Project Accountant

Sam Brown•,

7d•$70,000 - $100,000•Remote

About The Position

Sam Brown Healthcare Communications, a Blue Matter Company, is seeking a Project Accountant to manage the daily financial operations of the agency. This role involves setting up projects, managing SOW budgets, overseeing time entry, approving third-party expenses, handling monthly accruals, client invoicing, and accounts receivable follow-up, as well as supporting the monthly close process. It is a detail-oriented, deadline-driven position crucial to the agency's billing, revenue, and project profitability. The Project Accountant will collaborate with the Director of Operations on client SOW health, partner with Managing Directors on account economics, and act as the primary liaison with Blue Matter's Controller and FP&A team for project and billing matters. The ideal candidate is a hands-on operator who enjoys accurate financial records and is proficient in using multiple systems (Beyond Software, Workfront, QuickBooks, with a future migration to NetSuite). This position is fully remote with minimal travel required.

Requirements

3–6+ years of project accounting, billing, or agency finance experience — ideally inside a PR, communications, marketing, advertising, or other professional services agency.
Hands-on experience with time-tracking and project management systems (Beyond Software, Workfront, OpenAir, Mavenlink, Kantata, or similar) and accounting systems (QuickBooks, NetSuite, or similar).
Strong working knowledge of agency billing economics: SOWs, rate cards, billable hours, third-party pass-throughs, retainers, and project budgets.
Comfort moving fluidly between systems, reconciling data across them, and spotting when the numbers don’t tie.
Solid grasp of monthly close mechanics — accruals, revenue recognition, AR aging, AP reconciliation.
Exceptional attention to detail, organization, and follow-through; you treat deadlines as non-negotiable and chase down loose ends without being asked.
A service mindset — you partner well with non-finance colleagues (account leads, Managing Directors), explain financial details clearly, and help the business make better decisions.
Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting a finance team through a systems migration (e.g., QuickBooks to NetSuite).
Familiarity with ADP or a comparable payroll platform.
Exposure to a PE-backed environment with monthly reporting cadence.

Responsibilities

Open new projects and maintain existing projects in the project management system, ensuring SOW terms, budgets, rates, and billing structure are accurately reflected.
Close out old and inactive projects, performing write-offs where applicable in partnership with FP&A.
Secure applicable client purchase orders (POs) and ensure they are in place ahead of invoicing.
Execute time transfers within the project management system as needed to reflect accurate project costing.
Own the monthly client invoicing cycle end-to-end: review and approve agency hours and time entries, validate third-party purchases against budgets, produce invoices, and deliver them via email or client portal upload.
Post final client invoices into QuickBooks/NetSuite and provide final billing reports to Blue Matter Corporate.
Approve client-related out-of-pocket purchases and vendor invoices, entering them into the project management system with proper coding.
Post monthly internal platform charge-backs in the project management system.
Manage client SOW budgets in unison with Managing Directors, running mid-month and month-end reviews to flag overruns, under-runs, and scope shifts.
Support the Director of Operations on SOW pricing reviews and on monthly revenue review and recognition.
Maintain accurate, audit-ready project records and budget-versus-actuals reporting.
Review and actively monitor open accounts receivable, partnering with account leads to follow up on aged invoices and resolve client billing questions.
Manage the preparation and review of the monthly client accruals process in unison with the Director of Operations/Managing Directors.
Surface AR risks and slow-paying accounts to the Director of Operations and Blue Matter Controller.
Reconcile hours for part-time employees for HR each payroll period, along with any payroll reimbursements or deductions sourced from Beyond Software.
Provide monthly time-off reconciliation to HR by comparing Beyond Software records to the ADP portal.
Support Director of Operations, Blue Matter’s Controller and FP&A team on the monthly close — providing final revenue, project AP detail, expense account reconciliations, client payment receipts, and inter-company transfer support as needed.
Generate and distribute regular billing, WIP, and AR reports.
Recommend improvements to Beyond Software, including new reports and workflow enhancements, in partnership with the Director of Operations.