Financial Controller / Accounting Operations Lead

True North Property Management / Grandeur World & Co-Entities

Location: Ideal: within 1 hour of Traverse City | Relocation considered | Remote possible for exceptional candidates

Compensation: $60,000–$80,000 base salary depending on experience and capability

We are building a next-generation hospitality, asset optimization, and platform ecosystem spanning luxury vacation rentals, boutique hospitality, management companies, future acquisitions, and institutional-scale operational infrastructure.

This is not a traditional bookkeeping role.

This role sits at the center of:
Operational trust | Financial intelligence | Cash-flow visibility | Forecasting | Organizational clarity | Strategic decision-making | Long-term enterprise value creation

The right candidate will help architect the financial nervous system of the company.

You will create:

• Real-time visibility
• Financial clarity
• Operational predictability
• Institutional-grade reporting
• Forecasting systems
• A centralized financial command center across all entities and operations

Who You Are
Deeply trustworthy | Highly intelligent | Systems-minded | Technologically advanced | Operationally proactive | Obsessively organized | Detail-oriented | Calm under pressure | Capable of creating order from complexity | Able to scale with a rapidly evolving organization

Core Objective of the Role

Create complete financial clarity, daily visibility into all accounts and entities, confidence in cash positioning, accurate forecasting, operational trust, and scalable financial infrastructure.

At any moment, leadership should clearly understand:
Where money is | Where money is going | Projected inflows/outflows | Upcoming liabilities | Current runway | Profitability by entity | Management fee performance | Reserve positions | Tax exposure | Payroll obligations | Overall organizational financial health

You will build a true financial command center for the company.

Core Responsibilities

Financial Operations & Accounting

• Own day-to-day accounting operations across multiple entities
• Maintain highly accurate books across all operating companies
• Manage bank reconciliations and ensure financial accuracy
• Maintain structured chart of accounts across entities
• Ensure accounting consistency and reporting integrity
• Oversee AR/AP workflows
• Manage payroll coordination and vendor payment systems
• Ensure financial cleanliness and audit readiness at all times

Financial Visibility, Dashboards & Forecasting — CRITICAL
A core requirement is building and maintaining a highly organized, real-time financial visibility system including:

• Daily cash position reporting
• Account mapping across all entities
• Cash-flow forecasting
• Inflow/outflow tracking
• Upcoming liability tracking
• Reserve tracking & runway visibility
• Tax obligation & payroll forecasting
• Operating account monitoring
• Owner payout & management fee tracking
• Forecasted profitability visibility
• Consolidated reporting

You’ll help build dashboards, reporting systems, forecasting frameworks, financial operating cadences, and executive-level visibility systems. Leadership should never feel blind financially. The goal: institutional-grade visibility, proactive awareness, and operational calm.

Hospitality & Property Management Accounting

• Deep operational understanding of hospitality and vacation rental accounting
• Understand management-fee structures: revenue management, remote management, full-service management, boutique hotel management
• Understand owner statements and operational flows
• Experience with: trust accounting, owner distributions, management commissions, OTA payout reconciliation, reservation accounting, operational reserve tracking
• Streamline VRS experience strongly preferred

Entity Structure & Strategic Financial Comprehension
Must understand or quickly comprehend:
HoldCo > Subsidiary structures | Intercompany accounting | Management entities | Operating entities | Future acquisition structures | Capital allocation | Rollover/equity structures | EBITDA mechanics | Enterprise valuation logic | Cash-flow optimization

You do NOT need to be a CPA-level tax attorney or investment banker. But you DO need to:

• Understand how sophisticated business structures function and why structure matters
• Maintain organized financial clarity across entities
• Communicate intelligently with CPAs, attorneys, and advisors
• Support strategic decision-making with clean financial visibility

Required Qualifications

Accounting & Systems

• Strong QuickBooks experience — advanced preferred
• Experience with Streamline VRS strongly preferred
• Experience managing multi-entity accounting
• Deep understanding of accounting systems and workflows
• Extremely detail-oriented with strong reconciliation & reporting capability
• Strong organizational systems thinking

Technology & AI

• Highly tech savvy; comfortable learning new systems rapidly
• Strong spreadsheet skills
• AI-forward mindset; familiarity with AI-assisted accounting workflows and automation
• Comfortable integrating systems and improving operational efficiency
• Ability to identify repetitive processes and systemize them
• Experience building dashboards or reporting systems is a major plus

Financial Intelligence

• Forecasting & cash-flow reporting
• Budget creation and oversight
• Understanding of EBITDA
• Financial KPI tracking, margin visibility, operational reporting
• Cash runway awareness
• Ability to identify financial inefficiencies early and proactively flag risks

Tax & Compliance

• Tax remittance experience
• Sales tax/lodging tax understanding
• Understanding of tax classifications
• Ability to coordinate with external CPAs and tax professionals
• Understanding of multi-state tax complexity preferred
• Multi-country considerations a major plus

Personality & Behavioral Traits

Highly trustworthy | Calm and stable | Proactive without being asked | Systems-minded | Deeply organized | Naturally accountable | Process-oriented | Intellectually curious | Operationally disciplined | Emotionally mature | Resourceful | Efficient with time | Responsive | Low-ego | Solutions-focused

You naturally create: Clarity | Trust | Order | Visibility | Predictability | Operational calm

Ideal Experience — Major Plus

• Building P&Ls for boutique hotels or multi-unit hospitality assets
• Hospitality accounting / vacation rental accounting experience
• Multi-region or multi-country tax coordination
• Supporting acquisitions or roll-ups
• Dashboards & reporting systems, KPI dashboard creation, cash forecasting models
• Understanding of institutional-quality reporting
• Experience supporting PE-backed companies or scaling organizations

Success Metrics

Success is measured by:
Financial accuracy | Speed of reporting | Trustworthiness | Clarity of dashboards/reporting | Forecasting accuracy | Cash visibility | Reduction of founder stress | Proactive communication | Organizational clarity | System quality | Operational reliability | Ability to scale alongside the organization

A successful candidate will make leadership feel: Informed | Calm | Financially aware | Operationally protected | Fully in control of the organization’s financial ecosystem

What This Role Can Become

This role has potential to evolve into:
Controller | Director of Finance | VP of Finance | Fractional CFO pathway | Multi-entity financial operations leader | Platform-level finance operator within a future institutional-scale hospitality ecosystem

The right person will help build the financial infrastructure behind one of the most operationally advanced hospitality platforms in the industry.

Pay: $60,000.00 - $80,000.00 per year

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Traverse City, MI 49696