AI-enabled Accountant

This is a full-time, remote position from Latin America.   About the Role Our client is looking for a hands-on Accountant to own their accounting function end to end, leveraging AI and automation to make processes faster, more accurate, and more efficient than traditional accounting workflows. In this role, you will manage day-to-day bookkeeping, lead the monthly close, prepare financial statements, and serve as the primary point of contact for external auditors. You will also take ownership of controller-level responsibilities, including cash flow management, vendor payments, and supporting accounts receivable collections. You will work primarily through their internally developed accounting application, Book It, and Claude. Using Claude's existing skills and developing new ones, you will continuously improve accounting workflows, eliminate manual tasks, and strengthen internal controls. You don't need to be a software engineer. They have already built an internal month-end close application that automates recurring journal entries, posts transactions directly to QuickBooks Online with supporting documentation, generates auditable balance sheet schedules, and verifies that balances reconcile to the ledger. Your role is to operate and oversee these systems, validate their outputs, and identify opportunities to automate the next manual step. If you've ever thought, "I could write a skill for this" halfway through a reconciliation, this role is for you.   Key Responsibilities 1. Accounting & Month-End Close • Own and execute the monthly close process from start to finish using their internally developed application. • Manage day-to-day bookkeeping in QuickBooks Online, including bank and credit card reconciliations, chart of accounts maintenance, and applying deposits to invoices. • Upload and review monthly source files, including Carta reports, benefits carrier invoices, and payroll allocations. • Review and approve proposed journal entries, ensuring accuracy before posting them to QuickBooks Online. • Maintain supporting documentation and ensure all balance sheet accounts are reconciled and supported by accurate schedules. 2. Financial Reporting & Audit • Prepare and issue monthly financial statements, including the P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. • Provide concise monthly variance and flux analysis commentary. • Support the preparation of quarterly investor reporting. • Lead the external audit process, serving as the primary contact for auditors. • Prepare audit PBC (Prepared by Client) schedules, supporting documentation, and respond to auditor inquiries. • Identify opportunities to leverage AI and automation to streamline audit preparation and reduce adjustments. 3. Controller & Financial Operations • Monitor daily cash balances and maintain a rolling cash flow forecast. • Proactively communicate potential cash shortfalls and liquidity concerns to the COO. • Manage the vendor payment cycle, including bill approvals, payment scheduling through Bill.com, and ensuring timely payments within cash constraints. • Complete vendor onboarding requirements, including W-9s, banking information, insurance certificates, and supplier questionnaires. • Support accounts receivable collections through aging reviews, payment reminders, and coordination with account management teams. 4. Specialized Accounting Operations • Manage invoice factoring activities, including submissions, payment and reserve reports, fee accruals, and clearing entries. • Use our internal accounting application to process and reconcile factoring-related transactions. • Maintain accurate supporting schedules for prepaids, prepaid commissions, accruals, notes payable (including SBA EIDL and shareholder loans), stock-based compensation, and other balance sheet accounts. 5. AI & Process Automation • Use Claude as a primary working environment to improve and automate accounting workflows. • Own, maintain, and continuously improve existing Claude skills covering close procedures, balance sheet schedules, and factoring processes. • Develop new reusable Claude skills and workflows whenever repetitive manual tasks can be automated. • Maintain a prioritized list of manual processes, evaluating automation opportunities based on time savings, risk reduction, and operational impact. • Partner with internal developers by translating accounting requirements into clear specifications, defining expected outcomes, and validating implemented solutions. • Keep accounting procedures and documentation up to date as processes evolve.   How You'll Work AI is central to this role, not just an additional productivity tool. You will use Claude to execute accounting workflows, develop reusable skills, organize financial information, and continuously improve how the accounting function operates.   Our approach is built around a few principles: • Review, don't retype: Our internal application proposes journal entries and supporting schedules. You review, validate, and approve them rather than manually entering everything. • Strong internal controls: Nothing gets posted without human approval. If a control cannot be verified, it blocks the close. You are responsible for confirming what actually landed in QuickBooks Online. • Continuous improvement: When a task becomes repetitive, you look for opportunities to turn it into a reusable skill or automated workflow. • Clear documentation: You maintain accurate, practical procedures that allow others, including non-accountants, to understand and follow the process. • Collaboration with developers: You define what needs to be fixed or built, explain what the expected result should look like, and validate the outcome. Tools & Technologies: Claude (Skills, Projects, and Connectors), QuickBooks Online, Google Sheets, Bill.com, Carta, BigQuery (read-only), Slack, and Asana.   