Cerro Gordo, Illinois, United States · On-site
FINANCIAL REPORTING: Lead and execute the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close processes while owning the integrity, accuracy, and timeliness of financial reporting across all entities and divisions, ensuring resul…
Skills: Financial Reporting, U.S. GAAP, General Ledger Management, Inventory Valuation, Cost Accounting
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Lead and execute all month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close processes while ensuring the integrity of financial reporting across Grain and Lecithin operations. Manage core accounting operations, inventory valuation, and internal controls while partnering with the fractional CFO to support financial strategy.
Requires a high level of seniority (Director level) with expertise in U.S. GAAP and complex cost accounting. Must be able to lead a lean accounting team and validate commercial and operational activity across multiple divisions.
FINANCIAL REPORTING: Lead and execute the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close processes while owning the integrity, accuracy, and timeliness of financial reporting across all entities and divisions, ensuring results are accurate, consistent, and supported by disciplined processes.
• Deliver accurate, U.S. GAAP-compliant financial statements and maintain a complete, audit-ready general ledger supported by timely reconciliations and clear account documentation.
• Ensure results are finalized within the established close calendar and reflect a high level of accuracy and consistency across Grain and Lecithin operations, enabling the fractional CFO and leadership team to rely on financial information for decision-making.
• Actively partner with operations and commercial teams to validate underlying activity, resolve discrepancies, and ensure financial results accurately reflect business performance. Identify, investigate, and explain material variances, trends, and anomalies, ensuring issues are understood and appropriately addressed.
ACCOUNTING OPERATIONS & FINANCIAL DATA INTEGRITY: Lead, execute, and directly perform core accounting operations while ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and integrity of financial data across all entities.
• Ensure disciplined execution and oversight of all core accounting activities, including general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, intercompany transactions, and fixed assets, ensuring all underlying transactions are accurately recorded, properly classified, and supported by appropriate documentation.
• Review and validate work performed by the accounting clerk(s), while directly performing or completing work as needed to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and continuity of operations.
• Ensure A/P and A/R activities, including vendor payments, freight invoices, aging analysis, and credit monitoring, are executed accurately and aligned to the general ledger, supporting strong cash flow and minimizing financial risk.
• Identify, investigate, and resolve discrepancies at the root cause, ensuring issues are fully understood, corrected, and not repeated.
• Maintain integrity and consistency of financial data across systems (including AGRIS and QuickBooks), ensuring alignment between transactional activity and financial reporting, while continuously improving workflows and system processes to enhance accuracy, efficiency, and reliability.
INVENTORY & COST ACCOUNTING ACROSS DIVISIONS: Lead and execute inventory valuation and cost accounting processes across Grain and Lecithin operations while ensuring accurate financial representation of inventory positions, cost structures, and margin performance, including reconciliation of physical, operational, and financial inventory positions. This represents one of the most critical and complex areas of financial validation within the business.
• Perform and review inventory movement and book-to-physical reconciliations, ensuring discrepancies are identified, investigated, and resolved with appropriate quantity and valuation adjustments recorded as part of the close process.
• Ensure inventory balances are accurate, properly valued, and consistently reflected across locations, systems, and reporting periods.
• Partner with operations and commercial teams to understand inventory movements, cost drivers, and margin impacts, ensuring alignment between operational activity and financial results.
• Identify and address inconsistencies in costing, valuation methods, or inventory tracking processes, improving accuracy and reliability over time.
INDEPENDENT VALIDATION OF COMMERCIAL & OPERATIONAL ACTIVITY: Actively validate and reconcile financial outcomes derived from sales, merchandising, and operational activity while ensuring alignment between commercial transactions and financial reporting across all entities and divisions. This includes areas beyond inventory, such as contract activity, settlements, pricing, and operational execution.
• Partner with sales and merchandising, operations, and logistics teams to validate underlying activity, ensuring financial results accurately reflect business transactions, contract terms, and operational execution.
• Identify, investigate, and resolve discrepancies between operational data and financial records, including contract activity, settlements, pricing impacts, and inventory movement.
• Maintain clear visibility into how commercial and operational activity flows through financial systems, ensuring consistency, completeness, and reliability of reported results.
• Surface risks, inconsistencies, or breakdowns in process integrity, and work cross-functionally to ensure issues are understood, addressed, and not repeated.
INTERNAL CONTROLS, RISK MANAGEMENT & AUDIT READINESS: Establish, execute, and continuously strengthen internal controls, accounting policies, and financial processes while ensuring compliance, protecting company assets, and maintaining audit readiness across all entities.
• Ensure key controls are consistently executed across accounting processes, including reconciliations, approvals, and financial reviews, maintaining accuracy and reliability of financial reporting.
• Identify control gaps, inefficiencies, or areas of financial risk, and implement practical, scalable solutions to strengthen the control environment.
• Maintain organized, complete, and audit-ready financial documentation, supporting internal and external audit processes as needed.
• Partner with the fractional CFO and external advisors (audit, tax) to ensure alignment with financial reporting requirements and best practices.
FINANCIAL INSIGHT & BUSINESS DECISION SUPPORT: Analyze financial results and actively translate them into clear, actionable insights while supporting leadership in making informed operational and business decisions.
• Identify and explain key drivers of financial performance, including variances, margin trends, and cost impacts across Grain and Lecithin operations.
