[Hiring] Senior Accountant @HighlightTA

Role Description

The Senior Accountant is responsible for managing Certn’s regional accounting operations, with the primary objective of ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of financial reporting. This role is essential to enabling confident business decision-making by providing reliable financial data, maintaining compliance with accounting standards and internal policies, and ensuring operational integrity.

This position supports a team of accounting professionals, fostering a high-performance culture that emphasizes accountability, continuous learning, and cross-functional collaboration. By developing the team’s technical capabilities and streamlining core accounting processes, the Senior Accountant ensures the team delivers consistent, high-quality outputs that support monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting cycles.

The desired outcome of this role is to establish a resilient, efficient accounting function that not only meets compliance requirements but also contributes to Certn’s broader financial goals through timely insight, strong internal controls, and scalable practices that support business growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the regional month-end close process, ensuring the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of financial results to support reliable internal and external reporting.
• Review and approve journal entries, supporting calculations, and account reconciliations to maintain data integrity and audit readiness.
• Oversee accounts payable and billing activities, ensuring timely processing, correct application of charges, and alignment with internal controls and vendor/customer agreements.
• Maintain and continuously improve regional accounting processes and internal controls to ensure operational efficiency and risk mitigation.
• Prepare and deliver internal financial reports, including variance analyses and commentary, to support data-driven decision-making by leadership and finance stakeholders.
• Review and reconcile intercompany transactions to ensure accurate consolidated reporting.
• Own and complete the month-end regional checklist, ensuring process consistency and completeness across all accounting functions.
• Serve as the regional accounting system administrator, maintaining data integrity, access control, and system optimization.
• Act as the primary accounting owner for each region’s financial results, ensuring all financial activities are accurately reflected and compliant with accounting policies and standards.
• Partner closely with the Assistant Controller to validate and explain regional financial data, ensuring readiness for consolidation and senior leadership reporting.
• Proactively identify and resolve accounting issues, discrepancies, or risks, implementing corrective actions and strengthening internal processes.
• Uphold IFRS and regional GAAP compliance, and internal accounting policy adherence across all regional activities.
• Support external audits by owning regional reconciliations and supporting documentation; serve as the point of contact for audit-related inquiries.
• Provide actionable insight into regional financial performance by linking operational activity with financial outcomes.
• Recommend and implement improvements to regional accounting practices that increase accuracy, control, and scalability.
• Support a high-performing regional accounting team through day-to-day guidance and technical oversight.
• Promote continuous improvement and knowledge sharing across the team and regions to enhance operational resilience and consistency.
• Collaborate with Finance and FP&A teams to support budgeting, forecasting, and financial planning through timely and accurate actuals.
• Contribute to the development of financial policies and scalable accounting processes that support business growth and operational agility.
• Deliver data-informed insights and identify cost-saving or efficiency opportunities, helping leadership make sound financial decisions.
• Align accounting practices with operational goals by partnering with cross-functional teams to ensure the financial impacts of business activities are accurately captured.
• Support preparation for board reporting, investor communications, and strategic finance initiatives by delivering reliable and well-supported financial data.
• Manage timely filing of GST, PST, Employer Health Tax, and other statutory remittances in accordance with regional regulatory requirements.
• Liaise with external accountants and advisors on annual corporate tax filings, SR&ED claims, and audit engagements, providing accurate documentation and timely responses to requests.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
• CPA designation (completed or in final stages of completion).
• Strong technical accounting knowledge (including GAAP/IFRS where applicable).
• Advanced Excel proficiency (e.g., pivot tables, lookups, formula logic).
• ERP/accounting software experience (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct—adaptable to your stack).
• Analytical and problem-solving abilities, particularly in reconciling data and identifying financial discrepancies.
• Effective communication skills, especially for cross-functional collaboration and audit preparation.
• People leadership skills—able to mentor, delegate, and coach accounting staff.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and execute end-to-end month-end activities, including preparing and reviewing journal entries, performing account reconciliations, verifying accruals and adjustments, and meeting reporting deadlines with minimal supervision.
• Familiarity with close checklists and workflow coordination across departments (e.g., billing, AP, payroll) to ensure completeness and accuracy.
• Demonstrated experience in preparing full sets of financial statements—including balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement—in accordance with applicable accounting frameworks.
• Familiarity with both standalone entity and group-level reporting is an asset.
• Ability to compile and validate supporting schedules, such as deferred revenue, prepaid expenses, intercompany accounts, and FX revaluations, with a strong understanding of the impact on financial reporting.
• Practical experience in preparing or reviewing indirect tax filings and statutory submissions, tailored to regional requirements.
• Comfort working with auditors, tax advisors, or regulatory bodies to provide supporting documentation, respond to queries, and ensure deadlines are met.
• Working knowledge of ERP/accounting systems (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage, etc.), including navigating subledgers, running reports, and ensuring proper coding of transactions.
• Experience identifying process improvements or implementing control procedures to increase accuracy, efficiency, or audit readiness.
• Proven track record of ensuring high-quality outputs through attention to detail, double-checking work, and proactively flagging inconsistencies.
• Demonstrates sound judgment in complex reconciliations and the ability to connect financial data to operational activity.

Bonus

• IFRS experience an asset.
• Netsuite experience an asset.

Benefits

• 32 days of paid time off per year.
• Company-paid benefits that start on day 1.
• Remote-friendly and supportive flexible remote arrangements.
• Work-from-home allowance.
• Professional development budget.
• And a few more goodies!

Company Description

Certn is a remote-first company with a high-performance edge. We value hustle, hunger, and helping each other win - but we also have a strict no-jerk policy. Ambition here is about lifting people up, not stepping on toes.

We think like owners and execute with urgency. We’re customer-obsessed and always learning. We give real feedback and hold each other to high standards.