Global Accounting and Finance Audit Specialist

Entry-Level Finance Operations & Strategic Finance Specialist

Location: Mountain View, CA or Menlo Park, CA

Schedule:

This is primarily an in-person role. Team members are expected to work in-office approximately 3 to 4 days per week, with 1 flexible/work-from-home day depending on operational needs and performance.

Overview:

The Global Accounting and Finance Audit Specialist is a cross-functional role at the intersection of finance, internal audit, operations, legal technology, AI, intellectual property, and venture analysis. It exists to safeguard the integrity of Trademarkia's books and controls while also supporting strategic finance, business analysis, and new venture development across Trademarkia, PatentVC, and affiliated businesses. This is neither a traditional accounting role nor a purely strategic one - it pairs hands-on responsibility for accurate, reconciled, audit-ready financials with higher-level analysis and decision support.

At its core, the role serves as an independent check on the firm's accounting. The candidate will audit the general ledger, AP/AR, payroll, and bank and credit-card activity, reporting findings directly to leadership through an escalation path independent of the operations reviewed. An early priority is restructuring QuickBooks so all 2025 transactions are complete, categorized, and reconciled - ready for the 2025 tax filing and outside CPA review - and maintaining that discipline through 2026. Day to day, this means recording invoices on receipt, closing AP at every month-end, reconciling all bank, credit-card, IOLTA, Wise/TransferWise, Stripe, and line-of-credit accounts monthly, maintaining accrual-basis accounting, enforcing segregation of duties, escalating anomalies, overseeing trust-accounting compliance, and supporting R&D tax credit preparation with the team and outside CPA.

The role also carries strategic exposure: budgeting, forecasting, and cash management across the firm and its affiliates; monitoring cash flow, receivables, and KPIs; building financial models, dashboards, and reporting tools; and analyzing profitability, customer acquisition, pricing, and operational efficiency across service lines. Because Trademarkia is investing heavily in AI, the candidate will help replace manual journal entry with automated bank feeds and AI-assisted reconciliation, and identify further opportunities to automate processes and strengthen controls. The candidate may also support PatentVC portfolio companies with financial analysis, planning, and KPI development, and travel domestically and internationally as needed. Success requires exceptional attention to detail, analytical rigor, sound judgment, high integrity, and the willingness to raise concerns independently.

Compensation:

$80,000 to $110,000 base salary, depending on school, education, grade,s experience, plus growth opportunities after 1 year.

Responsibilities:

• Role Summary: The Global Accounting and Finance Audit Specialist exists to safeguard the integrity of Trademarkia's books and controls. The role serves as an independent check on the firm's accounting - ensuring records are accurate, complete, reconciled, and audit-ready - while supporting the financial planning and analysis that leadership relies on across Trademarkia, PatentVC, and affiliated businesses.
• Internal Audit & 2025/2026 Tax Reconciliation: Restructure QuickBooks so all 2025 transactions are complete, reconciled, and correctly categorized, leaving the books ready for the 2025 tax return filing and outside CPA review.
• Controls, Anomaly Escalation & Method Integrity: Maintain a documented internal-control framework with clear segregation of duties; flag any transaction lacking authorization, a supporting invoice, or required partner approval; investigate and escalate anomalies - unusual vendor payments, out-of-policy or rewards-points purchases, credit-card overpayments, and asset purchases - through a direct path that bypasses anyone potentially implicated; and maintain accrual-basis accounting, with no method change without written partner approval.
• Reconciliation & AP Discipline: Record all vendor and foreign-associate (FA) invoices on receipt rather than on payment, close accounts payable each month-end with no open prior periods, and reconcile every bank, credit-card, IOLTA, Wise/TransferWise, Stripe, and line-of-credit account to statement monthly.
• Banking, Treasury & Trust Accounting: Support banking relationships, account management, treasury activities, and financial-process improvements, and oversee IOLTA and client trust-accounting workflows for accuracy, compliance, and strong controls.
• R&D Tax Credit Support: Assist the internal team and the outside CPA in preparing and substantiating R&D tax credit claims.
• Analysis, Reporting & Planning: Support budgeting, forecasting, and cash management; monitor cash flow, receivables, vendor payments, and key metrics; analyze profitability, customer-acquisition economics, pricing, and efficiency across service lines; and build and maintain financial models, forecasts, dashboards, and KPI reports for leadership.
• Global Operations & Travel: Travel domestically and internationally as needed to support operational optimization, business integration, training, vendor relationships, and strategic projects across the organization's global operations.
• What Success Requires: Exceptional attention to detail, analytical rigor, sound judgment, high integrity, and the willingness to raise concerns independently in a fast-moving environment.