• Partner with division leadership to provide timely, relevant financial insight supporting decisions related to operations, pricing, inventory, and working capital.
• Challenge assumptions and surface risks when financial results or trends do not align with expected performance.
• Support the fractional CFO by providing accurate financial data and analysis to inform broader financial planning, strategy, and external engagement.
CASH FLOW VISIBILITY & WORKING CAPITAL DISCIPLINE: Actively monitor and manage key cash flow drivers while ensuring strong liquidity and disciplined working capital management aligned with operational demands.
• Maintain visibility into cash flow trends and working capital positions, ensuring alignment between financial activity and business operations.
• Monitor accounts receivable and payable activity, including collections, payment timing, and aging, identifying risks and addressing issues proactively.
• Partner with leadership to support disciplined decision-making related to inventory levels, payment timing, and cash utilization.
• Support the fractional CFO by providing accurate financial data and insights for cash planning, forecasting, and external financial coordination.
TEAM LEADERSHIP, ACCOUNTABILITY & PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: Lead, support, and develop the accounting function within a lean team structure while reinforcing accountability, ensuring high standards of performance, and maintaining continuity of execution across all accounting responsibilities.
• Set clear expectations for the accounting clerk(s), ensuring work is completed accurately, timely, and in alignment with established processes and standards.
• Review and validate work, providing direct feedback, guidance, and support to strengthen performance and accountability.
• Operate effectively within a lean team by balancing personal execution of work with appropriate delegation, ensuring all responsibilities are completed without dependency on additional layers.
• Identify opportunities to streamline processes, improve system utilization, and reduce manual work, increasing efficiency and reliability of the accounting function.
PARTNERSHIP WITH FRACTIONAL CFO: Partner closely with the fractional CFO to support financial strategy, planning, and external financial relationships while ensuring strong alignment between accounting execution and broader financial direction.
• Provide accurate, timely financial data and analysis to support financial planning, decision-making, and external engagement.
• Collaborate on complex accounting, reporting, and financial matters, ensuring issues are properly evaluated and resolved.
• Support the implementation of financial initiatives and recommendations, ensuring alignment between strategic priorities and day-to-day accounting execution.
• Gradually expand involvement in financial planning, cash strategy, and external financial relationships, building capability toward broader financial leadership over time.
Clarkson Grain Company, Inc. is a specialty grain and food ingredient company operating globally from its headquarters in central Illinois. Our Non-GMO, Identity Preserved and Organic products are found around the world in tortillas, tortilla chips, soy milk, tofu, and miso soup, and similar products offered by our customers' known and trusted brand names. Our category-leading Non-GMO and Organic lecithin's (Soy & Sunflower) are used as emulsifiers by in a wide range of products, from infant formulas, ice cream, chocolates and nutrition bars. We also supply Non-GMO and Organic feed ingredients to producers of Non-GMO and Organic meat, milk and eggs. We contract with qualified growers throughout the Midwest U.S. to provide high quality, consistent and reliable supplies of ingredients to meet our customers needs. Certified Transitional To address the supply-constrained market for organic ingredients and increase domestic organic acreage, Clarkson has introduced Certified Transitional -- a new farming and food processing industry certification that provides additional opportunities for food and feed manufacturers to meet consumer demand for organic products. Certified Transitional allows family farmers to create value by getting a premium for their crops, and sell product before their acreage has fully-transitioned to Certified Organic status. Together, food manufacturers and farmers will be contributing to an overall rise in domestic organic acreage. The program is a short-term solution for today’s organic ingredients shortage, and provides long-term growth opportunities in organics for farmers and food manufacturers alike.
Offices: 320 E South St, Cerro Gordo, IL 61818, US · Oakley, IL 62501, US · Mattoon, IL 61938, US · Beardstown, IL 62618, US · 924 N. IL-32, Cerro Gordo, IL 61818, US
Clarkson Grain Company, Inc. is a specialty grain and food ingredient company operating globally from its headquarters in central Illinois. Our Non-GMO, Identity Preserved and Organic products are found around the world in tortillas, tortilla chips, soy milk, tofu, and miso soup, and similar products offered by our customers' known and trusted brand names. Our category-leading Non-GMO and Organic lecithin's (Soy & Sunflower) are used as emulsifiers by in a wide range of products, from infant formulas, ice cream, chocolates and nutrition bars. We also supply Non-GMO and Organic feed ingredients to producers of Non-GMO and Organic meat, milk and eggs. We contract with qualified growers throughout the Midwest U.S. to provide high quality, consistent and reliable supplies of ingredients to meet our customers needs. Certified Transitional To address the supply-constrained market for organic ingredients and increase domestic organic acreage, Clarkson has introduced Certified Transitional -- a new farming and food processing industry certification that provides additional opportunities for food and feed manufacturers to meet consumer demand for organic products. Certified Transitional allows family farmers to create value by getting a premium for their crops, and sell product before their acreage has fully-transitioned to Certified Organic status. Together, food manufacturers and farmers will be contributing to an overall rise in domestic organic acreage. The program is a short-term solution for today’s organic ingredients shortage, and provides long-term growth opportunities in organics for farmers and food manufacturers alike.
Offices: 320 E South St, Cerro Gordo, IL 61818, US · Oakley, IL 62501, US · Mattoon, IL 61938, US · Beardstown, IL 62618, US · 924 N. IL-32, Cerro Gordo, IL 61818, US
