Accounting and Onboarding Manager, Client Accounting & Advisory Services (Restaurant, Franchise, & Hospitality)

Job Summary

What You'll Gain/ Impact

• • New clients will move through onboarding with clear expectations, visible ownership, timely decisions, and fewer avoidable surprises
  • Clients will receive accurate, complete, and timely financial reporting they can rely on to run their businesses
  • The recurring accounting team will receive complete, documented, and operationally ready engagements, including established workpapers, reconciled opening balances, and clearly identified cleanup items
  • Your advisory insights will help clients understand what is driving results and make stronger, more informed decisions
  • Your team will have clear priorities, meaningful coaching, and the support needed to grow and deliver consistently
  • Onboarding, implementation, and recurring delivery practices will become more consistent, scalable, and effective through thoughtful process improvement and technology adoption

Key Responsibilities

New Client Onboarding
• Own each onboarding from internal handoff and client kickoff through stabilization and transition to the recurring accounting team
• Build and manage project plans with clear scope, milestones, owners, dependencies, decisions, and target dates
• Manage onboarding and client initiatives in accordance with the signed scope of services, while promptly identifying, documenting, and elevating potential add-on services or out-of-scope work for approval and separate billing before work proceeds
• Lead kickoff, status, and transition meetings; keep clients and internal stakeholders aligned on progress, responsibilities, risks, and outstanding items
• Identify delays, missing information, cleanup needs, scope gaps, and other risks early; develop recovery plans and escalate when needed
Client Accounting & Financial Reporting
• Own accounting and financial reporting for assigned clients, including agreed-upon deliverables, deadlines, responsibilities, and scope
• Lead month-end and year-end close, using technology and automation where appropriate to improve consistency, identify exceptions, and accelerate routine work
• Prepare and review complete, accurate, and well-supported workpapers that clearly document account activity, reconciliations, conclusions, and the audit trail supporting financial reporting
• Establish consistent workpaper preparation standards and ensure supporting schedules are organized, current, and ready for efficient review
• Apply accounting expertise and professional judgment to surface trends, investigate anomalies, and recommend practical solutions
Client Leadership & Advisory
• Serve as the primary accounting contact and trusted advisor for assigned clients
• Lead financial reviews that connect operational context and financial data, making results and key performance drivers clear and actionable
• Help clients improve reporting, forecasting, and workflows so they gain better visibility into their businesses and make stronger decisions
Client Projects & Technology Enablement
• Lead client initiatives such as system conversions, integrations, workflow redesign, reporting implementations, and process standardization
• Translate goals into actionable plans with defined deliverables, success criteria, resources, budget considerations, and governance
• Coordinate work across accounting, Technology, Accounts Payable, Cash Management, Tax, Operations, and third-party providers, proactively managing dependencies and handoffs to deliver a seamless client experience
• Coordinate system setup, data access, chart-of-accounts and reporting design, workflow documentation, training, and knowledge transfer
• Establish initial accounting workpapers, reconciliations, close schedules, and supporting documentation needed for an accurate and repeatable financial reporting process
• Assess historical accounting records and coordinate targeted cleanup, catch-up, or corrective activity as needed to ensure opening balances, reconciliations, and financial statements are complete and accurate
• Create reusable templates, playbooks, dashboards, and status reporting that improve execution across the portfolio
Team Leadership & Review
• Coach engagement teams, building their technical, advisory, and leadership capabilities
• Provide timely review and feedback while reinforcing firm standards and sound accounting practices
• Set priorities, balance workloads, and foster accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, and thoughtful technology adoption
• Take on increasing leadership responsibility across client relationships, team development, and engagement performance
Quality, Process & Engagement Management
• Maintain strong quality, data privacy, documentation, and internal control standards across engagements
• Identify and lead practical process improvements, including appropriate uses of automation and AI, that enhance accuracy, efficiency, analysis, and the client experience
• Monitor scope, efficiency, and profitability and help scale successful workflows across engagements

Candidate Qualifications

Required:
• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, Project Management, or a related field
• Five or more years of progressive accounting experience, including hands-on workpaper preparation, account reconciliations, month-end close, and financial statement preparation or review
• Working knowledge of financial reporting, reconciliations, accounting systems, and related workflow dependencies
• Experience leading multiple client-facing projects with competing priorities, cross-functional teams, and deadline-driven deliverables
• Strong knowledge of GAAP, core accounting processes, and the professional judgment to evaluate information critically
• Experience guiding, supervising, or reviewing the work of other accounting professionals
• Ability to connect financial results to business operations and explain data-driven insights clearly to non-accounting leaders
• Strong judgment, organization, facilitation, and communication skills, with the ability to distinguish project issues from accounting matters
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, comfort with Microsoft 365, project-management platforms, accounting systems, workflow technology, and automation
Preferred:
• CPA or equivalent certification
• Experience supporting restaurant, franchise, hospitality, multi-entity, or multi-location businesses
• Background in outsourced accounting, CAS, public accounting, implementation consulting, or another multi-client environment
• Experience with accounting-platform conversions, integrations, data migrations, workflow redesign, or reporting implementations
• Project-management certification or formal change-management training

Leadership Skills

• Building Relationships
• Driving Execution
• Team Development
• Client FocusAdaptability
• Communication
• Continuous Improvement
• Coaching & Feedback
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Project Leadership

Technical Skills

• Client Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS)
• Client Onboarding & Implementation
• Financial Close & Reporting
• Workpaper Preparation & Review
• GAAP & Accounting Standards
• Restaurant & Franchise Accounting
• Process Design & Automation
• Accounting Systems & Workflow Technology