"Accountant"

Accountant

Company:
Austin Peay State University

Job Location:
Clarksville, 37044

Category:
Business and Financial Services

Type:
Full-Time

Job Description

The Accountant is responsible for the post-award financial administration of sponsored projects and grant-funded programs. This position ensures accurate and timely revenue recognition, reconciles the General Ledger (GL) to the Projects (PPM) module, and maintains data integrity between the two. The Accountant works closely with principal investigators (PIs), project managers, and campus departments to ensure that all grant-related transactions comply with sponsor regulations, university policies, and governmental accounting standards.

A key focus of this role is monitoring and enforcing the proper use of the PPM segment on transactions, including participating in workflow approvals to reduce back-end corrections.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Maintain financial records for assigned grants and sponsored projects, including setup, ongoing monitoring, and closeout.
• Review grant budgets and award documents to understand allowable costs, billing terms, cost share, and reporting requirements.
• Monitor grant expenditures for allowability, allocability, reasonableness, and compliance with sponsor terms, institutional policy, and applicable federal regulations (e.g., Uniform Guidance).
• Prepare financial reports and invoices to sponsors and reconcile them to the GL and PPM records.
• Assist/Backup with federal and state drawdowns and other cash requests as needed.
• Reconcile the General Ledger to the Projects (PPM) module on a monthly basis, ensuring that project-level balances agree to GL accounts (e.g., revenue, expenses, deferred revenue, and receivables).
• Investigate and resolve variances between GL and PPM at the project, task, and expenditure levels; initiate and post correcting journal entries as needed (expense and revenue accounts).
• Maintain documented reconciliation schedules and support for month-end and year-end close, including audit support for sponsored projects.
• Monitor expense activity on grants and ensure that corresponding revenue is recognized in accordance with sponsor terms, GASB/governmental accounting standards, and university policy.
• Assist with preparing and post revenue recognition entries for cost-reimbursable and fixed-price awards (e.g., moving amounts from deferred revenue to earned revenue based on eligible costs or milestones).
• Assist with tracking unbilled receivables, deferred revenue, and remaining budget by project, ensuring timely billing and revenue recognition as well as indirect cost.
• Coordinate with Sponsored Programs/Grants Office on project closeout to ensure all revenue is appropriately recognized and documented.
• Monitor transactions (requisitions, purchase orders, invoices, expense reports, journal entries, etc.) charged to grants to ensure the appropriate PPM segment is used for all grants set up in the PPM module.
• Proactively identify transactions where a PPM project/segment should have been used but was not, and coordinate to correct these entries.
• Serve as a reviewer/approver in the workflow for transactions impacting sponsored projects, helping to ensure the PPM segment is captured correctly on the front end and reducing the need for back-end corrections.
• Act as one of the primary points of contact for campus users regarding grant accounting questions, GL vs. PPM issues, and revenue recognition for sponsored projects.
• Provide training sessions and one-on-one support to end users on topics such as:
  • When and how to use the PPM segment
  • Reading and interpreting project and GL reports
• Communicate recurring issues or systemic errors to leadership and help recommend process or system changes to prevent them.
• Assist with testing, implementation, and enhancement of the financial system (e.g., Oracle Cloud / Govs Suite), particularly the Projects (PPM) and Grants-related functionality.
• Collaborate with IT, Sponsored Programs, and Finance leadership to refine workflows that require PPM segments on applicable grants.
• Help design and maintain reports and dashboards that support GL-PPM reconciliation, grant monitoring, and compliance.
• Prepare and review monthly reconciliations, schedules, and supporting documentation for all assigned grant-related GL accounts.
• Support year-end closing activities related to grants and restricted funds, including accruals, reclassifications, and audit workpapers.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field with significant accounting coursework.
• A minimum of two (2) years of professional accounting experience, preferably including fund accounting or grant/sponsored project accounting.
• Working knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP); familiarity with governmental or higher education accounting standards preferred.
• Strong data reconciliation skills and experience working with subledger-to-GL reconciliations.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel (e.g., lookups, pivot tables, filters) and experience with enterprise financial systems.

Physical Requirements

Light Work: Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects.

About Us

Austin Peay State University is a four-year public, doctoral-level university, with six colleges and four Chairs of Excellence. The University has an enrollment of over 11,000 students and is located in Clarksville, Tennessee, a community of an estimated 150,287 people located approximately 40 miles northwest of Nashville, TN.

Austin Peay State University is a proud supporter of hiring veterans. We hire veterans with equivalent experiences and pay grades from their military service, rather than requiring or preferring only college degrees. Please visit our website for more information on how veterans can qualify for additional employment opportunities at APSU: https://www.apsu.edu/human-resources/hiring-veterans/.

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