Overview
You build financial models and analyze business performance to support decision-making across GTM, product, and executive leadership at a 171-person AI legal tech company. You'll run monthly close, build forecasts, model expansion scenarios, and translate financial implications for non-finance leaders. You report directly to the VP of Finance and work across all departments.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Strategic Finance / FP&A + Accounting |
| Primary Function | Financial modeling, forecasting, close management |
| Cross-functional Work | High - partner with GTM, Product, Exec team |
| Reporting Cadence | Monthly close, weekly business reviews, quarterly planning |
| Team Size | Small finance team, likely 3-5 people |
| Tech Stack | Excel/Google Sheets heavy, accounting software, possibly NetSuite |
Company Context
Stage: Growth stage (171 employees, "one of Canada's fastest-growing")
Size: 171 employees
Growth: Actively hiring across multiple departments, VP Finance leading talent acquisition directly
Market Position: Selling AI-powered contract tools to in-house legal teams and law firms - specialized buyer, high ACVs likely
Product: AI assistant for lawyers doing contract drafting/review in Microsoft Word
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Financial Analysis (35%) | Close/Accounting (30%) | Cross-functional Projects (25%) | Reporting/Meetings (10%)
Key Activities
- Monthly Close: Own parts of the close process - likely revenue recognition, accruals, reconciliations. You'll be chasing down missing data from sales ops and product teams to hit close deadlines.
- Financial Modeling: Build and maintain the three-statement model. Run scenario planning for hiring, pricing changes, expansion into new segments. Executives will ask "what if" questions and you need answers in hours, not days.
- GTM Analytics: Partner with RevOps and sales leadership on cohort analysis, CAC payback, sales productivity metrics. You'll translate booking trends into cash flow implications and help size sales teams.
- Board/Investor Prep: Build slides and materials for board meetings. The VP of Finance will own the narrative, but you'll produce the data and backup scenarios.
- Ad Hoc Projects: Everything from evaluating new tools ("should we upgrade our accounting software?") to M&A diligence if they're acquiring. Scope creep is real at this stage.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Data is messy at a 171-person company. You'll spend time cleaning CRM exports, reconciling discrepancies between Salesforce and accounting, and building your own datasets because systems don't talk to each other yet.
- Everyone wants analysis yesterday. Sales leaders want unit economics, product wants investment cases, execs want board materials - all on tight timelines. You'll be juggling 5-7 projects simultaneously.
- You're the translator between finance and non-finance people. Explaining why a $200K booking doesn't mean $200K in cash this quarter gets repetitive.
- Close can be chaotic. At this size, processes are still being formalized. You might be hunting down approvals or explaining revenue recognition nuances to sales reps who don't care.
- Hiring decisions have big financial implications, and you'll be the one modeling headcount scenarios while leaders debate what to do. Then plans change and you rebuild the model.
What Success Looks Like
- You close the books on time every month with clean reconciliations
- Executives trust your models and use them to make decisions (pricing, hiring, fundraising)
- You catch problems early - spotting cash flow issues, unfavorable unit economics, or sales trends before they become crises
- You build relationships across departments so people come to you for analysis instead of making decisions in a vacuum
Who You Work With
Internal Partners:
- VP of Finance (your boss) - sets priorities, owns investor relationships
- Revenue Operations - you need their sales data and pipeline metrics
- Sales Leadership - they'll ask for territory models, rep productivity analysis, quota setting support
- Product/Engineering - understanding development costs, making build/buy decisions
- CEO/Exec Team - board prep, strategic planning, fundraising support
What They Need From You:
- Accurate, timely data they can use to make decisions
- Financial implications translated into plain language
- Models that answer "what if" questions quickly
- Confidence that the numbers are right
Requirements
- 3-5 years in finance, ideally mix of FP&A and accounting
- CPA designation (poster is a CPA, likely values this)
- Strong Excel/Google Sheets - complex models, pivot tables, lookups
- SaaS metrics fluency (ARR, CAC, LTV, Rule of 40, etc.)
- You've worked at a growth-stage company (50-300 people) and know the chaos that comes with scaling
- Comfortable with ambiguity - processes aren't fully built, you'll create them
- Can explain finance concepts to non-finance people without being condescending
- Self-directed - you see what needs to be done and do it without waiting for assignments