What Success Looks Like First 30 Days • Complete one full month-end close alongside the team. • Review existing accounting procedures and Claude skills. • Identify and document all remaining manual steps in the accounting workflow. • Begin taking ownership of bookkeeping and shadowing controller-level responsibilities. First 60 Days • Independently execute the monthly close. • Improve or develop at least two Claude skills. • Issue a complete set of monthly financial statements using the existing workflows. • Take over day-to-day controller responsibilities. First 90 Days • Fully own the month-end close calendar and financial reporting process. • Deliver the first automation improvement from the identified manual-process backlog. • Develop and implement an audit PBC preparation plan. First 12 Months • Reduce the monthly close timeline from 20 business days to 5. • Deliver a clean external audit with no material adjustments. • Reduce post-close corrections quarter over quarter. • Build and maintain a documented library of Claude skills that can be used to onboard future accounting team members.   Requirements Must-Haves • 4+ years of hands-on accounting experience, including ownership of the full monthly close process. • Strong knowledge of US GAAP, including accruals, prepaids, revenue recognition, stock-based compensation, and notes payable. • Experience preparing monthly financial statements and supporting external audits. • Daily, practical experience using Claude or a comparable AI tool for accounting or financial workflows, with examples of how you've applied it. • Experience creating at least one reusable Claude skill, project instruction set, or structured prompt workflow that others can follow. • Advanced proficiency in QuickBooks Online and spreadsheets. • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a highly detail-oriented and skeptical approach to validating AI-generated outputs. • Ability to explain and substantiate financial figures and identify discrepancies before they become reporting issues. • Strong written communication skills and the ability to document accounting procedures clearly.   Nice-to-Haves • CPA certification or currently pursuing CPA licensure. • Experience with invoice factoring or other receivables financing arrangements. • Experience in ad-tech, media, or marketplace revenue accounting. • Basic SQL knowledge and experience querying financial data in BigQuery. • Familiarity with Claude Code, MCP connectors, or no-code automation platforms such as Make or Zapier. • Previous experience as the first or sole accountant at a startup.   What This Role Is Not • Not a software engineering position: You won't be expected to build or deploy applications. You will define accounting requirements and explain precisely how systems should work. • Not accounting by prompting: AI helps you work faster, but you remain responsible for reviewing, validating, and approving every financial figure. • Not a people-management role (yet): This is a hands-on individual contributor position. As the accounting function grows, the processes and skills you develop will help scale the team.   About RYZ Labs: RYZ Labs is a startup studio built in 2021 by two lifelong entrepreneurs. The founders of RYZ have worked at some of the world's largest tech companies and some of the most iconic consumer brands. They have lived and worked in Argentina for many years and have decades of experience in Latam. What brought them together is the passion for the early phases of company creation and the idea of attracting the brightest talents in order to build industry-defining companies in a post-pandemic world. Our teams are remote and distributed throughout the US and Latam. They use the latest cutting-edge technologies in cloud computing to create applications that are scalable and resilient. We aim to provide diverse product solutions for different industries, planning to build a large number of startups in the upcoming years. At RYZ, you will find yourself working with autonomy and efficiency, owning every step of your development. We provide an environment of opportunities, learning, growth, expansion and challenging projects. You will deepen your experience while sharing and learning from a team of great professionals and specialists.   Our values and what to expect: • Customer First Mentality - every decision we make should be made through the lens of the customer. • Bias for Action - urgency is critical, expect that the timeline to get something done is accelerated. • Ownership -  step up if you see an opportunity to help, even if not your core responsibility. • Humility and Respect - be willing to learn, be vulnerable, and treat everyone that interacts with RYZ with respect. • Frugality - being frugal and cost-conscious helps us do more with less. • Deliver Impact - get things done in the most efficient way. • Raise our Standards - always be looking to improve our processes, our team, our expectations. Status quo is not good enough and never should be.