Finance Manager

Real opportunities. Real impact. Your career, redefined.

(NOTE: A human reviews every application at Oceans, so please apply for only one position and only once a year—if you're a better fit for another role, we’ll route your application accordingly and if we’re not quite ready for you, we’ll reach back out later.)

At Oceans, we help the best and brightest of Sri Lanka to take advantage of opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them, while supporting entrepreneurs around the world. Our community (we call them Divers) don’t do surface work—they go deep to solve complex challenges and make a real impact. And in doing so, they support bold ideas, expand their skills, broaden their expertise, and grow their careers, all without having to leave family and friends.

As the Finance Manager, you'll take ownership of day-to-day finance operations while acting as a trusted financial partner to senior leadership and internal department owners. You'll be responsible for keeping financial records accurate and audit-ready while ensuring transactions, payments, reconciliations, reporting, and finance systems run smoothly.

This is a hands-on finance role that combines accounting operations with financial analysis and business partnership. You'll personally manage transactional finance work while also supporting budget tracking, forecasting, dashboards, compliance, and financial decision-making. You'll work across a broad finance technology environment and collaborate with both finance and non-finance stakeholders. 

Accountability

Your success as the Finance Manager will be defined by your ability to maintain accurate, reliable, and well-organized financial operations while giving leadership and department owners the financial visibility they need to make informed decisions.

Here's how you'll make an impact:

Transactional Bookkeeping & Accounts Management

• Manage approximately 100–150 financial transactions per week, ensuring they are accurately recorded and supported by appropriate documentation.
• Manage accounts payable workflows, including reviewing, coding, and processing vendor bills and payments.
• Oversee employee expense reporting and ensure expenses are submitted promptly and coded accurately.
• Communicate directly with vendors to resolve invoice and payment questions.
• Record and reconcile donations and other revenue.
• Reconcile bundled online donation payments and maintain accurate revenue records.
• Maintain alignment between financial records and fundraising performance tracking.
• Keep supporting documentation organized across finance workflows.

Month-End & Reconciliations

• Perform monthly bank reconciliations across organizational accounts.
• Maintain accurate transaction coding and supporting records throughout the month.
• Independently support month-end accounting activities.
• Work with the outsourced accounting provider through the monthly close process.
• Review post-close financial information for accuracy.
• Identify discrepancies, investigate underlying causes, and ensure issues are resolved.
• Maintain clean and audit-ready financial records throughout the year.

Budgeting, Reporting & Financial Analysis

• Own the post-close process for communicating financial performance to department owners.
• Prepare budget-versus-actual reporting and investigate significant variances.
• Help department leaders understand their financial performance and budget position.
• Support budget adjustments based on actual results.
• Build and maintain visual financial dashboards.
• Prepare leadership-facing financial reporting and financial presentations.
• Support financial planning, forecasting, and scenario analysis.
• Translate financial information into clear recommendations for non-finance stakeholders.

Cash Flow, Banking & Currency Exposure

• Maintain visibility into incoming and outgoing cash activity.
• Reconcile online donation receipts and bundled payments.
• Support payment workflows and ensure payment information remains accurate.
• Monitor USD/ILS exchange rates and assess their impact on organizational expenses.
• Surface material currency exposure and relevant financial considerations to leadership.
• Provide financial information to support cash flow and budget decisions.

Audit, Tax & Compliance

• Prepare and organize supporting information for the annual external audit.
• Support preparation of Form 990 documentation.
• Maintain audit-ready financial records throughout the year.
• Support applicable state compliance and sales tax filings.
• Respond to requests for financial documentation, schedules, and supporting information.
• Ensure information required by external accounting and compliance providers is complete and organized.
• Apply sound accounting principles and established financial controls across day-to-day operations.

Finance Systems & Data Management

• Maintain accurate financial information across systems including Sage Intacct, Bill.com, Ramp, Salesforce, and Google Sheets.
• Identify and resolve discrepancies between finance and operational systems.
• Improve finance workflows and data-management processes.
• Use spreadsheets for financial analysis, reporting, modeling, and dashboard creation.
• Ensure finance data remains reliable and usable for both accounting and management reporting.
• Use AI and translation tools appropriately to improve efficiency without replacing accounting judgment or source documentation.

