Financial Controller / Head of Finance

ACRE Homes is building homes with a focus on clean, decision-grade financial visibility. This hands-on Financial Controller / Head of Finance role owns finance end to end, bringing clarity to bookkeeping, job costing, cash forecasting, lender management, and monthly reporting. You will provide CFO-level transparency to the founder so project selection and financing decisions stay grounded in real numbers.

Location: Costa Mesa, CA (hybrid). Schedule: 9-5PM at the office, with potential remote work after 90 days.

What You’ll Do

Run the company’s financial operations with strong accuracy and repeatable process. This includes a thorough monthly close, project-level reporting, and forecasting that helps the team act before financial constraints appear.

• Own QuickBooks Online bookkeeping: transaction categorization, reconciliations, and accurate AP/AR, including an initial cleanup of the existing books and chart of accounts.
• Maintain budget vs. actual for every active project (land, hard costs, soft costs, carry costs) to understand true cost and projected margin at any point in time.
• Produce and maintain a rolling cash flow forecast both company-wide and per-project.
• Monitor timing and spending patterns to anticipate crunches and communicate when it’s safe to begin the next project.
• Manage relationships and paperwork for project lenders, including draw requests, interest tracking by property, payoff coordination at sale, and loan compliance.
• Support deal execution by helping evaluate financing terms on new acquisitions and projects.
• Build acquisition pro formas for prospective deals and run post-mortems on completed projects to explain variances versus underwriting.
• Deliver a simple monthly reporting package with P&L, balance sheet, cash position, per-project status, and core KPIs (cost per square foot, margin per project, carry cost burn, days to sale).
• Be the point person for outside CPA (tax prep and planning), insurance renewals, property tax, entity-level filings, and payroll administration.
• Implement lightweight operating controls (approvals, document organization, budget templates) to keep the business tight without slowing execution.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of accounting/finance experience, including at least 2 years in construction, homebuilding, real estate development, or fix-and-flip, with strong understanding of job costing, draws, and carry costs.
• Deep hands-on QuickBooks Online ownership experience (owning the QBO file end to end, not only reviewing reports).
• Strong Excel/Google Sheets modeling skills, comfortable building cash flow forecasts and project pro formas from scratch.
• Self-directed operator mindset: set priorities and close your own loops across the finance function.
• Heavy AI use: use Claude connected to QuickBooks daily to automate the close, build forecasts and reports, draft lender communications, and analyze deals. If you’re not already doing it this way, you need to be eager and able to ramp quickly.

Education: Bachelor’s degree (Required).

Technologies: QuickBooks Online, Excel, Google Sheets, Claude

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Paid time off

First 90 Days

• Clean up the QuickBooks file: categorize outstanding transactions, restructure the chart of accounts around project-level (class/job) tracking, and reconcile all accounts.
• Build the per-project cost and cash flow model covering every active property.
• Set the monthly close calendar and deliver the first monthly reporting package.
• Map all outstanding loans into a single debt schedule (balances, rates, maturity dates, payoff triggers).

Compensation

Base salary: USD 90,000 - 135,000 per year. Base is quoted as $95,000–$135,000 depending on experience and local market, plus a performance bonus tied to project profitability. Benefits and final range will be discussed during the interview process.

Nice to Have

• CPA, CCIFP, or public accounting background
• Experience working with private/hard-money lenders and construction draw processes
• Experience as the first finance hire at a small company

How to Apply

Email your COVER LETTER and resume to Brooke at [email protected] (recruiter for this role).

Subject line: ACRE HOMES ACCOUNTANT - [YOUR NAME]

In your cover letter, include details on why you feel you’re the best candidate and what applicable experience you have.