Sr. Accounting Manager

Senior Accounting Manager

At Vertex Education we are a team of high achievers, courageous leaders, and passionate believers in changing lives through education. As a purpose-led education services provider, our mission is destined to benefit many and yet it starts with just one person inspired to work together with us to make a memorable and meaningful difference for our clients, schools, students, and communities. Be the one who makes a difference—with us.

As a Senior Accounting Manager, you will lead one of Vertex Education's two accounting regions and help ensure the financial integrity and operational excellence of the schools and clients we serve. You will establish a consistent and scalable close model, develop accounting leaders, resolve complex operational issues, and translate functional standards into effective execution across teams and systems. Through strong leadership and disciplined operations, you will strengthen controls, improve service delivery, and ensure clients receive accurate, timely, and dependable financial information.

Reporting to the Director of Accounting, you will serve as the principal operational leader for your assigned region and lead Accounting Managers and their teams. You will be accountable for regional service delivery, manager development, systems and process leadership, and the resolution of high-risk accounting matters. You will also partner with functional leaders to strengthen processes, technology, controls, and service consistency across the organization, while escalating enterprise-level risks and decisions to the Director of Accounting.

Month-End Close and Financial Reporting:

• Set the operating rhythm for monthly and annual close across teams, including close calendars, quality calibration, delivery metrics, workload planning, and continuity coverage.

• Ensure a consistent close model, review standards, and reporting practices are applied across all assigned teams and client portfolios.

• Resolve the most complex close and reporting issues; elevate material financial, control, or regulatory risks promptly.

Leadership and Talent Development:

• Lead Accounting Managers, Associate Accounting Managers, and senior individual contributors; build a strong leadership bench and ensure consistent manager practices.

• Own team capacity modeling, hiring plans, succession planning, and role deployment for the assigned operation.

• Coach managers on performance management, development planning, and team meeting cadence so expectations and feedback are consistent across teams.

• Partner with People Operations to recruit, onboard, and develop accounting leaders and staff.

• Foster a collaborative, accountable culture across teams aligned with Vertex Education's mission of changing lives through education.

Quality, Controls, and Compliance:

• Partner with the Director of Accounting to implement accounting policies, controls, reporting standards, and functional priorities.

• Monitor quality and control performance across teams; ensure control exceptions are fixed or escalated promptly and recurring issues are addressed at the root cause.

• Ensure team procedures, close checklists, and workpaper standards are documented, current, and applied consistently across teams.

Audit, Client Transitions, and Strategic Initiatives:

• Oversee audit readiness across teams and resolve the most complex audit issues with Accounting leadership and the client management team.

• Support major audits, complex client transitions, strategic initiatives, prospects, and renewals when accounting expertise is required.

Systems, Process Improvement, and Collaboration:

• Sponsor system improvements, automation, process redesign, and training that improve accounting accuracy, efficiency, and user adoption.

• Partner with functional leaders in AP, Payroll, Client Management, Financial Operations, Compliance, and Transformation to maintain clear end-to-end handoffs.

• Drive standardization and best-practice sharing across accounting teams.

Decision Making Authority:

• Owns operational leadership across multiple accounting teams. Supports the Director in enterprise strategy, organizational design, or final policy governance.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience: Eight or more years of progressive accounting experience, including significant people leadership and management of complex or multi-entity operations.

• Experience leading multiple accounting teams or managers and building consistent operating practices across a deadline-driven accounting organization.

• Experience with Sage Intacct.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, or a related field; CPA preferred. Master's degree, advanced accounting training, or comparable credential is a plus.

• School finance, nonprofit, fund-accounting, multi-entity, or professional-services experience.

• Experience with enterprise accounting systems and standardized close, audit, or reporting workflows.

Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• Strong attention to detail, sound judgment, confidentiality, and ability to manage recurring deadlines.

• Ability to organize work, coach people, monitor quality, and build practical capability across the team.

• Clear written and verbal communication with Accounting, Client Management, AP, Payroll, Financial Operations, Compliance, and external partners as appropriate.

• Working proficiency with spreadsheets and enterprise accounting systems; ability to learn and apply approved workflows and reporting tools.

• Ability to identify discrepancies, assess risk, document conclusions, and escalate issues through the appropriate authority path.

Performance Expectations:

• Close reliability: assigned work is complete, accurate, and delivered within the agreed close calendar.

• Quality: reconciliations, journal entries, reporting support, and workpapers meet review standards with low avoidable rework.

• Controls: required support, review evidence, and escalation of control exceptions are timely and complete.

• People and capacity: workload, coverage, coaching, and capability development support a sustainable delivery model.

• Improvement: recurring defects, manual effort, or unclear procedures are identified and improved through approved changes.

Be excited to be a part of our team and grow your career with us! Be the one who enables us to positively impact over 258,000 students across multiple states while driving our growth forward so we can enrich even more lives. Be the one who helps us achieve excellence for over 226 schools that we support with academics, finance, technology, human resources, communications, marketing, facilities, construction, and food services. Be the one who is a diverse thinker, a team player, a smart risk taker, an innovator, and a difference maker by encouraging others to climb higher and reach farther to further education.

Be yourself surrounded by wonderful people who care about you, value your unique skills, and lift you up. Be supported in your work by caring leaders and team members who want you to succeed. Be empowered to make a difference and climb higher and reach farther to change lives through education. Be well in all aspects of your life from your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing to your finances. Enjoy industry-leading pay, rewards, referral bonuses, with unlimited flexible paid time-off for performance. Be able to care for your health and your family with comprehensive medical, dental and vision benefits and invest in your future with 401(k) plans with a 6% employer match on your contributions. Enhance your growth and development with mentoring and money to take training classes. Thrive in a welcoming, supportive, and inclusive environment where we treat others with fairness and respect, celebrate diversity, and elevate equality and inclusion as an equal opportunity employer.