[Hiring] Client Finance Lead @McGarrah Jessee

Role Description

We are on the lookout for a Client Finance Lead. This role will act as a key liaison between finance, brand, and project management to ensure needed reporting and data is shared out to appropriate teams and revenue is properly recognized. The role will have a close working relationship with The Controller and Head of Finance as a key component of the role.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Client and cross-functional partnership
  • Serve as the primary day-to-day finance contact for assigned clients, accounts, and project teams.
  • Partner with Account Management, Production, Business Affairs, Project Management, Media, and Accounting throughout the financial lifecycle of each job.
  • Participate in recurring client finance, budget, billing, WIP, and job-status meetings.
  • Provide client teams with timely visibility into project budgets, actual costs, commitments, billings, collections, and remaining available funds.
  • Proactively identify financial risks, unresolved issues, and opportunities, escalating material matters as appropriate.
  • Respond to internal and client questions related to budgets, estimates, invoices, purchase orders, job status, and financial reporting.
• Job setup and financial governance
  • Own the financial setup and maintenance of client jobs and projects within the agency’s financial and project-management systems.
  • Review scopes of work, client estimates, fee arrangements, billing schedules, and approved budgets before opening jobs.
  • Confirm that jobs are supported by appropriate client authorization, including signed scopes, approved estimates, purchase orders, or other written authorization.
  • Maintain job-level documentation and ensure financial records agree with approved scopes, estimates, change orders, and client purchase orders.
  • Coordinate job-code creation and communicate coding instructions to Account Management, Production, Business Affairs, Media, and other participating departments.
  • Coordinate with Production, Business Affairs, Media, and Accounts Payable to identify missing vendor invoices and remaining financial obligations.
  • Support the administration of scope changes and change orders, ensuring incremental work is properly authorized, budgeted, and billable.
  • Perform regular job-level reconciliations throughout the project lifecycle.
• Client billing
  • Own the preparation, review, and timely submission of client invoices for assigned accounts and projects.
  • Develop and maintain billing schedules aligned with contracts, scopes of work, project milestones, approved estimates, and client requirements.
  • Reconcile proposed billings to approved budgets, recognized revenue, WIP, incurred costs, prior invoices, and remaining client authorization.
  • Ensure that fees, labor, production, talent, media, travel, and other costs are billed in accordance with contractual terms.
  • Maintain accurate billing trackers and provide visibility into billed, unbilled, and forecasted amounts.
  • Resolve rejected invoices, missing documentation, portal issues, purchase-order discrepancies, and other billing exceptions.
• WIP, AR, and Revenue support
  • Review job-level work in progress, unbilled costs, unbilled fees, deferred revenue, and other project balances as part of the monthly close process.
  • Maintain accurate WIP schedules and investigate aged, unsupported, or potentially non-billable balances.
  • Support Finance leadership and Accounting with monthly revenue-recognition calculations and related supporting documentation.
  • Monitor accounts receivable balances and invoice status for assigned clients.
  • Partner with Account Management to follow up on outstanding invoices.
  • Investigate payment delays, short payments, invoice deductions, client disputes etc., and escalate when necessary.
  • Support cash forecasting by providing informed collection timing for material client balances.
  • Assist with client profitability analysis, including labor performance, production margins, pass-through costs, over-service, write-offs, and scope changes.

This is a remote position.