Client Finance Analyst

We are looking for a strong Client Finance Analyst to support the finance and client production teams across both content and experiential departments in our Los Angeles and New York offices. This person must be organized, self-motivated, process-oriented, and comfortable with systems and summarizing and manipulating financial data.  This is a great opportunity for a smart, creative problem-solver with strong organizational skills and a demonstrated ability to proactively juggle multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment.  

The role has exposure to a broad section of the organization including the production departments, account teams, and the finance and accounting department and will work closely with the Client Finance Manager (based in LA) and VP Finance (based in NYC) for day to day and ad hoc assignments. 

The ideal candidate is savvy with financial analysis, working with datasets in Excel/Google Sheets and from our internal systems, and enjoys breaking down data into summaries to focus on actionable next steps.  They’re always looking for ways to make operations more efficient and opportunities to improve processes. 

This role will support the Finance team with client financial analysis (utilization reporting, managing jobs to track projects, billing clients and related), and the Experiential team (known for large-scale immersive experiences, stunts, pop ups, and everything in between), as well as the Content team (known for film, art, and digital production from pre-production, production, and post production) with various finance and operations tasks.

Our NYC Spoons are in the office on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, while our Los Angeles team is in the office on Tuesdays.

Responsibilities

Client Finance

• Operational account setup and maintenance: 
• Setting up and closing job codes in our production management and timekeeping systems .
• Ensuring job estimates are entered correctly and PO’s issued align with budget.
• Set up new clients in the accounting system.
• Pulling job detail reporting as requested.
• Own client billing for fees and production expenses in alignment with client agreements.
• Maintain various financial trackers and reports (budget trackers, AR, staff utilization, burn reports, WIP management, etc).
• Day to day management and monthly reconciliation of the work in progress (“WIP”) balances in our general ledger to ensure amounts billed, vendor expenses incurred, and completed job balances are in sync with client agreements and our internal reporting.
• Work with the Client Finance Manager on AR collections and management - pursue timely collection with continuous internal & client follow up while escalating collections issues as necessary; provide summaries of monthly billing and reconciliations.
• Review agency time tracking to ensure compliance with policies and follow up with employees who are behind; escalate issues as necessary.
• Maintain organization of agency scopes of work and associated staff plans in tracking system and in network share drive.
• Assist in forecasting resource allocations and the preparation of employee utilization analysis.
• Create and issue client burn reporting showing hours incurred vs budget and alerting client management of potential overages.
• Support the development, testing and delivery of systems improvement initiatives (production management, time tracking, general ledger).
• Match payments made in bank to invoices issued.
• Participate in other ad-hoc projects as needed.
• Support responding to audit requests for both client and external auditors.

Production 

• Develop a recurring cadence and maintain relationships with the account and production teams to gather information needed regarding reconciliation, billing and other related issues.
• Proactively document and follow up on any budgeting, billing, invoicing, or payment issues that pertain to Clients.
• Proactive job cost management to support the production teams with review of their jobs, reconciliation of billing and expenses incurred after project completion, movement of expenses between jobs as necessary, and determination of final debit / credit due to clients.
• Monitor jobs, estimates, POs and to ensure accuracy and project activity.
• Take the lead to understand and explain to the Finance team the status of all projects in terms of billing, expenses incurred, over / under budget, etc.

Requirements

• 1+ years of experience in finance / accounting; ideally in an agency, production studio, or similar creative environment
• Experience with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to work with data from separate systems to summarize, compare and reconcile data (vlookups, pivot tables, charts, graphs, etc)
• Comfortable operating in a fast paced agency environment 
• Ability to work resourcefully and quickly to support a growing company
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Passionate about the details 
• Ability to foster trusting relationships with teammates and clients
• Open to receiving and providing thoughtful feedback
• Ability to work independently and in a team environment, with many people at various levels of the organization
• Experience in NetSuite or similar accounting/ERP packages preferred
• Business, finance, or accounting college degree preferred

The anticipated annual salary range for this position is $50,000 - $75,000. Salary is determined based on a wide range of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, job duties, and geographic location. For this role, we also offer programs such as medical/dental/vision insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and various other benefits and perks.

Giant Spoon is an agency that strives to build an inclusive workplace dynamically rooted in our differences. What makes you, you, is your greatest asset here. No matter your race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, protected veteran status, disabled status, genetic information, or other protected category—feel comfortable (and excited) to bring your full self and make smart, impactful work.

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