accounting, billing, deferred revenue, retainers, and revenue recognition workflows.
• Build reporting for utilization, realization, effective bill rate, engagement or service-line profitability, and AR aging.
• Build controls around client and engagement setup, contracting, billing approvals, collections, contractors, payroll, and benefits reconciliation.
• Produce baseline financial statements, cash flow visibility, project reporting, and operating metrics that the ongoing Professional Services team can maintain.

Internal Responsibilities

• Complete internal responsibilities including time tracking, capacity planning, and quarterly initiatives.
• Participate actively in Client Experience team L10 meetings and share insights, risks, and process improvements.
• Actively participate in AIOA's Brand Ambassador program, representing our mission and values.
• Maintain high standards of service quality, client satisfaction, data security, and protection of client assets.

The Successful Candidate Will Have

• 7+ years of progressive accounting experience, preferably in public accounting, Client Accounting Services, or another multi-client environment.
• Proven success with client onboarding, implementation projects, financial cleanup, or accounting process transformation.
• Strong technical accounting skills and the ability to assess unfamiliar financial environments quickly.
• Excellent client communication and the ability to explain complex accounting concepts to non-financial audiences.
• Teaching and mentoring ability, with a genuine interest in helping clients build confidence and adopt better practices.
• Project management skill, including coordinating multiple engagements with different scopes, stakeholders, deadlines, and risks.
• A process improvement mindset and the ability to improve an established process as the team grows.
• Technical proficiency with QuickBooks and the ability to learn additional accounting and industry platforms quickly.
• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, business administration, or equivalent business experience.
• Meaningful experience with professional service business models, project accounting, time and billing, and revenue recognition.
• Experience analyzing utilization, realization, effective bill rates, labor leverage, or project profitability.
• Familiarity with professional services automation, practice management, or time and billing platforms is strongly preferred.

What Success Looks Like

• Client Launch – Client Understands the plan, trusts the team, and know what they own
• Accounting Foundation – Core construction accounting and workflow are in place and stable, documented, and usable
• Advancement – The ongoing team receives a complete handoff with clear scope, cadence, open items, and ownership.

Salary and Benefits

• Annual Bonus: Up to 10% of salary
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401K
• Life insurance
• Long and short-term disability
• HSA, FSA, and dependent care options

All In One Accounting provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.