Finance Manager

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building structure, partnering with non-finance colleagues, and translating complex financial data into tools and insights that support decision-making.

The Center for Open Science (COS) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to increase the openness, integrity, and trustworthiness of research. We are seeking a Finance Manager to be a core leader in developing COS’s project-based financial management systems, bridging day-to-day accounting data with forecasting, grants management, and organizational planning. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building structure, partnering with non-finance colleagues, and translating complex financial data into tools and insights that support decision-making.

This role will design and drive processes that connect:

• The general ledger and allocations,
• Project and grant financials, and
• Pipeline and multi-year planning.

The Finance Manager will report to the Senior Director of Finance (SDF) and partner closely with an outsourced accounting vendor, serving as process driver for FP&A, project financial management, and systems configuration. This role will help ensure COS’s financial infrastructure is decision-useful, compliant with funder and regulatory requirements, and aligned with COS's values of transparency, accountability, and respect.

• Financial Planning & Analysis:
  Own and continuously improve multi-year forecasting, budgeting, and reforecasting processes, integrating actuals with projections across projects, grants, staffing, and organizational planning. Develop dashboards and analyses tools that support decision‑making at both the project and organizational level.
• Grants & Project Financial Management:
  Lead the development and maintenance of Project Financial Management Plans (PFMPs). Maintain the Project Database and Intacct Data Warehouse views for project-level analysis. Partner with project leads and Development to support proposal costing, ongoing project financial reporting, and funder compliance. Coach and support project leads in understanding budgets, forecasts, and financial reports.
• Systems & Data Integration:
  Help design, maintain, and optimize Intacct and related systems (e.g., Ramp), ensuring consistent coding, strong internal controls, and reliable project-level and portfolio-level reporting.
• Allocations, Net Assets & General Ledger Quality:
  Support allocation methodologies, payroll and cost distributions, net asset tracking, and month‑end close reviews to maintain high-quality financial data aligned with nonprofit and funder requirements.
• Strategic & Cross‑Functional
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Serve as a responsive, solutions‑oriented finance partner to project leads, Development, and leadership, providing clear financial insights, visualizations, and scenario analyses to inform strategic decisions, resource planning, and long‑term sustainability.

• Strong understanding of nonprofit financial management, including:
  • Grant compliance and funder reporting,
  • Revenue recognition and deferred revenue, and
  • Project‑based and portfolio‑level budgeting.
• Demonstrated experience with FP&A and project financial analysis, including scenario modeling, multi‑year planning, and variance analysis.
• Comfort working in environments where processes are still being built or refined, and where clarity emerges through collaboration.
• Advanced Excel/Google Sheets skills and comfort building structured financial models, templates, and dashboards.
• Proficiency with Sage Intacct, Ramp, and/or similar ERPs and expense platforms; experience partnering with outsourced accounting vendors is a plus.
• Ability to translate complex financial concepts into plain language for non‑financial stakeholders and to coach others on interpreting financial reports.
• Strong systems‑improvement mindset, with experience designing or refining processes across AP, AR, GL, allocations, or project finance.
• Excellent attention to detail, organizational skills, and follow‑through in a multi‑stakeholder, deadline‑driven environment.
• Demonstrated alignment with COS’s values, especially Transparency, Accountability, and Respect,…