Looking for Philippines-based candidates
Job Role: Financial Accountant
Compensation range: $1,800- $2,250 AUD / Monthly
Engagement type: Independent Contractor Agreement
Work Schedule: This role is expected to align with the AU business hours (approx. 9 AM - 5 PM, Monday to Friday) for collaboration, but as a contractor, you’ll have flexibility in how you manage your time.
Who We Are: At Hunt St, we help Australian companies hire top remote talent in the Philippines. For this role, you will be engaged directly by the client as an independent contractor. We are not an outsourcing agency. All of our roles are 100% remote so you'll be able to work from home.
Who The Client Is: The company is a family-owned childcare provider dedicated to nurturing the whole child during the crucial early years of development. The centres offer a safe, sensory-rich environment where social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth are equally supported through play-based learning aligned with the Early Years Learning Framework. With an all-inclusive approach covering curriculum, nutritious meals, nappies, and wipes, the company partners closely with families to tailor each child’s experience, fostering curiosity, confidence, and a lifelong love of learning.
Role Overview: Deliver comprehensive financial oversight for the company through the hands-on execution of full-cycle accounting, payroll, and cash flow analysis. Maintain absolute data integrity by performing detailed trial balance reconciliations and managing complex intercompany loans and cross-entity transactions. Ensure high-standard financial governance by personally developing robust process documentation and internal controls, providing the technical insights necessary to drive sustainable growth and regulatory compliance across all Centers.
Key Responsibilities:
Financial Operations & Governance
- Oversee day-to-day accounting operations, ensuring accurate processing, reconciliations, and compliance with accounting standards.
- Maintain strong financial controls, policies, and procedures across all finance functions. Deliver Financial Reporting including timely month P&L and end of month accounts including quarter-end, and year-end close processes.
- Evaluate Financial performance, ie trends, recommendations, insights to the management team.
Payroll & Workforce Cost Management
- Lead payroll, ensuring accurate and compliant processing across all businesses and the Support Office.
- Ensure timely resolution of payroll queries, adjustments, and reconciliations.
Accounts Payable & Reconciliations
- Manage accounts payable processes, ensuring accurate coding, approvals, and timely supplier payments.
- Oversee balance sheet reconciliations, including bank, payroll, debtor, and creditor accounts.
- Ensure all reconciliations are completed accurately and within business timeframes.
Cash Flow & Forecasting
- Prepare and maintain cash flow forecasts to support operational and strategic decision-making.
- Monitor liquidity, working capital, and funding requirements across the business.
- Provide insights and recommendations to the CEO on cash flow risks and opportunities.
Financial Reporting & Insights
- Produce accurate and timely financial reports, including monthly management reports, variance analysis, and forecasts.
- Support business with clear financial insights relating to occupancy, labour, and contribution.
- Coordinate with external accountants, auditors, Banks and advisors as required
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, coach, and develop operations personnel to deliver high-quality outcomes and continuous improvement.
- Take proactive ownership of personal and financial accountability, performance expectations, and development pathways.
- Foster a collaborative, service-oriented finance function that supports operational teams
Lease and Property
- Oversee financial management of leased and owned properties, including budgeting, forecasting, and cost control
- Review and and monitor lease agreements, renewals, escalations, and termination clauses Track lease liabilities, right-of-use assets, and assets and depreciation schedules
- Coordinate rent payments, reconciliations, and accruals with Accounts Payable
Procurement and Supplier Management.
- Set up a process to review existing and a tender process for new suppliers
- Annual market review of existing agreements
- Ensuring best value from a price and service perspective
Requirements
Education /Qualifications
- Tertiary qualification in Accounting, Finance, or related discipline
- CPA or CA qualification (or working towards) Preferred
- Min 5 years Australian Accounting experience.
Essential:
- Proven experience in a Finance accounting or senior accounting role
- Strong hands-on experience across:
- Payroll and award-based environments
- Accounts payable and receivable
- Debtors and fee collection processes
- Balance sheet reconciliations
- Cash flow forecasting and management reporting
- Experience leading and developing finance processes and procedures
- Strong understanding of internal controls and financial governance
- High level of systems capability (accounting, payroll, and reporting systems) Xero, Employment Hero HR and Employment Hero Pay
Desirable:
- Experience supporting audits and statutory reporting
Core Competencies
This may be altered once the overall competency framework is finalized
1. Technical Accounting & Financial Integrity
As a CPA, your foundational competency is the ability to maintain a "clean" set of books without supervision.
- Full-Cycle Proficiency: Mastery of the end-to-end accounting process, from data entry and coding to the production of final financial statements.
- Trial Balance & Reconciliation Excellence: Deep expertise in identifying and resolving discrepancies within the trial balance, ensuring all balance sheet accounts (bank, payroll, debtors, creditors) are reconciled to the cent.
- Intercompany Complexity Management: Ability to manage the "Due To/Due From" logic, ensuring intercompany loans are balanced, interest is accrued correctly, and transactions eliminated properly upon consolidation.
2. Analytical Insight & Strategic Cash Management
The CEO relies on you for more than just history; they need a roadmap.
- Forward-Looking Forecasting: Moving beyond static reporting to provide dynamic cash flow forecasting that accounts for occupancy trends and labor costs.
- Variance Intelligence: The ability to not just identify a budget variance, but to "tell the story" behind it (e.g., why labor exceeded budget in a specific Centre).
- Commercial Acumen: Understanding how operational drivers (like occupancy rates) translate directly into financial liquidity.
3. Governance, Documentation & Compliance
Since you are "personally developing" the controls, you must be a disciplined record-keeper.
- Internal Control Architecture: Designing and implementing "audit-ready" workflows that prevent fraud and minimize errors.
- SOP Development: The ability to document complex financial processes into clear, repeatable Standard Operating Procedures.
- Australian Regulatory Knowledge: Expert-level understanding of Australian payroll standards, Fair Work compliance (awards), and GST/ATO requirements.
4. Property & Asset Accounting
Given the "Lease and Property" accountability, this is a specialized technical area.
- Lease Accounting : Knowledge of tracking right-of-use assets and lease liabilities, ensuring escalations, market reviews and renewals are captured accurately.
- Fixed Asset Management: Managing depreciation schedules and capital expenditure (CapEx) tracking across multiple locations.
5. Self-Directed Execution & Efficiency
Working offshore in a small team of four requires a high degree of "ownership" without a manager over your shoulder.
- Proactive Problem Solving: Identifying a bottleneck in the accounts payable or procurement process and fixing it before it impacts supplier relationships.
- Systems Optimization: High proficiency in Xero and Employment Hero to automate manual tasks and increase data accuracy.
- Vendor Diplomacy: The ability to conduct tender processes and market reviews to ensure "best value" procurement.
- Team Player: One Team and one objective.
Work Arrangement & Expectations:
This is a remote role that will be set up as an independent contractor engagement.
To ensure alignment and transparency, successful candidates will be expected to:
- Disclose any existing ongoing roles or client work
- Reflect this engagement on their LinkedIn profile (clearly marked as “Independent Contractor”)
