Controller

Overview

This role serves as the hands-on accounting and finance operations leader for a law firm and its related management-services entity (MSO). The position is responsible for the integrity of the general ledger, a timely monthly close, reconciliations, financial statements, cash forecasting, and daily finance processes.

The Controller manages staff and outside providers as applicable, while also personally executing, reviewing, troubleshooting, and correcting accounting work. The role collaborates with the Managing Partners and fractional CFO on budgeting, financial analysis, and systems improvements, with primary accountability for accurate and timely operational execution.

Responsibilities

• Design, document, execute, and test internal accounting controls, including approvals, segregation of duties, bank and credit-card controls, and close checklists.
• Own preparation and execution of the annual budget process, departmental input schedules, rolling forecasts, and budget-to-actual reporting in coordination with the Managing Partners and fractional CFO.
• Maintain compliance-ready accounting records and coordinate with payroll, tax, audit, and other advisers; promptly escalate regulatory, trust-account, and remittance issues to responsible leadership.
• Perform and review monthly reconciliations of every material balance sheet account, including bank and credit-card accounts, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll liabilities, accrued expenses, and retirement-plan liabilities; investigate and resolve reconciling items.
• Prepare accurate monthly financial statements and partner-ready reporting, including explanations of material variances, key assumptions, unreconciled balances, and risks; independently validate figures before distribution.
• Prepare and maintain a 13-week cash forecast and longer-range liquidity projections using reconciled starting cash, verified AR collection assumptions, AP, payroll, taxes, distributions, and other committed cash flows; reconcile projected cash changes to underlying drivers.
• Maintain separate entity-level accounting for the law firm and MSO and prepare accurate consolidated management reporting, including intercompany balances and allocations.
• Account correctly for legal-service revenue, reimbursable costs, government filing fees, pass-through client charges, and trust/IOLTA balances, including appropriate segregation and reconciliation of client funds.
• Maintain reliable AR aging and collections reporting, AP aging and payment controls, billing-to-cash reconciliations, and documented review of outstanding payments and uncleared transactions.
• Manage the monthly close calendar, assign preparer/reviewer responsibilities, complete reconciliations and adjusting entries, and deliver financial statements by agreed deadlines; flag delays before deadlines are missed.
• Guide financial decisions by establishing, monitoring, and enforcing policies and procedures.
• Provide support to management, particularly to attorneys and Managing Partners.
• Create reports to help senior leadership and attorneys understand company financials.
• Maintain documented procedures and an up-to-date register of deliverables, owners, due dates, dependencies, and unresolved issues; escalate inaccurate or incomplete information rather than presenting estimates as validated actuals.
• Own the accounting workstream of financial systems implementations, including workflow design, master-data validation, integrations, testing, reconciliation, training, issue logs, and post-go-live controls; coordinate with internal and external implementation leads.
• Own the general ledger, journal entries, accruals, account classifications, period-end adjustments, and accuracy/completeness of accounting records for each entity and consolidated reporting.

Requirements

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business/Accounting/Finance or a related discipline

Experience

• At least 7 years of progressive accounting experience.
• At least 3 recent years in a hands-on Controller or Accounting Manager role with direct responsibility for close, GL, reconciliations, financial statements, and staff review.
• CFO-only oversight experience without recent hands-on execution is insufficient.

Technical Skills

• Advanced Excel proficiency, including multi-sheet financial models, linked schedules, lookup functions, pivot tables, formula auditing, and reconciling model outputs to source systems.
• Hands-on QuickBooks Online proficiency, including bank reconciliations, journal entries, account mapping, AR/AP, close, and reporting.
• Experience with legal practice management/billing systems (LeanLaw or comparable) strongly preferred.

Domain Experience

• Recent professional-services accounting experience required.
• Law firm accounting strongly preferred, including time and billing, WIP, realization, revenue recognition, reimbursable versus pass-through amounts, and government filing fees.
• Familiarity with trust/IOLTA accounting and multi-entity/MSO structures strongly preferred.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Understanding of applicable laws and regulations.
• Understanding of economic principles, financial markets, and banking.
• Understanding of financial data analysis and reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to perform and supervise payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank and credit-card reconciliations, account analyses, and cash forecasting (not merely general familiarity).
• Ability to meet a documented close calendar, prioritize competing deliverables, clearly disclose incomplete work or unverified assumptions, and escalate deadline or accuracy risks early.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional accounting and systems projects with workplans, owners, milestones, testing evidence, and documented handoffs.
• Ability to communicate financial information into sound business language so people of all levels can understand.
• Strong technical accounting judgment, attention to detail, reconciliation discipline, and ability to explain the difference between net income, cash flow, and available liquidity.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in law firm accounting, including time and billing, WIP, realization, revenue recognition, reimbursable versus pass-through amounts, and government filing fees.
• Familiarity with trust/IOLTA accounting and multi-entity/MSO structures.
• Experience with legal practice management/billing systems (LeanLaw or comparable).

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation: $40,000 - $50,000 US dollars, commensurate with location, experience, and background.

Location

• Work Location: Remote (Global-India)
• Work Hours: Flexible, but must be available for at least 6 hours in US CT hours between normal business hours of 8AM and 5PM CT.

Working Conditions

• Remote, global position; must have quiet, confidential space to work.
• Requires use of personal computing equipment, telephone, multi-functioning printer and calculator.
• After-hours and weekend work may be required on an occasional basis.
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Additional Information

• Status: Exempt
• Department: Finance
• Level: Management
• Reports To: Managing Partners; collaborates with fractional CFO on financial reporting, planning and advisory priorities

Equal opportunity employer.