Controller (Greater Tampa Bay Area)

ASCEND TECHNOLOGIES GROUP LLC and Family of Companies

Controller

Tampa, Florida —full-time in office — reporting to the Chief Financial Officer

The group

The finance department at Ascend Technologies Group LLC (ATG) supports the following 4 entities operating in Tampa, Florida:

1. ATG - a managed services, technology resale business operating in Tampa, Florida.
2. ATG Poland - a wholly owned Polish subsidiary of ATG.
3. A minority interest in a healthcare artificial intelligence and technology company that uses data and real-world data (RWD) to improve cancer care and accelerate medical research.
4. A future spin out of a TEM business.

The role

The Controller owns the accounting close and the preparation of all entity financial statements in the group. The technical content is materially heavier than the revenue suggests : the group consolidates a foreign subsidiary, accounts for an equity method investee, recognizes revenue across 4 entities under ASC 606, carries four technology assets under three different standards, and reports on the accrual basis while computing taxable income on the cash basis for one of the entities.

The future is that the Controller runs the close and the reporting for all companies and will provide day-to-day support and control of the overall accounting activities. This position will report to the Chief Financial Officer of the Group.

Responsibilities and objectives

Close and reporting

• Own the monthly, quarterly and annual close for all companies to a documented calendar with predecessor dependencies identified.
• Prepare the financial statements with full footnote disclosure for all companies, together with the supporting workpapers and the schedule of open items for CFO review.
• Draft Management Discussion and Analysis monthly for CFO review.
• Maintain the consolidation, including translation of the Polish subsidiary from the złoty, reconciliation of intercompany balances in local currency before translation, and elimination entries.
• Account for the equity method interest, including agreement of the carrying amount to the investee’s capital account, the summarized financial information disclosure, and the intra-entity profit elimination.
• Assemble the minority-interest entity’s quarterly reporting package for its majority member, and the Board package for that same entity. Perform the first-level tie-out; the Chief Financial Officer performs the review.
• Maintain a documented bridge from each trial balance to the financial statements for any presentation adjustment made outside the general ledger.

Technical accounting

Strong understanding of the following:

• ASC 606
• ASC 985-20, ASC 350-40, ASC 350-30
• ASC 842
• ASC 470 and ASC 835-30
• ASC 326-20
• ASC 850

Transaction support

• Support the CFO with any current or future due diligence related to M&A needs.
• Assemble and populate the data room with financial information and maintain the audit trail from the general ledger to every schedule provided to a third party.
• Keep the close on its normal calendar throughout. Diligence does not displace the monthly and quarterly obligations.

Supervision, tax and systems

• Supervise the Bookkeeper/Staff Accountant and the Project Accountant. Set the coding conventions, review the reconciliations, and own the accuracy of the ledger the close is built on.
• Prepare or review every journal entry involving judgment: accruals, deferrals, reclassifications, capitalization and consolidation entries.
• Support the return preparers on the reconciliation of book income to taxable income, and own sales and use tax compliance for all companies.
• Oversee and approve all intercompany transactions and related billings and collections.
• Oversee and support Human Resources with Payroll and approve the payroll journal entry.
• Act as accounting owner of the NetSuite OneWorld implementation: chart of accounts, subsidiary structure, intercompany configuration and revenue management.

Qualifications

Required

• Certified Public Accountant.
• Eight or more years of progressive accounting experience, including responsibility for a monthly close and the preparation of financial statements with footnote disclosure and related MD&A.
• Demonstrated ability to reach and document a technical accounting conclusion by reference to the Codification, and to revise it when the facts turn out to be different.
• Experience closing more than one set of books in a period, and consolidating more than one legal entity including elimination entries.
• Revenue recognition experience under ASC 606 in an arrangement with more than one performance obligation.
• Experience reviewing another person’s work to a standard, and comfort correcting it directly when required.

Strongly preferred

• Public accounting audit experience with privately held companies in technology, software, pharmaceutical, bio-tech distribution or professional services.
• Software capitalization, equity method accounting including intra-entity profit elimination, and foreign currency translation in practice.
• NetSuite, and ideally an ERP implementation from the accounting side.
• Experience supporting a diligence process or a quality of earnings review from the company side.

The person

Currently, there is no external audit required. One of the investors requires quarterly financials for their audit, so the discipline is not just self-imposed. Timeliness and accuracy count. The work rewards someone who asks where a figure came from rather than whether it looks reasonable, and who will say it plainly when something does not reconcile rather than plugging it. The Controller is expected to be capable of doing anything in the function personally, and will at times need to, but routine processing sits with the Bookkeeper/Staff Accountant and the Project Accountant so that the Controller’s time goes to the close, the technical conclusions and the statements.

This person hates manual data entry. When faced with a heavy workload, their first instinct is to automate the workflow, clean up the master data, or build a NetSuite script rather than simply working more hours. Must be comfortable stepping into a fluid environment, identifying gaps and writing the rulebook themselves (the SOP). In a non-9-5 position, you must know how to separate noise from signal. They don’t burn themselves out on low-impact tasks; they protect their energy to ensure big deliverables such as timely and accurate month-end close, tax compliance, and system migration are delivered flawlessly. Don’t sugarcoat financial realities to the CFO. If you are from a large enterprise and your recent experience allowed you to delegate, you are not the person for this opportunity.