Finance Controller

This is a 100% remote position required to be in a timezone GMT -4 (East Coast USA).

At SparkMeter, our mission is to electrify everything and everyone. We help utilities and governments transition to electrification while providing affordable, reliable, and clean power. 

SparkMeter is a rapidly growing organization with employees distributed across 3 continents (Africa, Europe & America), with the majority of staff being in the eastern time zone USA and Kenya. Our two offices are in Washington, DC, and Nairobi, Kenya. Roughly 30% of our staff is fully remote - and since the COVID-19 outbreak, upwards of 90% of our team interactions happen remotely. We’re tremendously proud of the people-centric culture we have created.

Join SparkMeter’s Finance team and provide comprehensive financial updates to senior managers by evaluating, analyzing, and reporting appropriate data points. Guide financial decisions by applying company policies and procedures to current economic landscape. Develop, implement, and maintain financial controls and guidelines. Achieve budgeting goals with proper scheduling, analysis, and corrective actions. Maximize payroll efficiency through innovative process development and help develop and support short- and long-term operational strategies, all while working with energetic and innovative and highly distributed global teams serving customers in 30+ countries and 4 continents

You will focus on:

• Running the administrative functions of SparkMeter’s finance department:
• You will manage bookkeeping to ensure on time and accurate postings.
• Accurate and on-time tax preparation and filing.
• Vendor setup approvals and ensure timely AP bill approvals.
• Customer setup approvals and ensure timely AR collections.
• Reporting on AP and AR aging at month end with explanations.
• Oversee the financial reporting cycle and monthly close.
• Serve as the Finance department point of contact for systems integrations that require integrating with our financial system.

• Enforcing the use of internal policies, procedures, and controls:
• Maintain internal safeguards for revenue receipts, costs, and team and organizational budgets and actual expenditures.
• Ensure consistent application of accounting policies, practices, and procedures across all programs, adhering to national and local legal standards while remaining knowledgeable of proposed legislation.
• Enforce internal controls to maximize protection of company assets, policies, procedures, and workflows.
• Review and develop internal controls and segregation of duties.
• Keep all policies up to date and made visible to all stakeholders in appropriate systems or communications channels.

• Maintaining and reporting on company financial health and performance.
• Collaborate with department heads to develop budgets.
• Maintain a 12-month Annual Operating Plan (AOP) with revenue and expense cash flow forecast.
• Report actual financial performance based on monthly updates of the latest actual inputs from the business, such as actual cash collections vs. expected, actual recognized revenue vs. expected, actual inventory vs. expected, actual runway vs. expected, and actual margin vs. expected.
• Establish (in coordination with VP of Finance) financial and operating benchmarks, budgets, program monitoring, and reporting standards on biweekly, monthly, and annual basis.
• Prepare quarterly financial updates for investors as per their specific reporting requirements and other ad hoc requests

• Mentoring and developing a world class accounting team.
• Align with the department goals and company strategy.
• Encourage continuous learning and workshop attendance, and professional development.
• Focus the team to stay updated on the latest technological advancements in accounting.
• Regularly review team performance against goals.

Our values and how we embody them:

Be a pioneer

• We take our energy from finding innovative solutions to important problems.
• We don't shy away from the unbeaten path or hard problems.
• We believe that existing solutions and products, ours and others, are
• opportunities for improvement.

Listen to understand

• We believe that the most important part of a dialogue is listening, not talking.
• We actively seek others' opinions and experience of the world to improve and complete our own.
• We ask hard questions to understand others' opinions and experience at a deeper
• level, and we assume good intentions when asked questions about our own.

Act together

• We welcome and look for feedback on our plans and actions, to improve them and eliminate  duplicates or repeats.
• We believe that transparency, openness and clarity in our plans and actions are essential to achieving great things as a team. We assume that anyone within the team acts with good intentions and shares information responsibly.
• We are driven by the great outcomes that we achieve as a team.

Grow capability

• We look to continually learn new skills and improve our existing skills.
• We believe in sharing our knowledge with others to strengthen and challenge our abilities as well as help others grow their own.
• We know that the quality of our work and of our peers' work is impacted as much if not more by their human skills and by the richness of their experience as by the technical skills that directly match their job description.

Take responsibility

• We believe that every action we take impacts others, in ways that we may or may notice. We accept accountability for the results of our actions and ask for forgiveness as we implement corrections.
• We are not afraid of making mistakes. But we strive to never make the same mistake twice.
• When noticing a problem or a potential of improvement, our first thought is "what can I do to make it better", and our second thought is "who should I talk to in order to make my plan better."

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in business, accounting, or related field
• 10+  years of professional accounting experience
• 5+ years of experience as a senior-level accounting or finance manager
• Professional certification, such as CPA (certified public accountant) or CA (chartered accountant)
• Strong understanding of banking processes and financial data analysis
• Working knowledge of national and local tax regulations and compliance reporting
• Experience in managing payroll accounting, with focus on streamlining accounting processes.
• Exemplary history of financial project management

Benefits

We Offer:

• Flat company with no bureaucracy 
• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Remote work
• Stock Option Plan
• Opportunities for growth through our high-involvement culture & structures
• You will work with customers and team members all over the world 
• You will work with amazing people solving interesting problems