Accounting Manager

About the Role

ZeroTo20 is an outsourced embedded strategic accounting, finance & operations firm supporting a portfolio of growing, often venture-backed, companies. We're looking for an Accounting Manager to lead a small pod — themselves, a Staff/Jr. Accountant, and a Senior Accountant — serving as the client contact for a book of business. The Accounting Manager is the operational lead, responsible for the full breadth of Accounting and operational support services, operating as both a player and coach. This role has critical internal and external responsibilities: you are responsible for building a strong pod that operates cross-functionally internally and maintains high levels of client satisfaction externally.

This role is built for someone who has lived inside real startup chaos, not just cleaned up after it from the outside — someone who knows what it looks like when a company is scaling faster than its systems and the books need genuine cleanup, not just maintenance. You'll report to a Controller and partner closely with our Practice CFOs, and you'll need a sharp sense of when to make the call yourself and when to escalate — a judgment call you'll also be teaching your pod to make.

What matters most to our clients isn't just a monthly close — it's knowing that ZeroTo20 is a strategic partner through their growth and change. When a client raises capital or goes through another major event, their books need to be clean, their diligence documents need to be at your fingertips, and you need to be responsive. Close is the baseline; the real bar is being in the client’s operational mix to have insight into their business, and then a handoff to our FP&A team clean enough that if something's missing, the two of you can close the gap together.

What your day to day may look like

  • Lead a small pod — a Staff/Jr. Accountant and a Senior Accountant — while serving as the day-to-day relationship owner for your book of clients

  • Play an active, hands-on role in month-end close and financial reporting for your pod's accounts, not just a reviewer of others' work

  • Coach your pod on technical accuracy and, just as important, on judgment: what to handle now, what can wait, and what to escalate

  • Keep client books and documentation clean and diligence-ready, so clients are never caught off guard by a raise, an audit, or another big moment

  • Partner closely with your Controller, our Practice CFOs, and our FP&A team to make sure nothing falls through the cracks

  • Own the operational backbone of your pod — from processing payroll and AP/AR to compliance, vendor relationships, and the day-to-day details that keep things running

What you bring

  • Startup Experience: time spent inside a fast-growing or venture-backed company, ideally including a real books cleanup — you know what it looks like when the accounting hasn't kept pace with the business, and how to fix it

  • Depth of Experience: 5+ years of progressive accounting/bookkeeping experience, including experience reviewing or managing the work of other accountants

  • Judgment & Prioritization: a sharp sense for what needs attention now versus what can wait, the instinct to escalate the right things at the right time, and the ability to teach that same judgment to others

  • People Leadership: experience coaching and reviewing the work of junior and senior accounting staff

  • Diligence-Ready Mindset: comfort keeping financials and documentation organized and investor/audit-ready on an ongoing basis, not scrambled together under deadline

  • Client Service Mindset: strong customer service instincts, ideally within a professional services or client-facing accounting environment

  • Communication Skills: strong written and verbal communication skills in English, comfortable flexing between coaching staff and speaking directly with client leadership

  • Technical Proficiency: proven knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting principles, practices, and standards, with hands-on experience in accounting software such as QuickBooks and strong Excel, Word, and Outlook skills

  • Education: Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field required; CPA or CMA a plus

Our Tools & Systems

We work within the accounting systems our clients use. Adaptability matters more than experience with any single platform.

  • QuickBooks (or similar accounting software)

  • Microsoft Excel & Word

  • Microsoft Outlook

  • And others, depending on the client

Compensation

Our salary band starts at $130,000 for this role. Our salary data is based on internal and external benchmarking. The final offer will vary based on assessment of a candidate's skills and experience and our budget for the role. Compensation is always discussed in our first conversation.

If this sounds like you, please send a resume with your cover letter as the body of the email to careers@zeroto20.com