At Cortland, you map the story of your success. We don't adhere to the status quo, we love outside industry perspective, and we thrive on exploring possibilities and reimagining solutions. As an innovative leader in multifamily, our high performance continues to drive exponential growth – and we invite you to join us on our journey towards real estate excellence. With tools and guidance to sharpen your skills, you can forge your own career path, love what you do, and let it show. 

As a Financial Analyst, you will support the Director of Property Financial Planning & Analysis (FPA) in directing and guiding the entire annual budgeting and forecasting process for over 240+ individual properties across the Cortland operating platform.  

The Budgeting Guru

• Serve as a liaison between the Operations, Accounting, Compliance, and Investments departments to ensure that annual budgets are prepared for all 240+ owned and managed properties across Cortland’s US platform in accordance with GAAP and all applicable fund, joint venture, and property asset management agreements
• Serve as support staff for the property-level budget budgeting tool (Adaptive), including assigning rights to end users, setting up new properties, troubleshooting errors, training new users, and enhancing the system.
• Manage a suite of reports in Adaptive to support the budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis for our portfolio
• Work with the Operations and Investments teams to identify ways to automate certain budget inputs within Adaptive to create efficiencies, to reduce manual data entry/redundancies, and to allow scalability as Cortland continues to acquire new assets
• Stay current on business transactions that affect the overall business, including acquisitions, dispositions, recapitalizations, amendments to operating agreements, new funds and joint ventures, etc.
• Assist the Director of Property Financial Planning & Analysis with various ad hoc requests and projects as identified by upper management

The Analyzer

• Creation of custom reports to allow for in-depth analysis of financial information and key performance indicators to help management understand overall property-level financial performance
• Meet with department heads and executives across the various business units within the Cortland platform to better understand the overall business and how their initiatives impact the property-level budgets
• Work with our internal Data Analytics team to ensure data integrity between Adaptive and other data platforms
• Regularly review budget vs. actual reports to identify areas of improvement within the budgeting process and to assist with the creation of a unified approach to explaining variances across the platform
• Work with the accounting team to reclassify revenue and expense items within the general ledger to ensure consistent financial presentation for comparison purposes

 The Impact You Can Make

• A centralized, uniform top-level approach for creating budgets will provide upper management with confidence that all property-level budgets are prepared timely and accurately and include all pertinent revenues and expenses that impact overall financial performance
• Property financial information is consistent across all assets within the portfolio which will allow for robust comparisons of financial information across various funds, portfolios, and joint ventures
• Synergy is created among the operations, investments, accounting and finance functions which will allow for the sharing of knowledge and process improvement
• Management will be able to make more informed decisions and to perform If-Then scenarios more easily due to process automations and customized reporting capabilities
• Support our on-site teams to help them reach their goals and our portfolio reach financial peak performance

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance required
• Real estate experience is a plus
• 2+ years of overall experience required
• Understanding of GAAP accounting
• Strong organizational, analytical, problem-solving, and time-management skills
• Excellent communication skills that will allow you to interact with team members across all areas of the company
• The ability to “think outside of the box” and question the status quo to allow for process improvement and automation
• Extraordinary attention to detail while performing multiple assignments under tight deadlines
• Proficiency in Excel and other Microsoft Office programs
• Some light travel may be required on occasion

At Cortland, we create, reimagine, and manage apartment communities for residents nationwide. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, we have communities and regional offices all over the country, as well as overseas. From product design and procurement to general contracting and property management, we do it all – to make sure our communities are the perfect setting for living life to its fullest.  

Our success is fueled by our belief in a better life – where hospitality is always a given, each detail is worth a second thought, and every open door is a new opportunity to go beyond expectations. We come to work every day to create possibilities for people – possibilities that translate into superior living spaces and experiences designed to inspire our residents, associates, and investors to live a better life focused on what matters most to them. 

Cortland is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud to support and celebrate diversity in the workplace. We are committed to equal consideration for all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If you have a disability and need an accommodation or assistance with the application process and/or using our website, please email talentresources@cortland.com or call 404.965.3988.  Cortland is a drug-free workplace. Cortland participates in e-verify to verify the employment status of all persons hired to work in the United States.