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related analytical field.
• Academic Achievement: Strong academic record with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher preferred. Candidates with exceptional professional, entrepreneurial, military, athletic, or leadership accomplishments may be considered notwithstanding GPA.
• Financial Acumen: Demonstrated understanding of financial statements, budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management, and basic financial analysis.
• Spreadsheet Proficiency: Strong proficiency in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, including the ability to build financial models, perform data analysis, create dashboards, and manipulate large datasets.
• Analytical Thinking: Exceptional problem-solving abilities with the capacity to analyze complex operational, financial, and business issues and develop practical recommendations.
• Attention to Detail: Proven ability to manage detailed financial and operational processes with a high degree of accuracy and organization.
• Technology & AI Mindset: Strong interest in leveraging artificial intelligence, automation, and technology to improve business processes, reporting, and decision-making.
• Mastery of QuickBooks & Connected Financial Tools: Expert-level proficiency in QuickBooks (including chart-of-accounts structure, journal entries, accrual-basis accounting, month-end close, and reconciliation), with demonstrated ability to configure and manage automated bank and credit-card feeds between Chase and other accounts and QuickBooks. Must be able to set up direct feeds, transaction-matching rules, and AI-assisted categorization so that activity flows into QuickBooks accurately and in near-real time — giving leadership efficient, reliable visibility into balances and transactions and minimizing reliance on manual entry. Experience with related tools (e.g., bill-pay/AP platforms, expense and treasury systems, Wise/TransferWise, Stripe, and reporting/dashboard tools) that integrate with QuickBooks is strongly preferred.
• Data Literacy: Ability to work comfortably with data, identify trends, evaluate performance metrics, and support data-driven business decisions.
• Communication Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present findings and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Project Management: Ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Work Authorization & Location: Authorized to work in the United States and able to work in person approximately 3 to 4 days per week in the Mountain View or Menlo Park, California area.

• Audit & Reconciliation Rigor: Ability to conduct independent internal audits and month-end closes, reconcile bank, credit-card, trust, and ledger accounts to source statements, detect under-reported expenses, unrecorded liabilities, and double-counted or miscategorized entries, restructure records for tax-filing readiness, and maintain the audit trails, escalation paths, and accrual-basis discipline that keep the books accurate and defensible.
• Professionalism & Integrity - The role was created because trust broke down. Ethical judgment, confidentiality, fiduciary responsibility, and the independence to flag problems regardless of who is implicated are the single most important quality here.
• Attention to Detail - The core daily function is catching discrepancies, unrecorded liabilities, and miscategorized entries that others miss; small errors here become six-figure misstatements.

What Makes This Role Different

This is not a traditional back-office accounting role. You will work directly with leadership on operational finance, strategic initiatives, venture analysis, and new business concepts at the intersection of:

• Legal technology
• Intellectual property
• AI in financial services
• Startup operations
• Budgeting
• Distressed and underutilized IP assets

You will gain exposure to both the operational side of running a modern law firm platform and the strategic side of building next-generation IP and venture businesses. Significant growth opportunity for high performers

To apply, send your resume and a brief note explaining:

Why this role interests you

Your experience with finance operations or analytical work

Any experience with legal, venture, startup, or intellectual property-related work