Senior Accountant

Planetary Scale; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance bonus

Client equity exposure

30 days PTO

Job summary

Planetary Scale is seeking a Senior Accountant to manage accounting for a portfolio of climate tech startups in a fully remote role across the US and LATAM. You will own month‑end closes, handle payables/receivables, payroll, and tax filings while partnering with founders and engagement leads to deliver accurate financials.

You will work with clients using QuickBooks Online or Xero and leverage our automated close tools to drive efficiency and scalability across companies.

Qualifications

• CPA or equivalent qualification.
• Experience at a leading national or regional accounting firm.
• US GAAP knowledge for accruals, fixed assets, and revenue recognition.
• Hands-on with QuickBooks Online or Xero.

Responsibilities

• Own the month-end close for multiple client companies.
• Manage payables, receivables, and bill-pay using Bill.com and Brex.
• Run payroll and occasional state tax filings.
• Prepare schedules for audits and investor diligence.
• Develop scalable close processes and checklists.
• Collaborate with engagement leads and founders.

Skills

CPA

US GAAP

QuickBooks Online

Xero

Audit experience

Tools

Bill.com

Brex

Job description

Climate Tech & Energy Transition Startups

Summary

• Role: Accounting and finance ops for a portfolio of venture-backed climate tech companies.
• Preferred experience: 4–10 years, including time at a leading national or regional accounting firm
• Location: Remote — US or LATAM (working hours that overlap with US time zones)

Planetary Scale partners with climate and energy-transition companies as their strategic finance arm, working alongside founders from seed through growth. We’ve helped them raise hundreds of millions in venture funding and get through the hardest moments on the path to scale.

For many of these companies, we also maintain their books, prepare financial reports, and handle day‑to‑day finance work like paying bills, invoicing customers and running payroll. Founders rely on us to get the numbers right and make sure everyone gets paid on time. That side of our work is growing, and we’re hiring a Senior Accountant to take on a group of clients and work closely with the rest of our team to provide world‑class finance function support.

You’ll run the accounting and day‑to‑day finance work for several client companies at once, alongside a peer accountant who looks after a separate set of clients. For each company, you’ll work with our engagement lead who owns the relationship, and often with the founder and their team directly. Our clients primarily use QuickBooks Online or Xero, plus bank, bill‑pay and payroll tools. We also have a set of internally developed tools to make the monthly close process flow smoothly and help to share context across our accounting and strategic finance work.

You’ll be in real client work from your first week, paired with experienced teammates while you learn each company’s financial picture and the nuances of working with early‑stage companies that are commercializing complex new technologies.

• You’ll own the month‑end close for each of your companies: reconciliations, accruals, prepaid and fixed‑asset schedules, and financial statements you’ve reviewed yourself before they reach the engagement lead and the founder.
• Where a company relies on us for its payables and receivables, you’ll run them, including bill‑pay runs in tools like Bill.com and Brex, as well as invoicing and collections, so vendors are paid on time and cash comes in when it should.
• For some clients, you’ll also run payroll and take care of occasional filings like Delaware Franchise Tax, state sales tax returns or year‑end 1099s.
• You will figure out and apply the correct accounting treatment for various revenue recognition scenarios, government grants, venture debt and multi‑currency transfer pricing. You’ll need good judgment on when to ask others for help.
• You’ll support audits and investor diligence, preparing schedules and answering auditors’ and investors’ questions so the founder can focus on running the company. At year end, you’ll prepare each company’s package for its outside tax preparer.
• You’ll help make our close faster and more consistent across clients, noticing where a checklist, template or automation would save the team time.

You hold yourself to a high standard — and you want to work somewhere that does the same. A few things that matter here:

• Accuracy is your baseline. Founders, their boards and their investors make decisions from the numbers you close, and a wrong one can undermine a founder’s credibility at the worst possible moment. You tie out every balance before you call a month closed, and you’d rather catch your own mistake than have a founder find it.
• You dig in, and you ask when you’re not sure. When a balance won’t reconcile or a transaction looks off, you trace it back to its source and find out why. If you’re unsure how something should be treated, you ask before you book it.
• You’re a good teammate. You’ll work alongside a peer accountant and each client’s engagement lead. You keep them up to date, leave work papers anyone could follow, and help out when someone else is stretched.
• You aspire to be great at what you do. You put in the time to sharpen your technical skills, including the less common topics our clients run into, like grants and venture debt. When part of the close is slow or easy to get wrong, you build a better way of doing it.
• You take ownership before you’re asked. When something needs doing, you do it. If you see the wrong info being communicated, you jump in to fix it before it becomes a bigger issue. At a firm this size, if you assume something is someone else’s job, it usually doesn’t get done.

Beyond that, for this role specifically:

• You learned the craft at a leading accounting firm. Ideally, you’ve spent time at a leading national or regional accounting firm, in audit, assurance or client accounting, and you’ve since owned a close from start to finish. You know US GAAP well enough to handle accruals, fixed assets and revenue recognition with confidence, and you’re hands‑on in QuickBooks Online or Xero.
• You’re a CPA, or hold your country’s equivalent qualification. It’s what we generally expect. If you don’t hold one yet but you’re exceptional in every other way, we’d still like to hear from you.
• You communicate clearly in English and work US hours. Our clients and most of our team are in the US, so professional written and spoken English is a must, and so are working hours that overlap fully with at least one US time zone.
• You care about this work specifically. Climate and the energy transition matter to you, and you want your accounting to support the companies building a better future.

It helps a lot if you’ve also worked inside a venture‑or private‑equity-backed company, or at an outsourced accounting firm that serves them. Beyond that, experience with sales tax, payroll or year‑end tax work, or with a company’s first audit, is a plus.

Working directly with founders. You’ll work with people building some of the most consequential companies in climate and energy — exposure and ownership that typically takes far longer to reach at a larger firm.

A steep curve and a supportive team. Hands‑on work alongside experienced team members, frequent and direct feedback, and real client exposure from day one. We hold a high bar and invest seriously in getting you there.

Something new every week. We work with a diverse set of high growth companies bringing novel technologies to market. You will learn about many different markets, verticals and business models and get exposure to a wide range of interesting accounting and finance topics.

We’re fully remote with team members in the US, Colombia, Poland and the Philippines. Our offer includes performance bonus, client equity exposure and 30 days of PTO.

Planetary Scale is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate candidates on their merits and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.