Accounting Associate: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - UTK

This position serves as financial support for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, including job functions related to travel support for faculty, students, staff, and visitors. Serves as liaison with college and university personnel regarding information to verify or support financial records and ensure compliance with established university policies and procedures. Prepares correspondence and answers inquiries regarding accounting information as required. Interprets policies and regulations related to sponsored research grants and contracts, and provides guidance to students, staff, and faculty to maintain compliance.

• Financial Responsibilities - 
  • Account reconciliation and analysis. 
  • Analyzes, reconciles, and evaluates the accuracy of inquiring on detail balances, including revenues and expenditures. 
  • Reviews accounts for adequate documentation, expenditure classifications, and compliance with various policies and regulations. 
  • Maintains records to meet record retention policies. 
  • Informs Business Manager/faculty/staff/students of financial status including budget modifications, overspent accounts, and account closures. 
  • Performs journal entries as needed to ensure accurate ledger accounts. 
  • Maintains general ledger account listing spreadsheet for the department including faculty and student research accounts, gift accounts, general notes, funding, other. 
  • Processes petty cash reimbursements. 
  • Helps organize summer salaries and verifies budgets. 
  • Enters T-27s for all special payment to non-contract vendors and assists in the establishment of new vendors. 
  • Reviews entered biweekly and monthly time sheets for accuracy. 
  • Assists Business Manager with maintenance of activity code balances. 
  • Works with the Events Coordinator to help plan EEB related events and assist with financial transactions. 
  • Maintains EEB Field Station reservations and creates and sends invoices to users. 
  • Collects and distributes payments into appropriate accounts for field station and reconciles vendor accounts, maintaining a reconciliation spreadsheet for tracking. 
  • Works with Business Manager on monthly taxes to Controller's Office and annual Unrelated Business Income Reports. 
  • Serves as backup to deposits. 
  • Primary Effort Coordinator for the department, verifying that payroll is properly aligned with effort on sponsored projects and ensuring that correct projects are charged.
• Travel Responsibilities - 
  • Enters travel for all EEB faculty, staff, and graduate students as needed, including travel requests, reimbursements, advances, and prepaid travels. 
  • Assists travelers with lodging and airfare reservations within the GetThere Travel system, ensuring consistent and professional interactions with travelers, UT Treasurer's Office, and World Travel Agency representatives.

Required Qualifications

• Education/Experience: High school diploma with 4 years accounting/financial experience.

• Knowledge, Skills, Abilities: 

  • Ability to perform a variety of accounting transactions, budget development, and analysis. 

  • Ability to plan, organize, and prioritize work assignments to meet deadlines and facilitate workflow. 

  • Strong interpersonal skills, and the ability to communicate effectively verbally and in writing. 

  • Ability to interpret contracts and related regulations. 

  • Ability to understand and interpret policies. 

  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and Word, and the ability to learn new systems. 

  • Ability to work with little direct supervision, be detail oriented, and work as a member of a team. 

  • Ability to be a quick learner, possessing a strong work ethic.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis without need now or in the future for sponsorship for employment-based visa status.

Preferred Qualifications

• Education/Experience:

  • Associate’s degree with 2 years of accounting/financial experience

  • or bachelor’s degree and 1 year of accounting/financial experience.

• Knowledge, Skills, Abilities: 

  • Knowledge of a large platform ERP, such as Oracle Cloud. 

  • Knowledge of Uniform Guidance.

Work Location 

• Location: Knoxville, TN

• Onsite

Compensation and Benefits 

• UT market range: MR07

• Anticipated hiring range: $47,000-$52,000

• Find more information on the UT Market Range structure here

• Find more information on UT Benefits here

Application Instructions 

To express interest, please submit an application with the noted below attachments. 

• Resume

• Cover Letter

About The Department

EEB is in the top 10% of ecology programs in North America based on research impact (Keville et al., 2017), ahead of peer institutions such as UCLA and UC San Diego. Our faculty and students come from around the globe. Our faculty is a mix of internationally known senior researchers and an energetic group of junior faculty at the cutting edges of their fields. We train graduate and undergraduate students with research interests in ecology, evolutionary biology, animal behavior, conservation biology, behavioral and population genetics, computational biology, development of theory for evolution and ecology, ecosystem and community ecology, global change biology, diverse areas of organismal biology, and biology education.