Looking for Philippines-based candidates
Job Role: Financial Controller
Compensation range: $3,500 AUD - $4,500 AUD / Monthly
Engagement type: Independent Contractor Agreement
Work Schedule: 8:30 AM– 5:00 PM Queensland Time (AEST, UTC+10) / 6:30 AM – 3:00 PM Manila, Monday to Friday, no daylight-saving shift
Who We Are: At Hunt St, we help Australian companies hire top remote talent in the Philippines. For this role, you will be engaged directly by the client as an independent contractor. We are not an outsourcing agency. All of our roles are 100% remote so you'll be able to work from home.
Who The Client Is: Our client is an established Australian distribution business working with a portfolio of international and local suppliers and a growing network of retail and commercial partners across the country.
The business is focused on building a reliable, well-managed supply operation that supports its customers and partners through consistent product availability, strong supplier relationships, and efficient internal processes. As the company continues to grow, it is investing in better systems, planning, and operational structure to support the next stage of the business.
Role Overview: The Financial Controller owns the accounts function end to end: accurate books every day, a clean close by working day 5 every month, and a management pack, rolling three-way forecast and 13-week cash forecast the business is run against. Until the Senior Bookkeeper is hired, the Controller performs the transactional work personally; after that hire, the Controller supervises it and spends the freed time on analysis, controls and insight.
This is an ownership role. The Controller decides the exceptions (the unmatched supplier invoice, the disputed dealer credit, the landed cost that does not tie to the shipment) rather than escalating them, and is accountable for the numbers being right. Board-level judgement work, including capital allocation cases, lender and investor packs, acquisition due diligence and scenario modelling, sits with the CEO and the fractional CFO; the Controller supplies the numbers and the first draft.
Key Responsibilities:
- Bank and cards: Daily reconciliation of all bank and card accounts across AUD, USD, EUR and other trading currencies using bank feeds and matching rules; clear exceptions the same day.
- Accounts Payable: Enter supplier invoices; three-way match of purchase order, goods receipt and invoice on inventory purchases; code indirect expenses; prepare payment-run schedules for CEO approval; maintain supplier master data and terms; manage supplier prepayments and settlement timing.
- Accounts Receivable and credit: Allocate customer receipts; issue statements; prepare overdue lists and reminder correspondence; set and apply customer credit limits and overdue thresholds within policy; provide a weekly exposure dashboard to the Customer Service Manager.
- Expenses, cards and payroll: Reconcile corporate cards and expense claims; prepare payroll data for review; reconcile superannuation and leave balances.
- Inventory and landed cost: Post goods receipts and landed-cost allocations (freight, duty, insurance); stock valuation; slow-moving and obsolete stock provisions; reconcile system inventory to physical counts with the Warehouse Coordinator.
- Month-end close: Reconciliations and schedules by working day 3 (bank, AP, AR, prepayments, accruals, fixed assets, GST); close by working day 5; monthly management pack with P&L by brand and channel, balance sheet, cash, inventory days, DSO/DPO and a one-page narrative.
- Budgets, forecasts and variance: Build the annual budget with each manager for CEO approval; maintain a rolling 12-month three-way model re-forecast quarterly; own the 13-week cash forecast; monthly budget-versus-actual by department and brand with root causes and corrective actions agreed with the responsible manager.
- Commercial insight: Gross margin by brand, channel, customer and product at landed cost; fixed versus variable cost and breakeven by brand; support Sales and Brand Management on pricing, rebates and supplier terms with numbers.
- Foreign exchange: Execute FX transactions and track open positions within the company’s FX Risk Management Policy; monthly revaluation of open foreign-currency balances.
- Controls and compliance: Segregation of duties and delegation-of-authority matrix; audit trail in NetSuite; quarterly fraud and leakage review; prepare BAS, FBT, payroll tax, ASIC and year-end working papers for the Australian accountants and manage their annual review; fixed-asset register.
- NetSuite and systems: Own the NetSuite finance module: cleanse MYOB data (debtors, creditors, open purchase orders, unreconciled items), load and verify opening balances, chart of accounts, roles and approvals, bank feeds, saved searches and reports; specify Power BI finance reporting; specify and supervise AI-assisted workflows for bank reconciliation, collections and report drafting; document every recurring process.
- Procurement interface: Line-manage the Procurement & Supply Chain Manager; approve purchase orders outside the budget envelope; receive the procurement document pack and process payments (Procurement raises no payments).
- People: Select, onboard and lead the Senior Bookkeeper when the trigger is reached; train managers to read and own their own numbers.
Requirements
Required Skills and Qualifications:
- Philippine CPA (Australian CPA or CA an advantage).
- Minimum 8 years in accounting, including at least 3 in a product-based business (wholesale, distribution, import, retail or manufacturing) with hands-on inventory, landed-cost and multi-currency accounting.
- Has worked for an Australian or New Zealand business or client: understands BAS/GST coding, superannuation, payroll tax and the 1 July – 30 June financial year.
- Has personally run a monthly close end to end and produced a management pack for an owner or managing director.
- Has built or maintained a budget and a rolling three-way model (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow) and run monthly variance reviews with operating managers.
- Hands-on NetSuite experience in the finance module (AP, AR, bank reconciliation, period close). Experience on a NetSuite migration or data-cleansing project is strongly preferred; MYOB experience is an advantage.
- Decides exceptions rather than escalating them, and can show it with examples.
- Builds systems: documents processes without being asked; has used automation or AI tools in finance work.
- Strong written and spoken English; comfortable presenting numbers to a CEO and a management team and disagreeing in writing when the numbers call for it.
Nice to Have:
- Led the finance side of a NetSuite go-live, including opening-balance reconciliation.
- NetSuite OneWorld, multi-subsidiary or consolidation exposure.
- Power BI or NetSuite SuiteAnalytics.
- Has supervised a bookkeeper or small finance team across time zones.
- Experience with Australian customs, Deferred GST and import documentation.
Work Arrangement & Expectations:
This is a remote role that will be set up as an independent contractor engagement.
To ensure alignment and transparency, successful candidates will be expected to:
- Disclose any existing ongoing roles or client work
- Reflect this engagement on their LinkedIn profile (clearly marked as “Independent Contractor”)
Originally posted on