Tax Workflow & Project Manager

Love bringing order to complex work? This role is built around it, with a real 40-hour week.

Every tax season, someone asks, "Where are we on this return?" At Grove Meridian, you'll be the person who already knows the answer, and who made sure it never turned into a fire drill.

We're a boutique Phoenix CPA firm focused exclusively on tax. We serve high-net-worth individuals, closely held businesses, real estate investors and developers, partnerships, corporations, estates and trusts. The work is sophisticated, but the culture is warm and down-to-earth. Our experienced team enjoys working together and helping one another solve problems.

We created this role so our roughly 500 annual engagements move steadily through the year instead of piling up before deadlines. This isn't a tax-preparation position. Our tax professionals own preparation, review and technical questions. You'll own the process: the visibility, momentum and coordination that let great tax work get done calmly and on time.

This isn't a role where you update a spreadsheet after someone tells you what happened. We're looking for someone who wants to understand what's happening, figure out what comes next and help make sure it happens.

WHY THIS ROLE STANDS OUT

• A sustainable schedule. The role is designed around a 40-hour week. Peak filing periods may bring occasional extra hours, but long, grinding busy seasons are not the expectation.
• Real ownership. You'll have meaningful authority over the firm's tax-production process and work directly with firm leadership.
• Visible impact. Your improvements to workflow, reporting and technology will shape how the whole firm runs.
• Interesting work. You'll work on sophisticated clients and complex multi-entity engagements, alongside long-standing relationships with clients' professional advisors.
• Excellent benefits. Medical and dental are 90% employer-paid, plus a 3% safe harbor 401(k) and unlimited PTO. Full details below.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Reporting to the Founding Partner, you'll partner with our Founding Partner, Firm Manager and tax professionals to run the firm's tax-production process:

• Guide approximately 500 and growing annual tax-return engagements from start to finish, keeping status current in CCH Axcess Workflow and Practice
• Set internal milestones well ahead of statutory deadlines and track progress against them
• Hold regular check-ins with tax professionals to clarify what's remaining, clear obstacles and agree on completion dates, then follow through
• Spot engagements that are slipping and resolve or escalate issues long before they become deadline emergencies
• Be a friendly, persistent point of contact for clients on outstanding information requests
• Coordinate dependencies among related entities and engagements. For example, you'll make sure partnership returns are finished so their K-1s reach the individual returns that rely on them.
• Monitor team capacity and workloads, recommend reassignments or schedule changes, and support staff scheduling and annual capacity planning
• Build reporting on engagement status, deadlines, capacity, utilization and bottlenecks
• Document and continually improve our tax-production processes
• Help onboard new clients and engagements
• Work with firm leadership to find better ways to use technology and improve efficiency. Use your creative ideas to help improve firm productivity.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN YOUR FIRST YEAR

• Every engagement has a current, reliable status in CCH Axcess, and no one has to ask where a return stands
• Internal milestones are set for every engagement, well ahead of statutory deadlines
• Slipping engagements and outstanding client information are flagged weeks ahead, not days
• Firm leadership has a regular, clear view of status, capacity and bottlenecks
• The tax season runs smoothly, resulting in excellent service to clients and high client satisfaction.

YOU'LL THRIVE HERE IF YOU

• Love bringing structure to complex, fast-moving workflows
• Take ownership and follow through without reminders
• Ask good questions and aren't satisfied with "it's almost done"
• Can respectfully and tactfully help experienced professionals keep their commitments
• See problems coming and act early
• Communicate warmly and professionally with clients and colleagues
• Stay calm and organized when priorities compete
• Enjoy using data and technology to make things work better
• Like collaborating but are comfortable owning an area and driving it forward

WHAT YOU BRING

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
• 5–7 years of experience in public accounting, tax operations, professional-services project or resource management, client service, or a similar deadline-driven environment
• Familiarity with how a public-accounting tax practice runs is strongly preferred, including the engagement lifecycle, filing deadlines and common dependencies between returns. You don't have to be a tax preparer or technical tax expert.
• Experience with CCH Axcess Workflow, Practice or other CCH products is a plus. Experience with other accounting-firm workflow or practice-management platforms is also valuable.
• A CPA or EA license is not required

WORK ENVIRONMENT

This is a hybrid role based in the Phoenix area, with 2 to 3 days per week in the office. We value time together for collaboration, client service and building relationships, and we also value flexibility.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

The salary is $80,000–$100,000, depending on experience and qualifications.

• Medical insurance: 90% of employee and dependent premium paid by Grove Meridian
• Dental insurance: 90% of premium paid by Grove Meridian
• Vision insurance: 100% paid by Grove Meridian
• Short- and long-term disability insurance: 100% paid by Grove Meridian
• $100,000 life insurance policy: paid by Grove Meridian
• 401(k) with a 3% safe harbor contribution, even if you don't contribute yourself
• Unlimited PTO, with time off planned around the March, April, September and October filing deadlines
• Hybrid schedule

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance