MERIDIAN GLOBAL

Finance Manager – Freight Forwarding & Logistics

Remote, USPosted 20 days ago

Remote Full-Time Finance Manager

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Job Description

Department

Finance Reports To: COO / CFO / CEO Location: USA Employment Type: Full-Time

Position Summary

The Finance Manager is responsible for the day-to-day financial management, controls, reporting, and financial performance of the company's freight forwarding and logistics operations. This position overseesAccounts Payable (AP), Accounts Receivable (AR), credit control, cash flow, month-end closing, financial reporting, and P&L management.The Finance Manager will work closely with Operations, Commercial/Sales, Client Services, and executive leadership to ensure accurate shipment-level financials, timely billing and collections, appropriate vendor payments, and visibility into profitability.A critical component of this position is ensuring that operational activity is accurately reflected in the company's financial results. The Finance Manager will help establish financial discipline around shipment costing, accruals, revenue recognition, credit exposure, margin management, and branch/customer profitability.

Key Responsibilities

Accounts Receivable & Collections

Manage the complete Accounts Receivable process, including customer invoicing, collections, cash application, and account reconciliation.
Monitor AR aging and proactively manage past-due accounts.
Establish and maintain a structured collection process and escalation procedure.
Work with Operations and Client Services to resolve invoice disputes and billing discrepancies.
Provide regular AR aging and collection reports to management.
Monitor Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and develop initiatives to improve cash conversion.
Ensure customers are invoiced accurately and promptly following shipment completion or agreed billing milestones.

Credit Control

Manage customer credit applications, credit reviews, and establishment of credit limits.
Monitor customer credit exposure against approved limits.
Identify customers with deteriorating payment performance or increasing financial risk.
Recommend credit holds, revised payment terms, deposits, or other risk mitigation measures when appropriate.
Coordinate with Commercial and Operations before extending significant credit exposure.
Maintain appropriate documentation supporting customer credit decisions.

Accounts Payable

Oversee vendor invoice processing, approval, and payment.
Ensure vendor invoices are matched against shipment files, quotations, purchase orders, or approved costs.
Monitor AP aging and payment schedules.
Maintain appropriate payment controls and approval authorities.
Resolve vendor invoice discrepancies with Operations and Procurement.
Ensure carrier, agent, trucker, warehouse, customs, and other transportation-related costs are accurately recorded against the appropriate shipment.
Support vendor statement reconciliation and management of disputed invoices.

Shipment Costing & Financial Control

Ensure revenue and costs are accurately recorded at the shipment/file level.
Monitor open shipments for missing costs, unbilled revenue, incorrect accruals, and incomplete financial files.
Establish procedures for shipment financial closing.
Review shipment profitability and identify unusual or negative-margin files.
Ensure expected costs are properly accrued when vendor invoices have not yet been received.
Work with Operations to improve cost-entry accuracy and financial file discipline.
Identify revenue leakage, duplicate payments, incorrect vendor charges, and billing opportunities.

P&L Management

Prepare and maintain monthly Profit & Loss reporting.
Analyze revenue, gross profit, operating expenses, and EBITDA performance.
Provide profitability reporting by customer, branch, product, trade lane, service type, or other management-defined segment.
Compare actual results against budget, forecast, and prior periods.
Investigate significant financial variances and communicate findings to management.
Partner with Operations and Commercial leadership to identify opportunities to improve gross profit and operating performance.

Month-End Closing

Manage and coordinate the monthly financial close process.
Ensure timely completion of revenue and expense accruals.
Review open shipment files and work-in-progress activity prior to close.
Reconcile key balance sheet and operational accounts.
Review AR, AP, accrued costs, prepaid expenses, and other relevant accounts.
Ensure appropriate cutoff of revenue and expenses.
Prepare month-end financial reporting packages for executive management.
Maintain a structured month-end close calendar and checklist.

