Accountant

Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART)•Tampa, FL

6h•$65,000 - $75,000

About The Position

This position routinely creates and performs account analysis, reconciliations, and audit schedules; creates and enters journal entries; works with the chart of accounts; and special projects as needed. Work involves problem solving and could include mediating highly conflicting, unexpected, and unusual problems involving multiple groups. Performs all work within generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), following federal, state and local requirements and guidelines established by HART.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance or related field, with 3 to 5 years’ experience.
Ability to operate small office equipment, including copy machines or multi-line telephone systems, as well as a computer for both data entry, word processing, and/or accounting purposes.
Valid Florida Driver’s License or be able to obtain one within in 10 days of hire or moving to the State of Florida.
Perform complex, detailed work involving written and numerical data.
Assist in the development of large public sector budgets; meet critical deadlines; and make decisions under pressure.
Help develop, recommend, and administer sound financial strategies for a public entity.
Read and interpret complex laws and regulations impacting Authority financial activities.
Establish and maintain effective working relationships with public officials, public/private agencies and companies, and the general public.
Prepare and present complex narrative and statistical reports, correspondence, and other documents.
Ability to work in a dynamic environment that requires the incumbent to be sensitive to change and responsive to changing goals, priorities, and needs.
Ability to perform professional-level work dealing with data, people, and technology that relates to administrative, accounting, legal, or managerial skills.
Ability to provide updates to senior managers, elected officials, or other community groups or organizations and work regularly with other Directors or senior managers to ensure the provision of efficient and effective services.
Prepare financial reports for HART Board, State Auditor, Federal and State Grants.
Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal skills.
Ability to organize and prioritize work and to meet deadlines.
Ability to review, analyze and interpret fiscal records.
Ability to prepare complete, concise, clear and accurate reports.
Ability to work under stress and interruptions.
Ability to interact positively with a variety of personalities internally and externally.
Ability to maintain strict confidentiality.
Ability to work towards departmental goals and objectives.
Ability to be a flexible, effective team leader/player.
Ability to sit for long periods of time.
Knowledge rules, regulations, procedures and functions of the Authority.
Knowledge of laws, guidelines and regulations as related to governmental accounting.
Knowledge of principles, practices and methods of accounting.
Knowledge of data processing applications as related to accounting, Excel and word processing.

Responsibilities

Fixed Assets:
Identifies capital asset purchases and properly documents them. Updates and maintains fixed asset records. Reviews travel request forms and expense reports for accuracy. Coordinates annual fixed asset inventory with other departments. Completes the annual financial National Transit Database reporting.
Completes monthly fuel tax return, related journal entry and reconciliation.
Prepares National Transit Database annual financial reports.
Back-up for Count Room for daily duties and quarterly night audits.
Serves from time to time as Project Manager or project team member on a variety of subject matter expertise organizational projects or stretch assignments as assigned by the Portfolio Steering Committee (PSC) of the agency Project Management Office (PMO). These assignments will implement broad strategic and organizational agency goals.
Accounts Receivable:
Receives and processes incoming fare-card sales orders by walk-ins, telephone or e-mail in an efficient and timely manner. Sets up, maintains and generates invoices for customers on account and handles all billing questions and issues.
Records sales, risk insurance claims, etc. and generates invoices for monthly billing.
Reviews the trial balance for accuracy and makes journal entries in the general journal.
Reports the sales amounts and quantities of various fare-cards to internal users, many of these reports are provided to external users, such as: The Boards of HART and THS, Inc.
Serves from time to time as Project Manager or project team member on a variety of subject matter expertise organizational projects or stretch assignments as assigned by the Portfolio Steering Committee (PSC) of the agency Project Management Office (PMO). These assignments will implement broad strategic and organizational agency goals.
Revenue:
Audits the Authority’s revenue streams: GFI fare boxes, count rooms, Retail Sales outlets and petty cash drawers at various Authority locations. Assists as needed to maintain change machines and ticket vending machines (TVMs)
Audits a variety of financial impacting processes such as Accounts Receivable pass inventory, employee travel requests/reimbursements and balance sheet reconciliation processes.
Reports monthly ridership which involves reviewing the data recorded by the Accounting Assistant – GFI and confirming special events has been addressed properly. Administers special events reporting keys and tracking.
Serves as the internal THS streetcar accounting resource which includes billing City of Tampa and attending monthly THS Board meetings.
Serves from time to time as Project Manager or project team member on a variety of subject matter expertise organizational projects or stretch assignments as assigned by the Portfolio Steering Committee (PSC) of the agency Project Management Office (PMO). These assignments will implement broad strategic and organizational agency goals.
Revenue Regional eFares:
Provides input and supports financial back office deliverables for the regional eFares project which includes but is not limited to: developing the financial test plans which would include scenarios and expected outcomes; pulls reports and analyzes the testing results; and troubleshoots issues and proposes resolutions
Identifies reporting needs and defines reporting requirements to perform the financial back office functions for the regional eFares system
Creates and performs processes for performing the financial back office functions for the regional eFares system which will includes pulling reports and performing reconciliations required to support the net settlements with the other participating agencies
Updates and maintains the GP financial reporting system to support the accounting needed for regional eFares transactions and makes journal entries performs other accounting functions related to the regional eFares transactions
Performs other accounting department functions as needed
Serves from time to time as Project Manager or project team member on a variety of subject matter expertise organizational projects or stretch assignments as assigned by the Portfolio Steering Committee (PSC) of the agency Project Management Office (PMO). These assignments will implement broad strategic and organizational agency goals
Grants:
Performs a wide variety of general and specialized accounting functions pertaining to grant funded projects.
Prepares the paperwork for all cash requests (draws) from the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Electronic Clearing House Operation System (ECHO-Web).
Examines the financial status of each grant to be drawn and runs a database query report that details the grant’s check payments included in a particular draw.
Verifies voucher, requisitions and other financial data for accuracy, completeness and conformance with funding guidelines and accounting procedures.
Develops, prepares and updates regular and specialized financial reports and statements for grants in compliance with Federal, State, local and HART requirements.
Prepares documents supporting monthly accrual amounts for grant expenditures that are based on salary, fringes and route deficits.
Compiles financial data for use in the analyses of grant funded projects.
Serves from time to time as Project Manager or project team member on a variety of subject matter expertise organizational projects or stretch assignments as assigned by the Portfolio Steering Committee (PSC) of the agency Project Management Office (PMO). These assignments will implement broad strategic and organizational agency goals.