Industry: SaaS, midsize public company
Salary: $150k-$200k depending on how bonuses shake out. Plus stock options that may or may not be worth anything.
Title: Director of Financial Reporting
Experience: No public experience or CPA. Went right into industry as an A/R bitch at $31k/year. Worked my way up over a 10 year period, and was extremely lucky to work for companies that valued hard work, process improvements, and self-started efficiency gains.
Brief description of your typical day/responsibilities: I have ownership over the end to end maintenance and smooth running of our systems from journal entry creation all the way to internal/external financial reports being created. There isn't really a standard day, as I have a lot of different responsibilities, and it kind of depends what part of the month it is, what paradigms are being shifted without a clutch, and if its a quarter end or year end. So this is some of the main stuff I do: (1) Review emails on issues that pop up with our various accounting systems, and either fix issues myself or advise someone else on how to fix. These can come from automated error emails that the systems spit out or can come from users/admins that encounter issues. (2) Sit in on meetings where system changes or new processes are being discussed, so that I can give input on how it will impact the flow of financial data, and so I can make sure changes are made correctly. (3) Talk with other accounting staff to make sure journals are being correctly prepared for new/unusual items. Usually I'm working closely with the Technical Accounting team for this kind of stuff, but they don't actually know the chart of accounts or journal entry procedures that well (at all), which is why I'm involved. (4) Maintain the chart of accounts in all of our systems and make additions as needed. (5) Build new financial reports in the ERP that other users can run for whatever reason they need. (6) Prepare monthly variance analysis, find accounting errors that have been made, ensure they are fixed. (7) Prepare official internal and external financial reporting, and present to internal stakeholders.