Accountant, Payroll & Billing Operations
Full-time, permanent | Operations | Reports to the Client Services Manager | Works closely with our Senior Accountant | Hybrid, Toronto, ON
Salary: $65,000 – $75,000 per year, plus benefits and paid vacation.
This posting is for an existing vacancy. We use artificial intelligence to help screen and assess applications. A person reviews every application, and people make every hiring decision.
About Us
Syndesus helps companies, mainly in the US, hire top AI, MLOps and data engineering talent in Canada. For companies without a Canadian entity, we act as the Employer of Record and take care of payroll, compliance, and HR so their teams can focus on the work. For companies that already have a Canadian entity, our Canada Co-pilot service works as their outsourced HR team. We’re based in Toronto and have been connecting Canadian talent with growing companies since 2014.
About the role
Syndesus is looking for an Accountant to join our operations team and own our payroll-to-billing cycle. We run multi-province payroll for about 130 employees on behalf of our clients, and our invoicing is driven by that payroll.
Your main goal is to own the detail of our payroll-related general ledger and our employee-level client invoicing, accurately and on time, at the standard a business of our size needs. You’ll run monthly client invoicing in QuickBooks Online, reconciling payroll, billing and internal costs to ensure accuracy, and support month-end close and payroll compliance efforts.
You’ll report to the Client Services Manager and work closely with our Senior Accountant, who reviews your work and approves invoice uploads. This role suits someone with 4+ years of experience who likes to own their work, document what they do, and fix problems at the source rather than work around them.
You'll review how we account for payroll and invoice clients, challenge unnecessary complexity, and put practical improvements in place. You will also guide a co-op student who helps with invoicing operations and process improvement.
What you'll do
Payroll accounting
- Book EOR payroll correctly every cycle, including promptly entering general journal entries and adjustments to ensure an accurate capture of payroll detail for invoicing.
- Understand payroll compliance requirements, including source deductions, remittances, T4 and ROE requirements, as well as applicable legislation, and verify that they are recorded and reconciled correctly. Payroll processing itself is run by our payroll team. Be able to source and explain every payroll adjustment and how it impacts invoicing.
- Run a finance check with Operations before each payroll is released.
Client invoicing
- Own the monthly employee-level client invoicing cycle in QuickBooks Online (QBO), reconciling payroll records, general ledger entries, and client invoice amounts and details, and resolving variances before invoices are sent.
- Generate invoices from payroll and from requests in our internal ticketing system, including non-standard items such as bonuses, expense reimbursements and salary changes.
- Prepare invoice files for upload to QBO, for the Senior Accountant’s approval.
- Work with the operations team to fix data problems at the source and improve the accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of the payroll to billing process
Accounting and close
- Prepare and post journal entries, accruals, and balance sheet reconciliations for the payroll-related and employment-related general ledger accounts at month-end close, on time and following our close calendar.
- Investigate discrepancies between payroll and accounting, resolve errors, and clarify where corrections and process improvements are needed
- Provide payroll balances and schedules to the Senior Accountant and our external tax and advisory partners to ensure on-time closings and tax filing.
Documentation and backup
- Write and maintain clear procedures (SOPs) for everything you own
- As a secondary responsibility, train as backup to the Senior Accountant so payroll, billing and close accounting activities never depend on one person
What you bring
- 5-7 years of accounting experience, including running month-end close
- Hands-on payroll accounting experience and working knowledge of multi-province Canadian payroll requirements, including source deductions and remittances and regulatory filings.
- Experience reconciling high volume payroll or timesheet data to billing and the general ledger
- Experience with a Canadian payroll provider; Payworks is a plus
- Strong Excel skills (XLOOKUP, pivot tables, data clean-up)
- A track record of writing procedures that others can follow
- Curiosity about doing your work better with the latest tools, including applied AI. We’ll ask about ideas or experiments you’ve already tried
- The confidence to make and stand behind decisions, and the attention to detail to get them right
- A diploma or degree in accounting or a related field, or equivalent experience
Nice to have
- PEO, EOR, staffing, payroll services or multi-province employer background
- QuickBooks Online US; multi-entity accounting
- Experience with invoice automation or accounting integrations (QBO apps, Zapier/Make, Power Query, APIs)
- Experience with HubSpot or another ticketing system
- Experience preparing work for external accountants, auditors, or tax advisors
- CPA designation, or working toward it
Our Values and Expectations
- Keep your commitments: make promises thoughtfully, deliver completely.
- Lead with Truth: say what needs to be said.
- Ask the Hard Questions: challenge assumptions, dig deeper.
- Seek to Understand: listen before responding.
- Be the Solution: solve it, don’t just see it.
Why join us
- Real ownership on a small team – your work keeps finance running
- Mentorship from our Senior Accountant and the chance to work with an experienced outside finance consultant
- Room to grow as our processes mature
- Competitive Group Health Benefits, flexibility.
As required by Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, we will let everyone we interview know whether a hiring decision has been made within 45 days of their last interview.
Experience gained outside Canada is welcome. We assess skills and knowledge, not where they were gained.
Syndesus is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on any ground protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Accommodations are available on request throughout the recruitment process, in line with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
