Accounting Technician

Pay range: $59,000 - $65,000

Full-time, benefits earning position

Position Summary

The Finance Service Center of Excellence (SCE) serves approximately 2,000 staff within the Division of Finance and Operations (F&O) and the Division of Institutional Integrity and Risk Management (IIRM), a combined organization whose annual budget is more than $500 million.  The Finance SCE was formed in 2015 and pulled together many disparate financial groups into one team to provide financial services to the Division.   These financial and accounting services have a campus-wide impact through departmental billing, student fees, and education and general support services. The Finance SCE provides departmental purchasing and inventory accounting support, cost accounting, billing and disbursement services, business and financial systems support, and financial reporting, budgeting, and analysis for the F&O Division and Institutional Integrity & Risk Management.

This position may be eligible for a hybrid work arrangement that may include a partially remote work location, consistent with System Office policy. UNC Chapel Hill employees are generally required to reside within a reasonable commuting distance of their assigned duty station.

This position will report to the Accounting Customer Team Manager, position 20018927 for Finance Shared Services and will support the overall financial operations for the Division; which includes budgeting, reporting, general accounting and customer billing which further includes a variety of fund types inclusive of state appropriations.  This position will be responsible for providing a range of skilled duties that are needed for processing financial activity and will work alongside 2 accounting technicians and a lead accounting technician advanced. 

This position will primarily support the Facilities Services customer department while supporting the larger SCE Finance Unit. This position will become skilled in the customer's sub-system AIM, "Asset Information Management", focusing on the financial data that is housed in AIM for Facilities AP, AR and inventory purposes.  This position will also become familiar with the Customer's Management of their Motor Fleet processing as well as that of Asset Management for the SCE finance customers.  The focus of processing financial data for the SCE Customers will be on general accounting functions such as but not limited to, processing vouchers, Pcards, check depositing, customer billings, collections, PO receiving, vendor set-ups, systems and sub-systems reconciliations, travel, asset management, inventory, and journal entries for customers throughout the Division. 

This position will also assist with the daily processing of Facilities Services Customer Funded Projects (CFP’s), which is a multi-step process involving numerous accounting workflows within the AiM billing system.  This will be a key role of this position to support the Accounting Customer Team Manager.

This position will process financial data via the University's Financial System PeopleSoft, and perform reconciliations between campus customer's sub-systems, manual billings, campus billing modules (CBM) and the University's financial system PeopleSoft; the ledger's AR and AP.

This position does not supervise.

School of Government Services (SOG Services) assists faculty and staff at the UNC School of Government in carrying out its important mission: to improve the lives of North Carolinians by engaging in practical scholarship that helps public officials and citizens understand and improve state and local government. As a nonprofit organization and an official affiliated entity of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, SOG Services also contributes to advancing UNC-Chapel Hill’s broader mission of academic excellence, research, and public service. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Finance- Transactions & Reconciliations

Provides processing services in the area of General Ledger (GL)/Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP) to provide customer department support utilizing the Finance Service Delivery system.  The Delivery system is a business service system that provides financial management and transactional processing to units in the Division of Finance and Administration, as part of the Service Center of Excellence. Services within the GL/AR Customer Support include, but may not be limited to:

• All types of Campus Journal Entries; mainly JOT and JCR
• Billings-inclusive of sub-systems billings and management of such; Campus and external to campus
• Deposits
• Vouchers and Purchase Orders (PO) Receiving
• Ensure proper Chartfield String assignment
• Pcard reconciliation
• Vendor Setup
• Voucher assistance to central offices
• Asset Management
• Motor Fleet Management/dbase
• Inventory Management Assistance
• Customer Service

This position will provide any or all these service processes to all customers within the SCE finance operations as directed by the Accounting Team Manager.

Reconciliation is the key process used to match the transactions and/or data files processed throughout the month to that of sub-systems, ensuring they have posted correctly.  Sub-systems include, but may not be limited to, Facilities AIM Asset Information Management, Campus Billing Module (CBM), Works, and ConnectCarolina. Reconciliations include, but may not be limited to: Pcard aging, material/purchase request aging, motor fleet transactions, and fuel inventory. This position will work on these reconciliations throughout the month and no less than once a week.  As discrepancies present themselves, this position will research, document, correct and process necessary action items and record outcomes.  Discrepancies may include, but not be limited to, billing kick-outs, credit card disputes, and incorrect chartfield Strings.

Finance - Accounting:

Assist Facilities Services Accounting Team and Team Manager with daily oversight of Facilities Services Customer Funded Projects (CFP’s). Perform assigned accounting transactional workflow steps in AiM subsystem involving CFP set ups, approvals throughout the multi-step process for each stage, verify correctness and budget of chartfield strings being used, proper coding of expenses, ensure accurate monthly billings, assist with problem resolution, and prepare reconciliations as needed.  As directed work with project managers to resolve concerns and provide guidance on accounting policies and business practices.

Finance - Other:

Perform tasks related to the multi-million $ Energy Services Monthly Utility Billings to ensure accurate and timely billing amounts of all Energy Services campus-wide departmental customer accounts.  Work in conjunction with the SCE Accountant dedicated to supporting Energy Services to assist with the multiple billing processing steps to ensure capture of all associated utility activity for electricity, steam, chilled water, propane, gas, etc. every month.  Work to adhere to strict critical deadlines for billing source data availability while still meeting the university’s monthly accounting transaction processing deadlines so all customer departments are billed promptly and accurately.  Assist with communicating billing concerns to customer departments and making needed corrections to historical, current, and future billings as assigned by the Accountant or Accounting Team Manager.  Perform journal entries, reconciliations, or other accounting tasks to support this function as instructed.

Other Duties:

Perform other general duties related to SCE Finance projects including those which require collaborative work with other areas of SCE and customer departments.  Assist with writing SOP’s, developing and performing reconciliations, and reviewing existing business processes.  Perform back-up duties for other accounting technicians on the team as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES)

• High school diploma or equivalency and one year of experience in accounting work; or equivalent combination of training and experience.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• This position requires a high degree of accuracy in reporting, and transaction work processed.  This position must manage and maintain financial data pertinent to the operations of all financial processing and demonstrate an understanding of accounting principles.

• The candidate must be well organized and detail-oriented; a self-starter, with the ability to manage time and work independently; and flexible, dependable, and adaptable.  The candidate must be able to apply judgement for problem resolutions based on delegated authority from supervisor.

• This position requires outstanding written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills, the ability to multi-task different customer financial processes and adhere to strict deadlines.  The candidate must have the ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, demanding environment.  The candidate must have substantial knowledge of accounting principles and practices, and the rules and regulations governing the processing of fiscal transactions. The candidate should be experienced in the use of computer-based financial systems, and possess factual and theoretical knowledge, and the ability to apply received information.  The candidate must be able to apply conceptual thinking, being analytical, and the ability to deal with ambiguity.
• Proficiency in Excel, Word, Teams, Zoom, and Adobe is required.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in business administration or accounting; or Associate's degree in business administration or accounting and one year of experience.  The preferred candidate should have no less than three years of directly related accounting experience.

• Experience working at UNC or in higher education and advanced Excel skills (i.e. pivot table, lookup, nested formulas) are preferred.  The ideal candidate will also have knowledge and experience working with PeopleSoft Finance (Connect Carolina) and AiM, or other job costing and work order billing systems for facilities services.  Demonstrated ability to write precisely and clearly to convey technical financial details and to communicate with customers.