Process Improvement & Administrative Operations

• Identify opportunities to improve finance and administrative workflows.
• Maintain organized and scalable processes as the organization grows.
• Improve internal budget-tracking systems and administrative processes.
• Support payroll administration and related vendor processes where required.
• Provide guidance to staff on expense submissions, coding, and financial policies.
• Look for ways to reduce repetitive administrative work while maintaining appropriate controls.

Internal Finance Partnership

• Serve as a trusted financial thought partner to senior leadership.
• Act as the primary internal point of contact for day-to-day finance questions.
• Explain financial information clearly to non-finance stakeholders.
• Support financial onboarding for new employees.
• Provide guidance on expense and coding policies.
• Participate actively in team meetings and cross-functional discussions.
• Build effective working relationships across departments while maintaining strong responsiveness during required working hours.

Colleagues

As the Finance Manager, you'll work closely with senior leadership, department owners, employees, vendors, and external finance providers. You'll need to build strong working relationships with people who may not have a finance background, helping them understand budgets, expenses, financial performance, and policies while ensuring the underlying financial operations remain accurate.

At Oceans Talent, you'll also receive guidance and support from your Operations Manager, who will help you succeed in the role and ensure that you're continuously growing and developing in your career.

Skills and Qualifications

At Oceans Talent, we believe in T-shaped individuals—those who bring deep expertise in one area paired with broad curiosity across the business. As the Finance Manager, your vertical focus will be on finance operations and accounting, while your horizontal focus will include financial analysis, budgeting, reporting, systems, compliance, and cross-functional business partnership.

To excel in this role, you should have:

• Experience: 3–6 years of accounting, financial control, or finance operations experience.
• Accounting: Solid working knowledge of US GAAP and strong accounting and transaction-coding fundamentals.
• Sage Intacct: Significant hands-on experience using Sage Intacct in a finance or accounting environment.
• Month-End: Ability to independently support month-end accounting activities, bank reconciliations, and financial record maintenance.
• Accounts Payable: Hands-on experience with AP, vendor payments, and expense-management processes.
• Financial Analysis: Ability to interpret financial statements, analyze budget performance, investigate variances, and support forecasting.
• Google Sheets: Strong capability with pivot tables, lookups, data analysis, financial modeling, and dashboard creation.
• Finance Systems: Experience working across multiple finance and operational systems while maintaining data accuracy.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal English communication, with the ability to explain financial information clearly to non-finance stakeholders.
• Ownership: Strong accuracy, organization, independent problem-solving, and accountability for financial operations.
• Availability: Ability to maintain a minimum of 5 hours of live ET overlap during the working day.

During the interview process, you'll have the opportunity to showcase your skills in the following areas:

• Finance Operations: Demonstrate your ability to independently manage transactions, AP, expenses, revenue, reconciliations, and day-to-day accounting workflows.
• Accounting & Controls: Demonstrate your understanding of US GAAP, month-end activities, financial controls, and maintaining accurate accounting records.
• Financial Analysis: Show how you analyze financial performance, investigate budget variances, and turn financial information into useful recommendations.
• Systems & Data: Demonstrate your ability to work confidently across finance systems and spreadsheets while identifying and resolving data discrepancies.
• Reporting & Communication: Show how you communicate financial information clearly to leadership and non-finance stakeholders.
• Problem-Solving: Demonstrate how you investigate discrepancies, identify root causes, and take ownership of resolving financial issues.
• Process Improvement: Show how you identify opportunities to make finance and administrative workflows more efficient while maintaining appropriate controls.

Diversity of experience is core to Oceans. You are expected to work inclusively with individuals from a variety of backgrounds, ensuring that both personal and collective dignity are supported.

Role Specifications

This is a remote role, where you will be expected to work a split shift with some overlap with our client’s time zone. You will, however, be expected to be present for in-person training programs during your first 3.5 weeks with us. During the offer process, we’ll share more information about our benefits and compensation philosophy, considering both market trends and individual factors.

About Oceans

At Oceans Talent, we connect the world’s top talent with visionary companies building what’s next. Here, you’re not just stepping into another role — you’re joining a team that values individuality, ambition, and growth without limits. Unique, like you.

We’re always excited to share more about our journey, where we’re headed, and how you can grow with us throughout the interview process.

Want to learn more about our recruitment process, what to expect from interviews, and possible outcomes? Check out [The Dive].