Director of Finance - The Monthly Close Review
You are Magic Cabinet's first in-house Director of Finance, three weeks into the role. Magic Cabinet is a Seattle-based private philanthropic foundation with roughly $147M in total assets across three fund structures — an operating fund…
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What You'll Be Doing
You are Magic Cabinet's first in-house Director of Finance, three weeks into the role. Magic Cabinet is a Seattle-based private philanthropic foundation with roughly $147M in total assets across three fund structures — an operating fund (~$30M annual budget), an endowment, and dedicated grantmaking pools — supporting multi-year grants to 63 nonprofit partners. The foundation has 35+ staff in Washington and California, and financial operations are still run by an external accounting vendor while you lead a phased transition in-house.
The vendor has just delivered the July 2026 monthly financial package — the Excel workbook, exactly as your team received it: File to be found here. It contains the vendor's transmittal memo, the statement of activities (budget vs. actual), fund balances and the endowment rollforward, the grants schedule, the check register, the AP invoice and receipts log, the payroll register, and the HR change log from your HR system.
The Board Finance Committee meets in three business days, and the COO has asked you to review the package and brief the committee. The vendor considers the July close final as presented. Whether you agree is for you to determine. Review the package the way you would in the job: read the statements, work the detail tabs, cross-reference where the numbers should agree, and decide what is right, what is wrong, and what is a risk. Quantify what your findings mean for Magic Cabinet's true operating position, and tell the committee what to do about it.
Key Policy Excerpts (from Magic Cabinet's board-approved policies)
- Endowment spending: quarterly draws may not exceed $500,000 without a documented Board vote.
- Donor-designated funds: contributions designated by the funder for a specific program must be tracked in donor-restricted funds and released as qualifying expenses are incurred.
- Fund structure: operating, endowment, and grantmaking funds have distinct restrictions and may not be treated as one pool.
Constraints to Consider
- The external vendor's contract runs through June 2027 — you manage the relationship and hold them accountable; you cannot replace them.
- You are the only in-house finance hire, supported by an operations manager; no additional finance headcount is budgeted for year one.
- The Board Finance Committee meets in three business days — your memo must be final, not a draft.
- Every figure you cite must tie to the workbook. State assumptions explicitly where you must make them.
- Complete this challenge without AI tools. This exercise evaluates your own review skills — the same skills the job requires when a package lands on your desk before a board meeting. In your video you will walk through exactly how you found what you found.
- Target roughly 45 minutes on the work product. If you run long, prioritize: the memo first, then the README. We score judgment and prioritization, not exhaustiveness. If you didn't get to something, say so directly in the video — an honest "here's what I'd do next with more time" beats padded completeness.
Communication note: we score the clarity and structure of your financial insight for non-finance executive audiences — not verbal polish, accent, pace, or filler words. Speak naturally and conversationally, as if you're briefing your COO directly. Direct answers score well; talking around a question does not.
Submission: Upload each deliverable as a separate file directly on the Provn platform: your Board Finance Committee memo, your README document (Sections A and B), and your video walkthrough (MP4 or MOV).
Provided Materials
- Magic_Cabinet_July_2026_Monthly_Financial_Package.xlsx — the vendor's monthly package, 8 tabs, as delivered.
What You'll Accomplish
Demonstrate fund accounting judgment across restricted, unrestricted, endowment, and grantmaking structures.
Review a vendor-produced financial package, find discrepancies — including detail-level errors — by working the underlying tabs, and quantify their impact.
Build a decision-ready brief for a board finance committee that leads with implications, not data.
Demonstrate compliance awareness specific to private foundations and multi-state (WA/CA) operations.
How Your Work Will Be Scored
What to Submit
Board Finance Committee Memo
Format: .pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .md
A memo addressed to the Board Finance Committee. Cover: what you found in the July package, what it means for Magic Cabinet's true operating position (quantified), what you recommend, and what you need from the committee. Lead with the decision, not the data.
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README Document
Format: .pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .md
Two required sections.
Section A — Written analysis (250–400 words): your diagnosis of the package — which items are errors, which are misclassifications, which are risks, which may be defensible, and how you would prioritize handling them with the vendor.
Section B — Vendor accountability plan (bullets welcome): the specific controls, review steps, or accountability mechanisms you would put in place with the vendor so this month doesn't repeat, including how you would fix any recurring failure pattern the package reveals, and what these findings change about your transition sequencing.
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Video Walkthrough
Format: .mp4, .mov, .webm
Your hiring team will watch this closely and discuss it with you in the final interview, so use the time. Suggested structure:
- (~2 min) Bottom line: what you found and what you recommend.
- (~6 min) How you found it: walk through each issue — which tab you were on, what caught your eye, and what you checked to confirm it was real.
- (~3 min) Your vendor accountability plan and what it means for the in-house transition.
- (~2 min) What you would verify with external experts (auditors, counsel, payroll provider) before acting.
- (~2 min) What you didn't get to and what you'd do next with more time — be direct about it.
Speak naturally and conversationally, as if you're briefing your COO directly. We score the clarity and structure of your financial insight, not verbal polish, accent, pace, or filler words.
Sign in to upload files
Create a free account to upload your work. Your progress saves as a draft until you submit.
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