What are the responsibilities and job description for the Chief Financial Officer position at American Consumer Counseling Center?
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a strategic executive leader responsible for overseeing all financial aspects of American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals achieve financial stability through credit counseling, financial education, and Debt Management Programs (DMPs).
The CFO plays a critical role in aligning financial strategy with ACCC’s mission, ensuring long-term sustainability while maximizing client impact. This role requires deep expertise in financial management, high-volume payment processing environments, creditor-funded revenue models, and regulatory compliance.
ACCC operates within a unique financial ecosystem where revenue is derived from a combination of client fees, creditor “fair share” contributions, and grants, while administering structured repayment programs that route client payments to creditors.
The CFO also provides executive oversight of payroll as a financial function, ensuring accuracy, controls, and integration into financial systems, while collaborating across departments on workforce-related financial planning.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Financial Leadership
- Partner with the CEO and executive team to define and execute ACCC’s long-term financial strategy.
- Align financial planning with organizational mission, growth targets, and client outcomes.
Provide financial insights on program expansion, digital investments, and strategic partnerships. - Support board-level decision-making with clear financial modeling and scenario analysis.
Financial Planning, Forecasting & Analysis (FP&A)
- Lead budgeting, forecasting, and long-range financial planning across all business lines (counseling, DMP, partnerships, etc).
- Develop revenue forecasting models tied to:
- DMP enrollments and completion rates
- Creditor fair share contributions
- Client fee structures
- Analyze unit economics of DMP portfolios, including payment flow, attrition, and lifetime value.
- Build KPI frameworks tied to both financial performance and mission impact.
Cash Flow & Payment Operations Oversight
- Oversee cash management in a high-volume environment where client funds are collected and disbursed to creditors.
- Ensure accurate and timely distribution of DMP payments to creditors, consistent with negotiated agreements.
- Optimize working capital, liquidity, and settlement timing across payment cycles.
Maintain strong controls over custodial/client funds and reconciliation processes.
Revenue Model Optimization
- Manage and optimize ACCC’s diversified revenue streams:
- Creditor “fair share” contributions
- Client fees (setup and monthly)
- Grants and partnerships
- Evaluate pricing strategies to balance accessibility for clients with organizational sustainability.
- Identify opportunities to improve margin
Regulatory Compliance & Risk Management
- Ensure all financial operations, reporting practices, and fee structures align with applicable federal and state regulations and nonprofit (501(c)(3)) requirements.
- Partner with the VP of Operations/Compliance to support adherence to regulatory requirements, including state fee caps and consumer protection laws, with a focus on financial impact and revenue integrity.
- Establish and maintain robust internal controls, audit frameworks, and financial compliance tracking systems.
- Oversee financial risk management, including risks related to client fund handling, creditor disbursements, and financial systems integrity.
- Ensure accuracy, timeliness, and reconciliation of creditor remittances within the DMP portfolio.
- Serve as the primary liaison for external auditors, leading audit readiness, execution, and resolution of findings.
Financial Reporting & Transparency
- Deliver accurate and timely financial reporting to:
- Executive leadership
- Board of Directors
- Regulators and stakeholders
- Develop dashboards that connect financial performance with:
- Client outcomes
- Program effectiveness
- Operational efficiency
- Ensure payroll and workforce-related financial data are accurately reflected in reporting, forecasting, and financial analysis.
Operational & Cost Efficiency Leadership
- Drive financial discipline across the organization, balancing cost management with service quality.
- Partner with operations to improve conversion, retention, and DMP completion rates.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align financial and operational goals, including workforce-related cost considerations where applicable.
- Identify opportunities to improve efficiency in:
- Counseling operations
- Payment processing
- Technology investments
Leadership & Team Development
- Build and lead a high-performing finance organization, including accounting, financial planning and analysis, treasury, and compliance functions.
- Develop and implement scalable financial systems, processes, and automation to support organizational growth and operational efficiency.
- Lead financial planning and analysis efforts, including budgeting, forecasting, scenario modeling, and performance analysis.
- Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and mission alignment across the finance team.
- Identify and drive opportunities to automate financial processes, improve reporting accuracy, and increase efficiency.
- Develop future finance leaders and build a team capable of supporting a growing and increasingly complex organization.
- Collaborate with HR and other departments to align financial and operational goals.
- Support integration of financial data across platforms (e.g., ERP, HRIS, CRM systems).
- Provide strategic oversight of payroll as part of financial governance, ensuring accuracy, controls, and alignment with broader financial systems and reporting.
Qualifications
Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Business Administration, or a related field.
- MBA, CPA, or equivalent advanced financial credentials preferred
- Equivalent combination of education and senior-level financial leadership experience will be considered
- 5 years of progressive financial leadership experience, including CFO or senior finance role
- Experience overseeing significant and expanding budgets while leading high-performing finance teams
- Experience in one or more of the following:
- Financial management
- Financial services or fintech
- Payment processing / servicing environments a plus
- Deep expertise in:
- Financial planning & analysis
- Cash flow management
- Regulatory compliance
- Audit and internal controls
- Experience managing complex revenue models and high transaction volumes
- Experience overseeing financial processes that include payroll as part of broader financial governance and controls
Preferred
- Experience in banking, servicing, collections, fintech and or credit counseling, debt management
- Familiarity with DMP structures, or consumer financial programs a plus
- CPA, MBA, or equivalent advanced credentials
- Experience working with Boards
Key Competencies
- Strategic thinker with strong operational execution
- High integrity and commitment to mission-driven work
- Data-driven decision maker
- Ability to balance financial sustainability with consumer advocacy
- Strong communicator capable of translating financial insights into action
- Effective collaborator across departments, including finance, operations, HR, and technology
Success Metrics
- Financial sustainability and margin improvement
- Growth and performance of DMP portfolio
- Accuracy and timeliness of creditor disbursements
- Compliance and audit outcomes
- Cost efficiency and operational leverage
- Contribution to client success outcomes (e.g., completion rates, debt reduction)
- Accuracy, integrity, and integration of financial data across systems, including payroll and workforce-related data
Salary : $180,000 - $240,000