Python Data Engineer — Financial Automation (Stripe / Xero / Accounting)

The Equine Practice Company (TEPC) is an Australian veterinary education business operating globally. We generate revenue across multiple platforms — Kajabi (3 accounts), WooCommerce (2 websites), Stripe (5 accounts), and PayPal. We need a data engineer to build an automated monthly financial consolidation and reporting system from scratch. About the project: Every month our bookkeeper manually pulls 10 exports from three platforms, consolidates and matches them row by row, calculates revenue accruals and accounts receivable, and produces a set of reporting worksheets and workpapers. This takes several hours per month and depends on fragile manual processes. We need this automated end to end. Data comes in, rules are applied, outputs are produced, exceptions go to a human for review. The bookkeeper's job becomes reviewing and approving rather than building. What we will provide Revenue Recognition Rulebook (13 sections covering all program types, edge cases, and exception handling) 7 CFO training video transcripts explaining the full workpaper logic in detail Sample data files from two closed months (real data, figures available under NDA) A bookkeeper (CA, BAS Agent) available for validation throughout the build A CFO available for financial logic questions Full SOP documentation What we need built Phase 1 — Data foundation and automation (weeks 1-4) Ingest all 10 monthly source files: 3 Kajabi CSVs, 2 WooCommerce XLSXs, 5 Stripe CSVs, plus PayPal Build a central data layer (PostgreSQL or equivalent) — raw data preserved, stable source IDs, every transformation traceable back to its source record Build order-to-payment matching logic (WooCommerce matched by order ID; Kajabi matched by email + date with timezone offset handling) Handle multi-currency conversion (6 currencies, AUD reporting) using Stripe converted amounts Classify all transactions against a program lookup table (113 program configurations) Calculate revenue accrual per program per month across all recognition types: subscriptions monthly and annual, fixed-term payment plans, one-time purchases with defined access periods and products Calculate accounts receivable per client per program Calculate active client count and new client count (NCC) per program per month Handle refunds, re-enrolments, payment plan instalments, and cancelled/failed order exclusions Allocate transactions across two legal entities Generate Xero-ready journal entry output Phase 2 — Validation (weeks 5-6) Back-test all rules against closed months (July 2024 to May 2026) Compare output line by line against what our bookkeeper and CFO actually produced historically Document and explain every variance — not absorb it CFO sign-off before proceeding to Phase 3 Phase 3 — Interface, documentation, and handover (weeks 7-8) Simple drag-and-drop file upload interface usable by a non-technical bookkeeper (or similar process) Hosted solution — suggest your preferred approach Full technical documentation and annotated code Step-by-step user guide for the bookkeeper Handover session with bookkeeper and CFO Support through the first live month-end close The complexity you need to understand before quoting This is not a standard ecommerce reconciliation. Specific challenges: No shared key between Kajabi and Stripe — Kajabi's Invoice ID is empty in every export and its Receipt ID does not match any Stripe charge. Matching falls back to email and date, which drifts due to timezone differences (Kajabi records local time, Stripe records UTC) and customers using different email addresses across platforms Three source schemas with inconsistent column structures — the same column holds different data depending on the platform the row came from, and column order varies between accounts within the same platform Revenue recognition across 113 program configurations with different rules per type Multi-currency with country price parity — the same program is priced differently by region Two legal entities requiring separate allocation Monthly reporting currently depends on the prior month's file via VLOOKUP chains — this fragility must be eliminated by storing and recomputing from raw source data PayPal transactions have no Stripe record and require approximation logic for FX and fees Approximately 18% of transactions carry edge cases requiring exception handling and human review If any of the above is unfamiliar, this project is not the right fit. Who will succeed: Has built financial data pipelines or accounting integrations before — not just general web development Understands accrual accounting at a working level — you do not need to be an accountant, but you must know what deferred revenue, accounts receivable, and revenue recognition mean in practice Has worked with Xero API or Xero journal entry imports Has experience with Stripe data structures and the Stripe CSV export format Communicates precisely in English — financial logic cannot be discussed vaguely Provides regular progress updates — daily or every other day during the build Can work independently alongside a bookkeeper and CFO without needing the CEO involved in day-to-day decisions Has references from similar financial automation or accounting integration work What we do not want: Proposals that treat this as a simple CSV processing job Vague scoping — "I will build a dashboard" without specifying what is in it will not be reviewed Developers who disappear for a week and reappear with something that does not match the brief Anyone who cannot explain the difference between a new enrolment, a re-enrolment, and a payment plan instalment — this distinction drives client counting and revenue recognition throughout the system Budget: USD $3,000-$6,000 for the full project across all three phases, paid in milestones tied to deliverables. Milestone structure is negotiable but must track delivery — we do not pay large amounts upfront. We are open to an ongoing monthly retainer for maintenance and rule updates after delivery How to apply: Your proposal must address all four of the following or it will not be reviewed: 1) One specific example of a financial data pipeline or accounting integration you have built. Describe what it did, what the data sources were, what the output was, and what the hardest part was. 2) Your answer to this technical question: our monthly reporting currently uses VLOOKUP formulas that reference the prior month's saved workbook to restore baselines after rows shift. How would your data architecture handle a rule correction in month 6 that needs to flow back through months 1 to 5 without manual restatement of historical figures? 3) Your proposed timeline broken into the three phases above, with specific milestones and what gets delivered at each one. 4)Your rate, milestone payment structure, and total cost in USD. Proposals that do not address all four points will not be opened. Full Revenue Recognition Rulebook and CFO training transcripts provided under NDA to shortlisted candidates only. You will join a company that is excellence-driven with a supportive culture that already has a team in the Philippines