STE Financial

About the role

What you will do

• Portfolio bookkeeping. Run the full cycle for your own client files in Xero: coding, bank and credit card reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable, and month-end close.
• Payroll. Process accurate pay cycles including award interpretation, leave accruals, superannuation, and Single Touch Payroll, so every client's team is looked after.
• BAS and compliance. Prepare and lodge BAS and IAS, manage GST and PAYG positions, and keep ATO obligations and lodgement calendars on track with no surprises.
• Client relationships. Be the first point of contact for your clients: answer questions in plain English, chase what you need without friction, and flag issues early.
• Reporting handover. Deliver clean, reviewed files and management reports to the accounting team, with the commentary the partners can advise from.
• Systems and process. Improve and document our workflows, onboard new clients onto our standard Xero setup, review junior work, and be the technical go-to.

What you need

• Five or more years of Australian bookkeeping experience, ideally across multiple clients in a practice or outsourced setting.
• Advanced Xero skills, including payroll, bank rules, tracking categories, and common app integrations.
• Confident with GST, PAYG, superannuation, and STP, and comfortable preparing BAS for review or lodgement.
• Cert IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping, or equivalent experience, with BAS agent registration or eligibility to register.
• Genuinely good with people: clear written and verbal communication, and the patience to explain things without jargon.
• Self-managing and deadline-driven, with the discipline to keep a multi-client workload on schedule without being chased.

Nice to have

• Hubdoc experience
• Job or project costing
• Trades or construction clients
• Hospitality awards
• CRM management
• Mentoring juniors

What success looks like

• First 30 days. You know your portfolio, you have met your clients, and the weekly reconciliation and pay run cycle runs without hand-holding.
• First 90 days. Every file is current and reconciled, one BAS quarter is delivered on time, and you have flagged the clean-ups worth doing.
• Ongoing. Lodgements are on time, reconciliations are clean at month-end, and review notes trend down because the work lands right the first time.
• A better system. Our process is documented, consistent across clients, and a little faster each quarter because you improved it.

What we offer

• A senior seat with real ownership of your portfolio and a direct line to the partners.
• Flexible part-time hours with the option to increase them over time. We do not measure people by hours at a desk.
• A tight-knit Kingscliff team that brings personality to the numbers.
• Supported training, BAS agent registration, and CPE, plus exposure to advisory and lending work as you grow.
• A salary that reflects senior experience, reviewed annually, and a say in how the bookkeeping side of the practice is built.

This is not the right fit if

• You need a single set of books and a fixed routine. This role juggles a portfolio, and priorities move week to week.
• You would rather not talk to clients. Direct, friendly client contact is core to the job, not an occasional extra.
• You are attached to desktop-era software or manual workarounds and resistant to cloud systems and automation.
• Close enough is good enough for you. Our accuracy comes from real review and a genuinely careful eye for detail.
• You need close supervision to stay on track. Seniority here means owning your deadlines and asking for help early.

The work rhythm

• Weekly. Bank feeds reconciled, payables coded, pay runs processed, client queries cleared.
• Monthly. Month-end close, balance sheet reconciliations, management reports to the team.
• Quarterly. BAS preparation and lodgement, super obligations, client check-in calls.
• Yearly. Year-end file handover, payroll finalisation, workflow review and clean-up.