Student Account Specialist

Job Summary

Under the supervision of, and in close partnership with, the Student Accounts Manager, oversees and assists with daily accounts receivable operations for the college, supports reporting and analysis, and handles difficult account discussions with students, parents, staff, and faculty in a courteous and efficient manner.  Plays an active role in testing and adopting new systems, workflows, and process improvements.

Job Description

Duties and Responsibilities

• Coordinate, oversee and assist with daily accounts receivable operations for the college, including: preparing student bills and refunds (paper and electronic); receiving, verifying and processing payments; posting billing adjustments; electronic filing.
• Clearing students for registration, transcript release and graduation; initiating payment plans, verifying timely payments and notifying senior staff of delinquencies; billing overdue student accounts and preparing accounts for collection.
• Regular contact and interaction with students, parents, staff and faculty to answer inquiries, address concerns, and resolve issues, including guiding students through online and mobile self-service tools for payments, payment plans, and refunds.
• Researching student account issues and identifying their root cause, conferring as needed with financial aid and registrar staff, faculty, students and parents, with an understanding of how changes to shared records affect each office.
• Performing/assisting with weekly, monthly, semester and year end student account reconciliations, balancing and auditing, including reconciling student account activity to the general ledger.
• Building, running, and analyzing reports on student account data (such as aging, delinquency, and student cohort reports) to support the Student Accounts Manager and inform decisions.
• Participating in system implementations, upgrades, and enhancements, including user acceptance testing (UAT), parallel testing, and validating business processes and approval workflows.
• Play a role in recommending and documenting operating policies, procedures, and workflows associated with accounts receivable.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications: (Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) 

Associates degree in accounting or other appropriate discipline and one to four years of experience, or a combination of education and experience from which comparable knowledge and skills are acquired.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Good knowledge of and skills in general accounting/bookkeeping principles and procedures with some experience in accounts receivable, including how billing and fee activity connects to the general ledger (e.g., cost centers, funds, and grants).

Strong math and analytical/problem-solving skills, with the ability to trace issues to their root cause rather than relying on workarounds.

Relevant training/experience with data entry, information retrieval, and report writing in computerized information systems; experience with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is preferred.

Strong skills in Microsoft Word and Excel, including sorting, filtering, and summarizing data

Ability to improve and streamline processes using technology, and comfort adapting to new systems and workflow-based processes

Detail-oriented approach to testing, validating, and documenting system processes and results.

Ability to deal with students, parents, staff, faculty and others in a courteous and efficient manner, including the ability to effectively handle difficult account discussions.

Physical Requirements: Duties performed causes light fatigue of eyes, fingers, or other faculties as a result of repetitive motion and/or long periods of standing or sitting. Duties require little physical effort in work with light to moderate (up to 25lbs) easy-to-handle materials.

Working Conditions: Job is performed in general office or comparable working area with many and frequent distractions such as noise and interruptions. Work schedule may vary during high volume periods. 

This general outline illustrates the type of work which characterizes the job classification. It is not an all-encompassing statement of the specific duties, responsibilities and qualifications of individual positions assigned to the classification. 

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