Controller

About Bask & Lather Co.

Bask & Lather Co. is a fast-growing, scalp-first textured haircare company serving customers across direct-to-consumer, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and major retail channels. We are a lean, entrepreneurial organization that moves quickly, operates with high ownership, and expects team members to turn priorities into action without unnecessary layers or bureaucracy.

Role Overview

The Controller will own the accounting function end-to-end and serve as the backbone of financial integrity, reporting, and operational discipline. This role will partner closely with the Head of Finance to build scalable processes and support retail expansion.

This is a hands-on leadership role requiring both execution and system-building.

Key Responsibilities

1. Financial Close and Reporting

• Own the monthly, quarterly, and annual close processes.
• Establish a path to preliminary financial reporting within five business days and a complete, supportable close within ten business days.
• Prepare accurate, timely, and GAAP-compliant financial statements.
• Own balance-sheet reconciliations, accruals, reserves, account substantiation, and financial-statement support.
• Maintain complete, organized, and audit-ready documentation.
• Develop and maintain the accounting calendar, close checklist, and departmental deadlines.
• Coordinate external audit and tax requirements.
• Identify accounting issues proactively and present clear recommendations to the Head of Finance.

2. Inventory, COGS, and Gross-Margin Integrity

• Own inventory accounting across manufacturers, 3PLs, marketplaces, retail channels, and DTC operations.
• Reconcile inventory monthly among the general ledger, NetSuite, 3PL records, retailer activity, and internal inventory schedules.
• Establish reliable standard costs, landed costs, manufacturing variances, and SKU-level COGS.
• Own accounting for inventory in transit, shrinkage, obsolescence, damaged inventory, reserves, and write-offs.
• Partner with Supply Chain on purchase-order receipts, freight accruals, vendor reconciliations, and cycle-count controls.
• Investigate and resolve inventory discrepancies promptly.
• Improve gross-margin visibility by SKU, product category, channel, and customer.
• Ensure inventory accounting policies and valuation methodologies are consistently documented and applied.

3. Revenue and Channel Accounting

• Own revenue accounting and settlement reconciliation across Shopify, TikTok Shop, Amazon, Walmart, wholesale, and other marketplace and retail channels.
• Ensure appropriate revenue recognition, cutoff, and channel-level reporting.
• Reconcile platform settlements, transaction fees, refunds, returns, reserves, receivables, and cash receipts.
• Own accounting for retailer deductions, chargebacks, promotions, markdowns, allowances, and trade spend.
• Ensure accurate gross-to-net and contra-revenue treatment.
• Build controls to identify missing payments, invalid deductions, unreimbursed claims, and settlement discrepancies.
• Partner with Commercialization, E-Commerce, Customer Experience, and Supply Chain to resolve channel and retailer discrepancies.
• Maintain reliable supporting schedules for retail receivables, marketplace settlements, returns, and deductions.

4. Cash, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Working Capital

• Oversee the accounts receivable and accounts payable functions, including management and development of the existing AP/AR Specialist.
• Maintain accurate daily and weekly cash reporting.
• Support short- and long-term cash-flow forecasting.
• Strengthen collections discipline and retailer receivables management.
• Improve vendor-payment controls, approval workflows, and payment timing.
• Partner with the Head of Finance and Supply Chain to improve the cash conversion cycle.
• Monitor aged receivables, vendor liabilities, accruals, and working-capital risks.
• Maintain appropriate segregation of duties and payment authorization controls.

5. NetSuite and Financial Systems

• Partner with the Head of Finance to implement, optimize, and maintain NetSuite.
• Help establish a scalable chart of accounts, entity structure, close process, and financial-reporting architecture.
• Improve integration and reconciliation among NetSuite, Shopify, marketplaces, banks, 3PLs, and financial-reporting tools.
• Establish reliable data flows for revenue, inventory, COGS, receivables, payables, and cash.
• Lead accounting-data validation, system testing, process documentation, and user adoption.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual accounting processes while maintaining appropriate controls.
• Ensure system configurations and accounting workflows support accurate and timely reporting.

6. Internal Controls, Compliance, and Accounting Policies

• Establish internal controls appropriate for a rapidly scaling, multichannel consumer-products company.
• Create and maintain accounting policies, standard operating procedures, approval matrices, and financial-control documentation.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local tax requirements, including sales-tax and multi-state nexus obligations.
• Coordinate with external tax, audit, and regulatory advisors.
• Strengthen controls around cash, inventory, revenue, purchasing, vendor payments, retailer deductions, and financial close.
• Maintain an accounting environment that is consistently audit-ready.
• Monitor compliance with accounting policies and remediate control deficiencies.

7. Team Leadership

• Manage, develop, and hold the accounting team accountable for accuracy, timeliness, and execution.
• Establish clear responsibilities, deadlines, review standards, and escalation protocols.
• Evaluate the future accounting-team structure and recommend additional resources as the company scales.
• Create a high-performance culture grounded in ownership, integrity, urgency, and continuous improvement.
• Serve as a strong cross-functional partner to Finance, Supply Chain, Commercialization, E-Commerce, Customer Experience, and Operations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field required.
• CPA strongly preferred.
• 8-12+ years of progressive accounting experience, including Controller or Assistant Controller-level responsibility.
• Experience owning a complete monthly close and preparing GAAP-compliant financial statements.
• Deep experience with inventory, cost accounting, landed costs, COGS, gross margin, and inventory reconciliations.
• Experience with direct-to-consumer retail, wholesale, marketplace and multichannel revenue accounting.
• Experience in CPG, beauty, consumer products, retail, or another inventory-intensive business is a must..
• NetSuite implementation, optimization, or administration experience strongly preferred.
• Experience supporting external audits preferred.
• Strong knowledge of internal controls, revenue recognition, gross-to-net accounting, and working-capital management.
• Advanced Excel skills and strong financial-systems judgment.
• Demonstrated experience managing and developing accounting professionals.
  

Profile

• Hands-on operator who can both execute and build
• Detail-obsessed with strong ownership mentality
• Comfortable in fast-paced, ambiguous environments
• Strong cross-functional partner (Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales, Ops)
• High integrity and low ego

Why This Role

• Opportunity to build the accounting foundation of a breakout brand
• Direct exposure to executive team and strategic decisions
• Key role in preparing the business for scale and increased profitability

Equal Employment Opportunity

Bask & Lather Co. is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We comply with all applicable federal, state, and local employment laws and are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.

Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, including pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs.

Location

Yonkers, NY (Remote)

Employment Type

Full-Time

Compensation

$175K - $195K Yearly