Financial Reporting & Analysis

Develop and maintain management reporting covering financial and operational performance, including:

Revenue
Gross profit
Gross profit percentage
Operating expenses
EBITDA
AR aging
AP aging
DSO
Cash flow
Customer profitability
Branch profitability
Shipment profitability
Budget versus actual performance

Provide management with clear explanations of financial trends, risks, and material variances rather than simply reporting financial results.

Budgeting & Forecasting

Support development of annual budgets and financial operating plans.
Maintain rolling forecasts for revenue, gross profit, expenses, and cash flow.
Work with department leaders to develop departmental budgets.
Monitor actual performance against budget and forecast.
Assist management with financial modeling for new customers, projects, branches, and business initiatives.

Cash Flow & Treasury Support

Monitor short-term cash requirements and expected customer receipts.
Coordinate vendor payment timing with available cash and operational priorities.
Prepare cash-flow forecasts.
Monitor significant customer exposures and upcoming vendor obligations.
Support banking relationships, payment controls, and treasury activities as required.

Financial Controls & Compliance

Establish and maintain appropriate financial policies, procedures, and internal controls.
Maintain separation of duties and approval authorities for payments, credits, write-offs, and financial adjustments.
Support financial audits and provide requested documentation.
Ensure financial records are maintained accurately and consistently.
Coordinate with external accountants, tax advisors, auditors, banks, and other financial partners as required.
Support compliance with applicable accounting, tax, and corporate requirements.

Cross-Functional Partnership

The Finance Manager will work closely with Operations to ensure accurate shipment costing and timely file closing; Commercial/Sales to evaluate customer profitability, pricing, and credit exposure; Client Services to resolve customer billing disputes; and Executive Leadership to provide accurate financial reporting, forecasting, and decision support.

The position is expected to serve as both a financial control function and a business partner to the operational organization.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance will be measured using financial and operational KPIs including DSO and AR aging, percentage of AR past due, collection performance, month-end close timeliness, billing timeliness, shipment financial close timeliness, unbilled revenue, outstanding cost accruals, gross profit accuracy, customer and branch profitability, budget-to-actual performance, cash-flow forecasting accuracy, and reduction of negative-margin or financially incomplete shipment files.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or related field preferred.
5+ years of progressive finance or accounting experience.
Experience within freight forwarding, NVOCC, transportation, logistics, customs brokerage, or supply chain strongly preferred.
Strong understanding of Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, credit control, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting.
Experience managing month-end close and financial reconciliations.
Strong understanding of P&L management and profitability analysis.
Experience working with freight forwarding or transportation management systems is highly desirable.
Advanced Excel and financial reporting skills.
Experience with accounting/ERP systems and integration between operational and financial systems.

Preferred Freight Forwarding Knowledge

The ideal candidate understands the financial mechanics of freight forwarding, including shipment-level revenue and cost recognition, carrier and overseas agent payables, customer receivables, freight accruals, open-file/WIP management, credit exposure, demurrage and detention charges, accessorial costs, foreign currency transactions, agent settlements, and gross-profit management.

Experience working with a freight forwarding TMS such as GoFreight or a comparable platform is strongly preferred.

Skills & Competencies

Strong financial and analytical skills
High attention to detail and accuracy
Strong sense of financial ownership and accountability
Ability to identify financial risk before it becomes a loss
Strong collections and credit-control capabilities
Ability to work effectively with operational teams
Ability to translate financial data into actionable business information
Strong communication and problem-solving skills
Ability to establish processes and controls in a growing organization
Comfortable working in a fast-paced, transaction-intensive logistics environment

Success in the Role

Success in this position means that leadership has timely and reliable visibility into the financial performance of the business; customers are billed quickly and accurately; receivables are actively managed; vendors are paid correctly; shipment costs and accruals are accurate; month-end closes are disciplined and timely; and management understands exactly where the company is making or losing money.

The Finance Manager will play a central role in creating the financial discipline necessary to support a scalable, profitable freight forwarding organization.