Accounting & Advisory Consultant

ZARA HUGHES

Senior Accountant • Multi-Entity Close Specialist • Financial Reporting & FP&A

Parrish, FL • 513-***-**** • ******.*******@*****.*** • Remote-Ready PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Senior Accountant with nearly 10 years of experience across public accounting and corporate finance, specializing in multi-entity close management, GAAP-compliant financial reporting, and FP&A for complex, multi-stakeholder environments. Managed 10+ concurrent client engagements at Cherry Bekaert with 100% on-time close delivery — a throughput that distinguishes a public accounting background from single-client corporate roles. Combines deep technical accounting fundamentals with advanced BI and automation skills (Power BI, SQL, Excel modeling) to deliver not just accurate financials, but actionable intelligence to executive leadership. CORE COMPETENCIES

• Month-end & year-end close

• Multi-entity consolidations

• Budgeting & forecasting

• Financial modeling

• Variance & flux analysis

• ASC 606 revenue recognition

• Balance sheet reconciliation

• Intercompany eliminations

• Internal controls & compliance

• KPI dashboard development

• Process improvement

• Audit-ready financials

• Sage Intacct • QuickBooks

• Power BI • Tableau • SQL

• Advanced Excel & modeling

• JD Edwards • Procas

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Remote team leadership

WORK EXPERIENCE

Accounting & Advisory Consultant • Hughes Financial Advisory LLC — Remote April 2026 – Present Owner-operated independent practice fractional accounting, financial modeling & close management for 6 active client engagements

• Deliver end-to-end monthly close and GAAP-compliant financial reporting for clients across 3 industries, maintaining 100% on-time delivery and audit-ready financials — replicating the multi-client throughput developed at Cherry Bekaert on an independent basis.

• Build financial models and rolling 12-month forecasting tools in Excel and Power BI, enabling clients to track KPIs and budget-vs-actual variances with executive-ready dashboards.

• Drive process improvement on every engagement — close checklists, chart-of-accounts standardization, automated journal entries — reducing average client close time by an estimated 30%. Senior Accountant / Senior Associate • Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC — RemoteFeb 2023 – April 2026 MCM CPAs & Advisors acquired by Cherry Bekaert (Aug 2023); title, scope, and client base consistent throughout the full tenure

• Executed full-cycle month-end and year-end close across 10+ concurrent client engagements simultaneously — accruals, prepaid amortization, fixed asset depreciation, deferred revenue, and intercompany eliminations — achieving 100% on-time delivery across every account, every period.

• Designed budgeting and forecasting models for client annual planning cycles, integrating multi-year trend analysis with KPI benchmarks to produce rolling 12-month projections presented directly to C-suite stakeholders.

• Built variance analysis and flux reporting frameworks across Sage Intacct and QuickBooks environments, enabling data-driven budget-vs-actual decisions and reducing the time-to-insight on period-close packages by an estimated 40%.

• Designed GAAP-compliant internal controls, close checklists, and segregation-of-duties frameworks — adopted as firm-wide standards across Cherry Bekaert’s national practice — improving first-pass audit readiness across the client portfolio.

• Mentored 3 junior accountants on GAAP standards, accrual methodology, and close workflows, cutting team rework by 25% and raising first-pass accuracy on deliverables. Home Office Accountant • Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Service — Cincinnati, OHJan 2021 – Feb 2023

• Closed books for a multi-location corporate structure within a 5-day window each month — accruals, prepaid schedules, fixed asset additions/disposals, and depreciation runs — with zero late deliverables across 26 months.

• Built a cost-center variance analysis model that quantified budget-vs-actual deviations in real time, improving forecasting accuracy and enabling senior leadership to make corrective decisions an average of 2 weeks earlier in the period.

• Developed Excel-based KPI dashboards for enterprise-wide budget monitoring, reducing out-of-period adjustments by an estimated 20% and replacing a manual reporting process that had been in place for 5+ years. Accounting Controller • Learning Grove — Covington, KY Oct 2019 – May 2020 Contract engagement — organization permanently closed May 2020 due to COVID-19

• Oversaw all accounting operations across 40 centers — full-cycle close, AP/AR, and bank reconciliations — ensuring GAAP-compliant reporting at scale across a highly fragmented multi-entity structure.

• Standardized chart of accounts, accrual policies, and reconciliation templates enterprise-wide, reducing consolidation errors by an estimated 30% and establishing reporting uniformity that had not previously existed. Staff Accountant • EG Group — Cincinnati, OH Apr 2019 – Sep 2019 Contract / project-based engagement

• Performed high-volume GL reconciliations, journal entry preparation, and audit support, building foundational expertise in multi-entity general ledger structures within a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment. EDUCATION & CREDENTIALS

Master’s Degree, Management & Consulting — National School of Business and Management Bachelor’s Degree, Business Marketing — Institute of Management Continuing Education: Power BI for Financial Reporting • Advanced Excel Modeling • SQL for Data Analysis • QuickBooks ProAdvisor Certification •Claude Code

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