Senior Accountant, Sylmar Water Treatment

About Sylmar

Sylmar is committed to addressing one of the most critical challenges facing future generations: water access and safety. Their team understands, through deep, hands-on industry experience, that small and mid-sized companies possess the expertise, relationships, and drive needed to make real progress.

Sylmar brings together decades of operational knowledge with patient capital to scale legacy businesses that protect public health and the environment, while preserving the unique identities of each company as part of a larger, collaborative team.

The company is organized across two platforms, Water Treatment and Utility Services, that support the largest suppliers and users of water infrastructure, each focused on maximizing performance, reliability, and long-term sustainability.

Our leaders champion both servant leadership and operational rigor. We focus on empowering our people, communicating with clarity, and holding ourselves accountable for results. We hire the best, team members who are growth-minded, dedicated to our mission, and ready to take on this challenge with us.

The Role

Sylmar is recruiting a Senior Accountant to support the Controller in maintaining accurate financial records and preparing timely financial reporting for a multi-entity privately held company. This role is responsible for executing assigned general ledger activities, preparing journal entries and account reconciliations, supporting the monthly close process, maintaining intercompany accounting records, and assisting with financial reporting.

This role requires a proactive, analytical, and solutions-oriented professional who thrives in a fast-paced environment, takes initiative, and is comfortable building and improving processes where established procedures may not yet exist. The Senior Accountant will work closely with the Controller to identify gaps, resolve accounting and reporting issues, standardize processes across entities, and support the implementation of a new ERP.

The ideal candidate combines strong accounting fundamentals with a continuous improvement mindset, sound judgement, adaptability, and the ability to balance day-to-day accounting responsibilities with broader process and systems initiatives.

This is a hybrid role, based in the Raleigh-Durham, NC metro.

Key Responsibilities

• Participate in monthly, quarterly, and annual close activities by completing assigned accounting tasks and deliverables accurately and within established deadlines
• Prepare journal entries for accruals, prepaids, depreciation, amortization, intercompany transactions, and other general ledger adjustments
• Assist with cost accounting and fixed asset accounting to ensure assets and liabilities are properly and accurately maintained and reflect the Company’s true financial position
• Prepare and maintain balance sheet reconciliations, investigate discrepancies, and resolve outstanding items
• Reconcile intercompany balances, investigate discrepancies, and assist with resolution of integration-related accounting issues
• Prepare monthly entity-level financial reporting, account analyses, and KPI metrics for review by management
• Assist with standardizing accounting practices and procedures across entities
• Identify gaps, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies in existing accounting processes and develop practical solutions in collaboration with the Controller
• Assist with the implementation of a new ERP system
• Support the Controller in maintaining appropriate internal controls
• Assist in the preparation of schedules and supporting documentation for external audits, tax filings, and other reporting requirements

Professional Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance.
• 3-5+ years of progressive accounting experience
• Hands-on multi-entity experience: intercompany accounting, eliminations and consolidations.
• Strong working knowledge of US GAAP and full-cycle close.
• Advanced Excel skills (lookups, pivot tables, building reconciliations from scratch).
• Track record of improving a process or system, not just running it.

Preferred

• Experience in a growing or acquisitive company, including integrating acquired businesses.
• Experience in a services or manufacturing business with project-based/contract revenue and cost accounting.
• ERP implementation or migration experience (e.g., NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics).

Key Attributes for Success

• Self-Starter: Takes initiative, anticipates needs, and moves forward without requiring constant direction
• Problem Solver: Investigates issues, identifies root causes, and develops practical, sustainable solutions
• Builder Mindset: Comfortable creating processes, documentation, and controls where they do not yet exist
• Adaptable: Handles ambiguity, changing priorities, and integration challenges with a constructive, solutions-oriented approach
• Accountable: Takes ownership of deliverables, follows through on commitments, and escalates issues appropriately
• Collaborative: Works effectively with cross-functional partners to implement change and improve financial operations