Ascension LLC is seeking a CPA Project Manager / Federal Financial Management Lead to support a federal financial improvement and audit support engagement for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in Washington, DC. This role is ideal for a licensed CPA and seasoned federal financial management professional who understands the discipline required to sustain clean audit outcomes, strengthen internal controls, manage audit communications, improve financial reporting processes, and guide a small independent agency through complex compliance requirements.

The selected candidate will serve as the senior technical and management lead for the engagement. This individual will provide hands-on leadership across audit liaison support, Agency Financial Report coordination, OMB Circular A-136 compliance, OMB Circular A-123 program execution, internal control testing, corrective action plan governance, ERM support, and stakeholder communications. The role requires a professional who can move confidently between executive-level advisory support and detailed technical review, ensuring that deliverables are accurate, defensible, timely, and aligned with federal financial management requirements.

Position Summary

The CPA Project Manager / Federal Financial Management Lead will be responsible for managing and guiding contractor support across DNFSB’s Financial Improvement and Audit Support requirement. The role supports DNFSB’s Office of the Executive Director of Operations and its goal of maintaining an unmodified, clean audit opinion while improving financial management, internal control, enterprise risk management, and audit remediation practices.

The successful candidate will lead project planning, client engagement, audit strategy, quality control, AFR oversight, A-123 and ERM integration, corrective action governance, and technical review of all major deliverables. The role will also coordinate with DNFSB leadership, financial reporting stakeholders, auditors, service providers, process owners, and contractor team members to ensure timely execution of contract tasks.

The candidate must bring strong knowledge of federal accounting, financial reporting, Treasury reconciliation, internal controls, audit readiness, and federal compliance frameworks, including OMB Circular A-123, OMB Circular A-136, GAO Green Book, GAGAS, FASAB/SFFAS, SSAE 18/SOC reporting, and FMFIA. The candidate should also be able to develop and maintain project schedules, risk registers, deliverable trackers, audit request logs, corrective action plan dashboards, meeting materials, and executive briefings.

Expected Day-to-Day Activities

The CPA Project Manager / Federal Financial Management Lead will be expected to:

• Lead overall contract execution across audit support, internal control, financial reporting, ERM, corrective action, and training/communications tasks.
• Manage the project schedule, staffing coordination, deliverable tracking, risk management, quality control, and recurring status reporting.
• Serve as the primary technical liaison with DNFSB leadership, the COR, financial management stakeholders, process owners, auditors, and contractor staff.
• Coordinate audit liaison activities, including Provided by Client requests, sample requests, audit meeting preparation, walkthrough support, response review, and audit status reporting.
• Review audit responses for completeness, accuracy, consistency, and readiness before submission to auditors.
• Support entrance conferences, exit conferences, process walkthroughs, audit meetings, and recurring leadership updates.
• Develop and maintain audit trackers, corrective action trackers, issue logs, status reports, action item registers, and audit progress dashboards.
• Oversee the planning, execution, and reporting of the OMB Circular A-123 Internal Control Over Financial Reporting cycle.
• Guide the development and update of business process narratives, flowcharts, risk control matrices, control catalogs, policies, desk guides, SOPs, and testing plans.
• Lead or review Test of Design and Test of Effectiveness activities, including documentation of testing results, control gaps, and corrective action recommendations.
• Review SSAE 18/SOC reports, bridge letters, complementary user entity controls, and related monitoring documentation.
• Support quarterly financial statement reviews, reconciliations, variance analysis, GTAS-to-GL reviews, SF-133 to Statement of Budgetary Resources reviews, Fund Balance with Treasury reviews, and intragovernmental differences analysis.
• Oversee AFR planning, scheduling, theme development, outline development, content coordination, management letters, financial statement integration, and final publication support.
• Advise on OMB Circular A-136 compliance and plain-language presentation of financial and performance information.
• Support internal control over operations, including risk-based assessments, walkthroughs, internal sampling, testing, Entity Level Control assessments, and Statement of Assurance coordination.
• Guide ERM support activities, including enterprise risk profile development, risk appetite statement support, risk governance documentation, risk validation with SMEs, and risk reporting to leadership.
• Facilitate corrective action plan development, root cause analysis, milestone tracking, implementation monitoring, validation, and closure documentation.
• Prepare executive summaries, leadership briefings, meeting minutes, action item trackers, lessons learned reports, and recurring monthly status reports.
• Ensure all deliverables meet professional standards for accuracy, completeness, timeliness, clarity, and compliance with PWS requirements.
• Maintain appropriate documentation in DNFSB-approved repositories and comply with records management, privacy, CUI, and nondisclosure requirements.
• Train and mentor contractor team members and support knowledge transfer to DNFSB personnel as required.