Financial Controller

About the role

We’re building the next generation of employee benefits infrastructure. At Happl, we help global teams design, manage, and scale benefits that actually work for their people by using AI, across flex allowances, benefits, insurance, recognition, and wellbeing, all in one intelligent platform. Happl is backed by leading investors such as YCombinator, 6Degrees Capital, Haatch, Portage, and more, known for backing leading companies such as Deel, Rippling, Airbnb, Coinbase, Dropbox, and most recently was awarded a place in the UK’s top 100 startups for 2026. About the role As Financial Controller at Happl, you’ll own the financial engine of the business — everything from the cash in the bank to the numbers our board and investors use to make decisions runs through you. You’ll run the monthly close, the full revenue cycle, the compliance calendar across two jurisdictions, and our treasury position, and you’ll decide how all of it gets built, systemised, and automated. This is a hands-on, high-autonomy role with a direct line to leadership. You won’t be managing a process someone else designed — you’ll be deciding what good looks like across revenue, cash, compliance, and reporting, then making it happen. You’ll work closely with the CEO, the board, our investors, and our outsourced bookkeeping, audit, and tax partners, holding all of it to a standard that matches the product we’ve built. We’re FCA-regulated and YCombinator-backed, having raised $11m to date, and we give global employers a single place to design, deliver, and manage benefits across 160+ countries and 70+ languages — which means the finance function behind the product has to be just as sharp as the product itself. We’re entering our next phase of growth, with an ambitious revenue trajectory and an expanding international footprint, and this role sits at the centre of it. What you’ll be doing Owning the monthly close on a fixed timetable — management accounts, balance sheet integrity, accruals, prepayments, and the revenue and cost reconciliations that sit behind them Writing the commentary that explains what’s actually happened in the business, not just what the numbers say Producing the monthly investor reporting pack and the financial sections of board materials — ARR and revenue analysis, cash and runway, burn efficiency, unit economics, cohort and retention metrics, and budget versus actual Owning the full revenue cycle — invoicing, collections, aged debt, and revenue recognition across a multi-currency, multi-contract subscription base Leading the rollout of automated billing and revenue recognition tooling, moving us from manual tracking to a system that scales without adding headcount Managing our two legal entities — a US TopCo and a UK operating company — including statutory accounts, audit preparation, intercompany accounting, transfer pricing mechanics, and FX exposure between them Owning the compliance calendar end to end across both jurisdictions — UK VAT returns, corporation tax, US federal and state filings, sales tax where applicable, and payroll taxes Supporting our FCA regulatory reporting obligations and the financial controls that sit behind them Running monthly payroll across jurisdictions, pension and benefits administration, employee expenses, and the finance side of onboarding and offboarding Owning the cash position and treasury strategy — cash flow forecasting, working capital, FX management, and structuring how we hold company funds to earn a sensible return without taking risk we shouldn’t Managing our outsourced bookkeeping, accounting, and tax partners — holding them to deadlines and quality, and pulling work in-house where doing so makes us faster Owning the finance tech stack and having a strong opinion on it, actively replacing manual work with automation and AI-assisted workflows across reconciliations, invoice processing, variance analysis, and reporting drafts Leveraging AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to speed up

Skills