Senior Accounting Manager

Vaco Recruiter Services; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Vaco Recruiter Services is seeking a Senior Accounting Manager to lead day-to-day accounting operations, ensuring GAAP compliance and accurate close processes. The role emphasizes data analysis, automation, and turning financial results into actionable insights for business partners.

You will oversee technical accounting, budgeting, and internal controls, with SOX-aligned frameworks and audit readiness responsibilities. Public-company experience and leadership are essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field; CPA required (or active candidate); public accounting experience strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 5–7 years of progressive accounting experience, including at least 2 years in a supervisory or management role.
• Experience in a multi-entity and multi-currency environment.
• Exposure to SOX, public-company reporting, or IPO/audit-readiness work is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

• Prepare and review monthly, quarterly, and annual financial statements, including supporting schedules and management commentary.
• Ensure compliance with U.S. GAAP and applicable financial reporting standards.
• Own the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close calendar, driving accuracy and a shortened close cycle.
• Research and document positions on technical accounting matters; apply ASC 606/842/718 as applicable.
• Build and maintain analytical models and dashboards giving leadership timely visibility into performance.

Skills

Data analysis

GAAP

AI experience

Automation tools

SQL

Power BI

NetSuite

Leadership

SOX/internal controls

Public-company readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree in Accounting/Finance

CPA certification

Tools

NetSuite

Excel

Power BI

SQL

Looker/Tableau

Job description

Position Overview

By submitting to this position, you are agreeing to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions.

The Senior Accounting Manager owns the day-to-day accounting operations of the organization — financial reporting, the general ledger, technical accounting compliance, and the accounting team. This is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who closes the books accurately and on time, and who then goes further: interrogating the data, automating the manual work, and turning financial results into insight the business can act on.

We are looking for a modern accountant. Beyond mastery of GAAP and the close, the successful candidate is genuinely strong in data analysis and has practical experience applying AI and automation tools to accounting workflows. As routine transaction processing becomes increasingly automated, this role is expected to shift toward reviewing automated output, investigating anomalies, strengthening controls, and advising business partners. The role also carries public‑company readiness responsibilities, including SOX‑aligned internal controls and audit readiness.

Key Responsibilities

1. Financial Reporting

• Prepare and review monthly, quarterly, and annual financial statements, including supporting schedules and management commentary.
• Ensure compliance with U.S. GAAP and applicable financial reporting standards.
• Manage consolidation of financial data across multiple entities, including intercompany eliminations and foreign currency translation.
• Support the preparation of reporting packages for executive leadership, the board, lenders, and investors.

2. General Ledger and Month-End Close

• Own the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close calendar, driving accuracy, completeness, and a shortening close cycle.
• Review and approve journal entries, account reconciliations, accruals, and adjustments.
• Maintain the chart of accounts and accounting policy documentation.
• Track and report close-cycle metrics, and set measurable targets for reducing days-to-close.

3. Technical Accounting

• Research and document positions on technical accounting matters; prepare accounting memos supporting significant judgments.
• Apply revenue recognition (ASC 606), leases (ASC 842), and equity compensation (ASC 718) standards as applicable.
• Monitor new and emerging accounting pronouncements and assess their impact on the organization.

4. Budgeting, Forecasting, and Analysis

• Partner with FP&A and business leaders to develop budgets and forecasts.
• Monitor actual results against budget and prior periods; investigate, quantify, and clearly explain variances.
• Build and maintain analytical models and dashboards that give leadership timely visibility into financial performance.

5. Compliance, Internal Controls, and Audit

• Design, document, and maintain internal controls over financial reporting to safeguard company assets.
• Build and operate SOX-aligned control frameworks in support of public-company readiness; own control narratives, risk and control matrices, and testing remediation.
• Coordinate external audits and reviews: prepare PBC schedules, manage the request list, and respond to auditor inquiries.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation standards and evidence retention throughout the year, not only at year-end.

6. Data Analysis, Systems, and AI

• Use data analysis to test the integrity of financial data at scale — full-population testing, anomaly detection, trend and ratio analysis — rather than relying on sampling alone.
• Apply AI and automation tools to accounting workflows: reconciliation matching, transaction classification, flux analysis, document extraction, and close-task automation. Critically review AI-generated output and remain accountable for its accuracy.
• Build and maintain reporting in BI tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, Looker) and advanced Excel; query source data directly where needed (SQL or equivalent).
• Own the accounting system of record (NetSuite), including configuration, integrations, and data hygiene; partner with IT and RevOps on system upgrades and implementations.
• Establish sound governance for AI use in accounting — data privacy, auditability, human review, and documentation of how automated outputs are validated.

7. Team Leadership

• Supervise, mentor, and develop accounting staff; set clear expectations and provide regular, direct feedback.
• Manage team performance, conduct evaluations, and build a bench through training and stretch assignments.
• Build a team culture that is curious about the numbers and comfortable with new tools.

8. Process Improvement

• Identify and eliminate manual, low-value work; implement scalable accounting processes and best practices.
• Lead automation projects end to end — from identifying the opportunity through design, testing, rollout, and measurement of results.
• Document processes so that they are repeatable, transferable, and auditable.

9. Tax and Regulatory Filings

• Oversee the preparation and submission of tax filings (income, sales and use, property) in coordination with external tax advisors.
• Ensure compliance with reporting requirements including 1099s, payroll taxes, and multi-state and international registrations.

10. Ad Hoc Projects

• Support strategic initiatives including M&A due diligence and integration, financing events, system upgrades, and special analyses.

Qualifications and Skills

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field. CPA required (or active candidate); public accounting experience strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 5–7 years of progressive accounting experience, including at least 2 years in a supervisory or management role.
• Experience in a multi-entity and multi-currency environment.
• Exposure to SOX, public-company reporting, or IPO/audit-readiness work is a strong plus.

Technical Skills

• Strong working knowledge of U.S. GAAP and financial reporting standards.
• Proficiency in NetSuite (or a comparable enterprise ERP such as SAP, Oracle, or Workday) and advanced Excel, including complex models, pivot tables, Power Query, and large-dataset work.
• Strong data analysis capability — able to pull, join, validate, and interrogate large financial datasets, identify anomalies and root causes, and present findings clearly to non-finance audiences. Working knowledge of SQL and/or a BI tool (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) expected; Python or R a plus.
• Demonstrated AI experience — practical, hands‑on use of AI or machine-learning tools in a finance or accounting context, such as automating reconciliations and close tasks, AI-assisted document and invoice processing, anomaly and fraud detection, or AI-supported research and drafting. Should be able to describe specific workflows they have improved, the results delivered, and how they validated the output.
• Familiarity with close-management, reconciliation, or AP/AR automation platforms (e.g., FloQast, BlackLine, Bill.com, Ramp, Avalara) is a plus.

Key Competencies

• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the judgment to know when a number is wrong before anyone else does.
• Intellectual curiosity and a bias toward automating repetitive work rather than absorbing it.
• Excellent organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and hard deadlines.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain financial results and technical positions to non-finance stakeholders.
• High ownership and integrity; comfortable operating with limited direction in a fast-moving environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, mentor, and inspire a team.