The company is an established fintech and enterprise-software business with an international corporate structure, using Microsoft Dynamics as its accounting system. Following the departure of the Financial Controller, we require an experienced, hands-on interim Group Financial Controller / Finance Stabilisation Lead to restore confidence in financial reporting, strengthen the month-end close, and deliver decision-ready forecasts. This role reports to the CEO, will work closely with a junior accountant, and is UK-preferred (strong US candidates considered if they can maintain substantial overlap with UK hours). Initial term: approximately three months with an option to extend; initial commitment about 3–4 days per week (roughly 30–40 hours), tapering thereafter.

Responsibilities

Financial validation and remediation

• Assess the accuracy and completeness of the group’s accounting records.
• Validate closing and opening balances across the most recent fiscal years.
• Review and correct year-to-date financial results.
• Establish reliable entity-level and consolidated trial balances.
• Identify misclassifications, unsupported balances and incomplete accounting.
• Maintain a documented adjustment and remediation log.
• Quantify unresolved issues and communicate their potential impact clearly.

Reconciliations and close

• Complete or supervise reconciliations for bank and credit-card accounts; accounts receivable and accounts payable; payroll, benefits and payroll taxes; deferred and unbilled revenue; accruals and prepayments; fixed assets; taxes (VAT/GST and sales tax); intercompany accounts; debt, equity and retained earnings.
• Reconcile subledgers and supporting schedules to the general ledger.
• Establish a documented month-end close calendar and checklist.
• Introduce appropriate journal, reconciliation and management-review controls.
• Reduce the recurring close timetable to around two weeks.

Technical accounting and consolidation

• Review revenue-recognition practices and supporting schedules.
• Document treatment of foreign currency, intercompany transactions and consolidation entries.
• Produce reliable consolidated P&L, balance-sheet and cash-flow statements.
• Coordinate with external tax, statutory reporting and audit advisers as required.
• Identify issues that may affect prior statutory filings or require deeper historical review.

Forecasting and management reporting

• Produce an initial short-term (e.g., 13-week) cash forecast early in the assignment.
• Build an integrated reforecast for the current fiscal year and a monthly budget for the following year (monthly P&L, balance sheet and cash flow).
• Develop base, downside and upside scenarios; model revenue, customer contracts, renewals, headcount, collections, operating expenditure, tax, capital expenditure and foreign exchange.
• Establish an actual-to-forecast reporting process.
• Create a concise monthly KPI and management-reporting pack; ensure each KPI has a clear definition, source and owner.

Team development and permanent structure

• Coach and develop the junior accountant; assess their readiness to operate as an acting controller.
• Identify transactional work to reassign or outsource.
• Recommend whether the organization should hire a permanent full-time Financial Controller or appoint a fractional CFO and develop the junior accountant as acting controller.
• Prepare a complete handover package for the permanent finance leader.

Deliverables and cadence (examples)

• First 2–3 weeks: finance risk and remediation register; reconciled cash position; assessment of immediate payroll, tax, AP and collection risks; preliminary fiscal outlook; initial short-term cash forecast; close-process assessment; prioritised short-term workplan.
• Around month 1: status assessment for every material balance-sheet account; reconciliation and adjustment tracker; preliminary corrected year-to-date financial statements; documented historical-validation boundary; initial junior-accountant skills assessment.
• By month 2: validated entity-level trial balances; corrected and consolidated year-to-date financial statements; completed material balance-sheet reconciliation files; integrated reforecast and monthly budget with scenario analysis; revenue-recognition, intercompany and FX documentation; initial KPI and management-reporting pack.
• By month 3: two controlled month-end closes completed or substantially demonstrated (close and reporting operating to the agreed timetable); finalised accounting procedures, account ownership and control documentation; final junior-accountant readiness assessment; recommendation for permanent finance organisation; complete handover materials.

Qualifications

Mandatory

• CPA, ACA, ACCA, CA or equivalent accounting qualification.
• Prior experience as a Group Financial Controller, Financial Controller, hands-on Finance Director or comparable leader.
• Demonstrated success repairing unreliable financials or remediating a broken close.
• Strong US GAAP knowledge, including revenue recognition.
• Multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation experience; experience working with international subsidiaries.
• Strong balance-sheet reconciliation and accounting-control skills.
• Ability to build integrated P&L, balance-sheet and cash-flow forecasts.
• Hands-on ERP and financial-data skills; willingness to work directly in Microsoft Dynamics, spreadsheets and reconciliation files.
• Ability to communicate financial uncertainty, risks and recommendations clearly to a CEO.
• Demonstrated ability to coach and review the work of less-experienced accountants.

Preferred

• Direct Microsoft Dynamics experience.
• Experience with a parent company and multiple international subsidiaries.
• Fintech, enterprise software, SaaS or B2B technology experience.
• Experience at companies of comparable scale.
• Experience with revenue arrangements involving licences, subscriptions, services or complex customer contracts.
• Prior audit remediation, finance transformation or interim-controller assignments.
• Experience transitioning an engagement to a permanent controller or fractional-CFO structure.

Candidate profile

• Comfortable moving between detailed accounting work and CEO-level communication.
• Pragmatic, organised and appropriately sceptical; investigates discrepancies rather than carrying them forward.
• Will personally own the quality and delivery of the work and will not delegate full remediation to the junior accountant.