Grants Accountant

The Grants Accountant is a key member of the Finance team, responsible for managing the grants payment process, ensuring compliance with all policies and procedures. This person will analyze grant payments and provide information as required to program managers, grantees, external funders as well as execute tax reporting to demonstrate accountability and transparency in grants and impact investments-related financial management.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Grant Accounting & Financial Management

· Process all grant payments, invoices and approvals in a timely manner; verifying that payments are correct, properly authorized and coded in the grant management system (GMS) and Workday

· Manage upload of grant and trade ACH/wire payments ensuring to resolve bank payment issues including re-issuance of wires and wire payment instruction issues

· Maintain and update grant supplier records in Workday including confirmation of grantee electronic banking information

· Manage account reconciliations for all grant-related general ledger accounts

· Process grant amendments (transfers, returns, rescissions, etc.); researching and correctly recording complex grant transactions; reconciling grant accounting applications

Reporting & Analysis

· Monitor payments, out-of-corpus requirements, blacklisted organizations, and donor advised funds, and reporting them on the annual tax return

· Participate in the grant budget process, including variance analysis and future legal commitments, monitoring funding sources on an ongoing basis, processing funding source transfer requests, and working with staff to create or restructure funding sources and program codes

· Review expenditure responsibility (ER) reports, escalate issues as necessary; prepare all ER reporting, including tax and audit schedules; clearly communicate complex grant and ER policies and regulations to employees and grantees

· Conduct all grant accounting and analysis for grants to support reporting financial statements, tax return and forecasting schedules

Impact Investment Accounting

· Manage all aspects of accounting for Impact Investments, including tracking loans and equity investment valuations, analyses of bad debt reserve and PRI receivables aging, external communication with borrowers on payment issues, and ensuring the data integrity of the transfers across systems

· Serve as Finance subject matter expert in collaboration with Legal, Grants Management, and Impact Investments teams on system implementations and updates to policies, procedures, workflow, and system design changes related to Program-related Investments (PRIs) and Mission-related Investments (MRIs)

Business Partnering

· Collaborate with key internal stakeholders (i.e. Legal, Grants Management, Impact Investments, etc.) to update expenditure reporting procedures, checklists, and workflow within the GMS

· Ensure timely responses to confirmations from grantees’ auditors as required

· Partner with programs to monitor grant payouts for the calendar year

Other Duties and Responsibilities:

· Participate in special projects and working groups; engage in professional development

· Perform other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

· A bachelor’s degree in accounting or finance; CPA preferred, at least five to seven years of finance experience

· Knowledge of current and emerging technology; uses technology and systems effectively to support daily activities; looks for new ways to apply technology to promote efficiency and improve quality

· Expert knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, accounting systems and applications, ERP systems, and other business-related software

· Excellent communication skills, both written and oral

· Able to work with discretion and maintain confidentiality

· Must be able to work in harmony with all levels of the organization

· Experience in implementing accounting interfaces, and in report writing and building queries

· Able to exercise professional judgment and assume responsibility for decisions which have an impact on people and quality of service

· Able to assemble information from diverse sources and develop a logical solution

· Able to simultaneously juggle several tasks or responsibilities

The position is hybrid and based in Chicago, Illinois.