Senior Associate, Accounting

About Achievement First

Achievement First (AF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization supporting 39 public charter schools across New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. For more than 25 years, AF has been recognized as one of the top tuition-free public charter school networks in the country. We are committed to creating schools of academic excellence within nurturing environments — schools that prepare students to be college-ready and to pursue and succeed in whatever paths they choose in life.

The majority of AF students are Black and Latinx children from low-income families, many of whom will be the first in their families to graduate from college. Across our network, we employ more than 2,200 staff members — 64% of whom identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color — who collectively educate nearly 15,000 students in Brooklyn and Queens, NY;
New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford, CT; and Providence and Cranston, RI.

That belief drives our deep commitment to student achievement: we aim to set a high bar for learning and create warm, demanding classrooms where rigorous instruction is paired with the care, encouragement, and consistency every student deserves.

We are looking for a strategic and dynamic Senior Associate of Accounting to join our Finance team.

Reporting to the Accounting Manager, this position will serve as Achievement First’s point person for recording all payroll, reclasses and maintaining all intercompany activity for 39 schools as well as the Network Support Team.

• Oversee grant revenue recognition and ensure expenditures comply with GAAP and funder requirements
• Develop and maintain detailed budget-to-actual reporting to support financial transparency and decision-making
• Responsible for monthly account reconciliations of several balance sheet accounts
• Support year-end close process and complete all preparatory work ahead of annual audits
• Perform specific duties assigned by supervisor in preparation for and during the annual fiscal audits
• Collaborate with FP&A, school operations and other teams on revenue and expense allocations based on grant requirements and budget changes

• Oversee and execute the complete cycle of intercompany activity across 41 schools: high school allocation billing, management fee computation, ancillary fee reconciliation, and intercompany revenue/expense allocation
• Oversee AP aging report and collaborate with Accounts Payable to clear outstanding invoices

• Prepare quarterly consolidated income statements for 22 New York charter academies in full compliance with SUNY authorizer reporting requirement
• Analyze annual payroll data and report staff certified salaries for 10 Connecticut schools for Connecticut’s State Department of Education-Education Financial System also known as CT EFS compliance
• Prepare quarterly functional expense allocation entries for Statement of Functional Expense reporting under ASC 958, including program, management, and fundraising classifications across all entities
• Execute quarterly payroll 941 reconciliations across all 39 entities and the CMO, identifying and resolving discrepancies between payroll records, general ledger entries, and federal tax filings — a process that requires cross-entity data synthesis beyond routine payroll administration

All candidates for this position will support AF core values, lead innovation, and manage projects to ensure our team, like our schools, are setting a high bar in all areas and pursuing it relentlessly.

An ideal candidate will have the following experience and qualification:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting or related field, pending overall experience
• 3-5 years of progressively responsible experience in accounting/finance
• Strong technical knowledge of US GAAP and financial reporting for non-profit organizations, preferred
• Oversight of budgets/accounts/businesses totalling up to $100M (or more), required
• Advanced Microsoft Word and Excel…