Research Accounting Manager, Office of Research Administration

Nacubo; Golden (CO); On-site; USD 95,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Colorado School of Mines seeks a Research Accounting Manager to lead the ORA Accounting team, oversee award setup, monitoring and reporting, and ensure regulatory compliance for sponsored projects.

The role requires strong data analysis, stakeholder collaboration, and the ability to communicate complex financial information to diverse audiences. Campus presence is required at Golden, CO three days per week.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance or related field; experience may substitute.
• 7+ years of accounting experience; supervisory experience preferred.
• Knowledge of federal research regulations; strong analytical skills.
• Excellent communication and ability to present financial information.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Research Accounting Team; supervise 5 direct reports.
• Oversee award setup, modification, and financial monitoring.
• Review cost transfers, budgets and closeout activities.
• Prepare sponsor reporting and ensure timely compliance.
• Develop SOPs and provide staff training on policies.

Skills

Staff supervision

Budget monitoring

Financial reporting

Regulatory compliance

Data analysis

Communication

Training & development

Education

Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance or related field

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Workday

Tableau

ERP systems

Job description

The Colorado School of Mines is a public R1 research university focused on applied science and engineering, producing the talent, knowledge and solutions to service industry and benefit society.

The Office of Finance, Administration and Operations (FA&O) provides critical support to the mission and forward-thinking strategic initiatives while managing $325 million in operating activity, stewarding $1 billion in assets, and supporting 1400 faculty and staff. Mines facilitates over $100 million annually in sponsored project awards and over $500 million in proposals. The Office Research Administration reports up through FA&O and is responsible for ensuring financial compliance and streamlined business processes for the campus research community. The Research Accounting Manager reports directly to the Associate Director of Research Administration - Accounting and provides leadership to the university’s Research Accounting team.

The Research Accountant Manager will represent The Office of Research Administration in a wide range of activities, committees, and meetings. They will collaborate and interact with many internal and external constituencies including campus administration and academic departments, other higher education institutions, governmental agencies (e.g. Office of Navel Research, Department of Defense, and The Department of Energy), and industry partners. They must be able to maintain high customer service levels while meeting strict reporting deadlines. In this leadership role, the Research Accountant Manager must engage in effective collaboration, become a trusted partner with the university community, and engage campus as appropriate.

This position requires critical thinking in various analysis to apply regulatory interpretation to sponsored activity. They will be responsible for independently compiling, analyzing, and presenting financial data. In addition, they will be required to work with campus constituents, including faculty and staff to manage and reconcile sponsored activity and must have the ability to provide effective communication of regulatory and financial information for a broad audience.

This position is a key member of the research team with five direct reports and manages the set-up of new awards in the financial system, expense and account monitoring, financial reporting, financial closeout and other post-award financial analysis and support for sponsored awards. The ideal candidate has a can-do attitude, enjoys working with a variety of stakeholder groups, and collaborating with others to resolve unique challenges.

This position requires campus presence at least three days per week. The successful candidate must be able to commute to campus in Golden, Colorado, regularly.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position now nor in the future.

Primary Responsibilities

Team Leadership and Development

• Develop and maintain a highly skilled and engaged team through managing the organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities of the Research Accounting Team.
• Develop and maintain an inclusive and respectful work environment with a team capable of working through new challenges, responsive to ad hoc requests, able to meet important deadlines, and is highly accountable for accuracy in their work product.
• Ensure high quality, elite customer advising services to the campus community and implement service metrics and feedback reporting.
• Ensure performance plans include role-based professional development goals to drive exceptional quality work products.
• Develop performance-based metrics and ensure robust feedback loops between manager and employees are regularly utilized and documented.
• Foster a culture of professional development and continuous improvement within the staff. Shift the department’s perception from a "bottleneck" to a "solution provider" by streamlining support and user-facing resources.
• Ensure the development and maintenance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all research accounting functions.
• Lead staff training on policies & procedural changes that impact Sponsored Awards.
• Provide direct supervision to the Research Accountant unit. Formal supervision includes providing documentation to support recommended corrective and disciplinary actions, second level signature on performance plans and appraisals, and resolving informal grievances.
• Manage the hiring process for Research Accountants, which includes maintaining job descriptions, interviewing applicants, and recommending hire, promotion, or transfer.

