Office Manager

Realm Business and Tax Advisory; Hermosa Beach (CA); On-site; USD 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Realm Business & Tax Advisory in Hermosa Beach seeks an in‑person Office Manager to run the office, coordinate staff and client workflows, and ensure deadlines are met. The role requires strong organization, responsiveness to clients and team, and discretion with confidential information.

Candidate should be comfortable with Canopy, Lacerte, Microsoft 365, and QuickBooks, and be able to identify bottlenecks and implement improvements while maintaining a professional, proactive approach.

Qualifications

• Must be highly organized and detail‑oriented with strong follow‑through.

Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day office operations and workflows.

Skills

Extremely organized

Highly responsive

Professional, calm & direct

Empathetic with tough conversations

Prioritize under pressure

Follows through / closes loops

Good judgment with minimal direction

Trustworthy with confidential info

Tools

Canopy

Lacerte

Microsoft 365

QuickBooks

Job description

I’m hiring an IN PERSON Office Manager for Realm Business & Tax Advisory in Hermosa Beach, and this is one of the more important hires I’ll make.

I’m not looking for someone who simply keeps the office organized or waits for a list of things to do. I’m looking for someone who can run the office and follows through with Staff, clients and me!

One of my biggest frustrations as a business owner is asking for something to get done and then realizing a few days later that I need to ask about it again. I don’t want to manage the manager.

If I ask for something, I want to know it is being handled. If someone else on the team owns it, I want our Office Manager making sure it gets completed. If a client has been waiting too long for a response, a task is getting old, a deadline is approaching, or something simply doesn’t look right, I want someone who notices it before I do.

That takes someone who is:

• Extremely organized and detail-oriented
• Highly responsive — to clients, staff and leadership
• Professional, calm and direct
• Empathetic, but not afraid to have an uncomfortable conversation
• Able to prioritize when 20 things are happening at once
• Someone who follows through and closes loops
• Someone who exercises good judgment without needing constant direction
• Someone I can trust with confidential client, employee and firm information

Why this position is in the office

Realm has flexibility in other positions, but this role is based in our Hermosa Beach office. I want someone who knows what is happening in the office. Someone who stays close to the team, sees when work is getting stuck, removes roadblocks, follows up on commitments and makes sure deadlines don’t quietly slip. This person should make the entire firm run better.

Hours are M-F 8:30-4:30, overtime, weekends expected during tax season

About Realm

Realm Business & Tax Advisory is a growing, technology-forward tax and accounting firm serving entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses, real estate investors and high-net-worth individuals.

We provide tax planning and preparation, accounting and bookkeeping, and CFO/advisory services.

Our goal is to be much more than a firm that talks to clients once a year at tax time.

We emphasize proactive tax planning, year-round advice, paperless workflows, technology, process automation and increasingly AI so our team can spend less time on unnecessary administrative work and more time actually helping clients.

We work hard, particularly around tax deadlines, but we also want to build a firm where good systems and good people replace unnecessary chaos.

What the Office Manager will own

• Managing day-to-day office operations
• Keeping staff workflow, tasks and deadlines moving
• Following up with team members and holding people accountable
• Monitoring outstanding client items and making sure clients receive timely responses
• Serving as a professional point of contact for clients, vendors and outside professionals
• Coordinating meetings, schedules and internal priorities
• Supporting tax-season administrative and e-file workflows
• Maintaining accurate digital client records and workflows
• Helping keep Canopy tasks, statuses and client information current
• Supporting document preparation, electronic filing and client delivery processes
• Assisting with basic bookkeeping/accounting administrative items when necessary
• Managing office supplies, equipment and other day-to-day operational needs
• Supporting leadership with special projects
• Identifying bottlenecks and fixing processes before they become recurring problems

And perhaps most importantly:

Making sure things actually get across the finish line.

Technology matters here

Realm is not a paper-heavy, old-school accounting office. You need to be very comfortable with technology and willing to learn.

Our tech stack includes:

• Canopy — practice management, client portal, workflow and task management
• Lacerte — tax preparation software
• Microsoft 365 — Outlook, Excel, Word, Teams and related tools
• QuickBooks and cloud-based accounting systems
• PDFs, e-signatures and digital document management
• AI tools for communication, research, workflow improvement and automation

Experience with Canopy and Lacerte is a significant advantage.

More important than knowing every system on day one is being the kind of person who can learn software quickly, troubleshoot problems and figure things out.

I want someone who asks:

“Why are we doing it this way?” and “Is there a faster or better way to do this?”

If AI, automation or a better process can eliminate hours of repetitive work, I want someone interested in helping us implement it. I love puzzle solvers and intellectually curious individuals.

Accounting or tax firm experience

Prior experience working in a tax, CPA, accounting or similar professional-services firm is strongly preferred.

You do not need to prepare tax returns but will need to be comfortable navigating the tax software.

You DO need to understand—or be capable of quickly learning—the rhythm of a tax practice:

Client documents. Tax deadlines. Extensions. E-filing. Missing information. Billing. Workflow. Busy season. Confidential information. And clients who reasonably expect us to respond when they contact us.

Someone who has already worked inside a well-run tax or accounting firm will have a significant advantage.

The person I’m looking for

Firm but fair. Professional. Highly dependable. Detail-oriented. Tech savvy. Responsive. And always on top of things. Empathy matters to me but so does accountability. You set high standards for yourself and expect the same from others.

You should be able to support an employee who is struggling while also being willing to say, professionally, “This needed to be done yesterday. What happened, and when will it be finished?”

You should be comfortable making decisions, using common sense and taking ownership without waiting for me to tell you every next step and if you tell me something is handled, I want to be able to trust that it is handled.

Realm Business & Tax Advisory

Hermosa Beach, California

Full-time | In-office Hours are M-F 8:30-4:30, overtime, weekends expected during tax season