Main Responsibilities of a Controller at Clear Sky Capital
At Clear Sky Capital, the Controller's main responsibilities involve "developing a process and building a highly functioning accounting team" in a startup environment, encompassing everything from month-end close cycles and ERP system management to collaborating with a third-party for fund reporting and providing key financial insights to the operations team for strategic decision-making. This includes working closely with "our operations team to be able to provide them reporting and relevant information that they need."
Financial Reporting, Team Management, Process Development, ERP System Management, Cross-functional Collaboration
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Max Kazimierek
Controller
Clear Sky Capital
University of Arizona 2013
N/A
Accounting
Real Estate
Finance
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans
Video Highlights
1. Developing and building a highly functioning accounting team within a startup environment.
2. Managing and improving the ERP system used by accountants, property managers, and operational staff.
3. Collaborating with the operations team to provide financial reports and analysis to support decision-making and cost reduction efforts.
Transcript
What are your main responsibilities within your current role?
In a startup environment, the role involves a bit of everything. At a high level, we currently have a team of two.
Similar to my last job, as we acquire more properties and bring in more equity, we'll need to produce more financial statements. The main goal of this role is to develop a process and build a highly functioning accounting team.
This includes establishing processes for the month-end close cycle and a review process for the team. A significant part of accounting is being downstream of everything; typically, we're the last to touch something before it goes into the financials.
Therefore, it's essential to understand a lot of the front-end aspects. This also involves the ERP system. I'm tasked with system management for our ERP system, which is used by our accountants, property managers, and operational staff.
This also entails establishing controls and ensuring there's a process around them. Additionally, our company's property accounting is handled in-house, while fund administration and investor fund accounting are managed by a third party.
I collaborate with this third party to ensure our fund reporting is up to par and that we deliver reports to our investors. Lastly, I work closely with our operations team to provide them with necessary reporting and relevant information.
This could be an AR report on outstanding balances with residents or trended P&L analysis to identify areas for cost reduction. So, I work closely with our operations and leadership teams on various financial reporting needs.