Award set-up and modifications

• Review award setups for completeness and accuracy. Develop and maintain control reports to review setups performed by the Research Accountants to ensure the correctness of setups within ORA. Work with assigned Research Accountants to resolve any setup issues.
• Create new research accounts and amend existing accounts in the School’s financial system and ORA’s enterprise project tracking system. Utilize information obtained from the legal agreement, proposal documents and other project related documents. Decide appropriate financial codes to input into the School’s financial system to accurately administer and monitor awards in accordance with federal regulations, sponsor terms and conditions, and School policy.
• Recognize gaps and develop/improve best practices and standard operating procedure as new policies, terms, clause arise to better perform award setup.
• Provide award setup training to new and existing Research Accountants.

Award Financial Monitoring

• Review and approve cost transfers, salary redistributions and other accounting entries performed by the Post Award team at ORA. Monitor, review and reconcile award budgets, balances and expenses. This includes deficit monitoring and expense review both pre-expenditure and post-expenditure.
• Work with the other ORA staff (i.e. Contract Administrators) to review deficit spending requests (currently, At-Risk Spending Requests) to determine if the financial risk to the School is acceptable under current policy and practices.
• Identify, investigate and resolve discrepancies or errors found within research accounts. Resolution will require coordination with the applicable faculty members, ORA staff members, other departments and/or project sponsor, as applicable.
• Approve faculty requests for no-cost time extensions, budget deviations, and pre-award spending.
• Assist the Property Manager in the Controller’s Office to ensure all equipment is titled, accounted and tagged properly within School systems and per regulations.
• Develop and/or update ad-hoc reports using data from Workday, Tableau or other database applications for tracking, diagnostic and financial analysis of sponsored activity. Develop templates to improve and expedite financial administration of awards (i.e., tuition proportionate to salary calculation, re-budgeting, closeout workbook, etc.)
• Recognize gaps and develop/improve effective business practices, standing operating procedures as it relates to award financial monitoring.
• Serve as subject expert on the financial monitoring of awards and provide training to staff on their applications.
• Generate and analyze ad-hoc financial reporting to leadership (award expenditure volume, subrecipient volume, sponsor type volume, etc.) and make recommendation on work assignments.
• Perform quality control reports to identify financial errors and resolve errors.

Award Reporting

• Develop and Manage Quality Control reports to ensure final sponsor reports are complete, work with the research accountants to ensure Sponsor final report correctness and timeliness.
• Ensure the research accounting team prepares and accurately submits required financial reports within sponsoring agency timeframes. This position will analyze the financial statements, supporting documentation and other necessary information for each research account to ensure accurate financial reports are submitted.
  Ensure the research accounting team prepares and accurately submits required non-financial reports within sponsoring agency timeframes. This includes Property Reports, Patent Reports, Cost Share reports, etc.
• Utilize School systems, such as Workday, Tableau and ORA’s project software, to extract data needed for required reporting. Successfully navigate sponsor reporting systems to submit required reports.
• Serve as subject expert on financial and non-financial reporting and provide training to staff.
• Recognize operational gaps and develop, improve effective business practices, standing operating procedures as it relates to award reporting.
• Develop and maintain quality control reports to identify outstanding and upcoming sponsor reports due.

Award Closeout

• Ensures research accounting team performs all closeout actions required by sponsoring agency and School policy and procedures, including, but not limited to:
  • Maintain a detailed tracking of closeout activities
  • Track all outstanding accounts receivable actions to successfully coordinate the process of financial closeout between the grant sub-ledger and the school’s General Ledger
  • Perform final expense review and account reconciliation
• Serve as subject expert of award closeout and provide training to staff.
• Recognize operational gaps and develop, improve standing operating procedures as it relates to Award closeouts
• Perform managerial review of all award closeouts.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, business administration or related field. Experience may substituted on a year for year basis (e.g. One year of work experience, in addition to the 7 years listed below, could count for one year of education)
• 7+ years of accounting experience
• 2+ years of supervisory experience or demonstration of lead role in lieu of experience
• Working knowledge of federal and other pertinent external research regulations.
• Strong data analytical skills using tools such as spreadsheets, databases, presentation software, and enterprise financial systems
• Demonstrated customer service skills, the ability to work effectively with a wide range of constituencies in a diverse community and ability to meet multiple deadlines
• Analyzation and problem-solving skills including the ability to use independent judgment
• Excellent communication skills
• Experience presenting detailed financial information in a consumable format to broad audiences.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Higher education, and/or government accounting experience
• Masters Degree in Accounting and/or Business Administration
• Uniform Guidance knowledge
• GASB knowledge and experience

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