ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT

City of Farmington • Farmington, NM

13d • $22 - $34 • Onsite

About The Position

The City of Farmington is seeking an Accounting Assistant to join their Administrative Services/Finance Department. This is a regular, full-time position located at the West Annex, working Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Accounting Assistant works under the instruction of the Enterprise Accountant and the supervision of the Deputy Administrative Services Director. This role performs a variety of accounting procedures, manages daily spreadsheets for month-end balancing, compiles revenue and statistical reports, and prepares various tax reports. The position requires a strong understanding of accounting principles, excellent communication and analytical skills, and the ability to manage a heavy workload under pressure.

Requirements

• Graduation from an accredited two-year college or university with a degree in accounting, finance, business or public administration, or a closely related field, or any equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to perform the duties of the position.
• Extensive background checks required.
• Valid New Mexico driver's license with acceptable driving record for the past three years.
• Knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) statements, theories, and practices.
• Comprehensive knowledge of computer applications and software packages. Including, but not limited to, Central Square Public Sector, MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Access, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Google email software, and other electronic document management systems is required.
• Excellent verbal communication, written communication, analytical and problem-solving, and customer service skills.
• Must effectively communicate with management, purchasing staff, inter-departmental customers and suppliers. Communications must be efficient and timely to keep all informed of issues and pertinent activities that affect them.
• Ability to establish priorities, work independently, and proceed with objectives with minimal supervision.
• Ability to meet deadlines, prioritize work, and be flexible with work assignments.
• Strong work ethic, displaying initiative, adaptability, and integrity.
• Ability to work under stress and handle stressful situations AND/OR must be able to manage a heavy workload under pressure with tight deadlines and frequent interruptions.
• Ability to establish and maintain working relationships with co-workers, supervisors, other City personnel and the public.

Nice To Haves

• Comprehensive knowledge of utility accounting, reporting regulations, operating and expenditure accounts, and work orders related to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is preferred.
• Working knowledge of the State of New Mexico regulations on gross receipts sales tax is preferred.
• Comprehensive knowledge of municipality accounting regulations as determined by the state is preferred.
• Working knowledge of modern office practices and procedures.
• Ability to utilize IBM AS/400 computer terminal to input data is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Works under the instruction of the Enterprise Accountant.
• Works under the supervision of the Deputy Administrative Services Director.
• Performs a variety of accounting procedures in the Finance division.
• Responsible for implementing the goals, standards and objectives of the Administrative Services Department as well as the goals, standards and objectives of the division.
• Keeps management and customers fully and timely informed of pertinent activities that affect them.
• As a member of a work team must exercise personal initiative and be a team player at the same time - willing and able to coordinate and cooperate with a variety of customer, supplier and colleague requirements.
• Maintains system of utility work orders for proper accounting and FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) compliance.
• Verifies account numbers and work orders on reports and purchase requisitions.
• Manages preparation of daily spreadsheets for month end balancing and reports, which includes: utility billing revenue, construction work-in-progress, plant-in-service, and customer utility deposit accounts.
• Compiles revenue and statistical utility billing report for Enterprise Accountant.
• Balances work orders to construction work-in-progress, plant-in-service, and other accounts in the general ledger.
• Prepares gross receipts sales tax, governmental sales tax, ad valorem tax, withholding tax, Navajo sales tax, and water conservation fee tax reports.
• Calculates asset retirement costs for the Electric Utility using Handy Whitman price deflator and tracks retirement and asset removal costs in spreadsheet.
• Unitizes closed work requests, identifying and comparing major asset actual costs with cost estimates. Adjusting journal entries must be made after each work order is closed and unitized that capture all the cost of the asset in the Electric plant-in-service general ledger accounts, properly accounting for customer's contributed capital, removal costs, and year-to-date depreciation for the asset.
• Various general ledger accounts (plant in service, work in progress, accumulated depreciation, construction not classified etc.) must be balanced each month.
• Each work request must be analyzed to determine if capital assets are created or if the request is for maintenance work and the appropriate accounting entries must be made.
• Daily balancing of utility billing and pooled cash (comparison of entries generated from Electric Customer Service with general ledger amounts). Daily balancing of cash accounts for all utilities.
• Monthly duties include preparation of the CRS-1 Report (payment of gross receipts taxes, governmental taxes, compensating taxes, and State of NM withholding taxes.) Monthly revenue reports are generated from the Central Square system by utility service. Reports are broken down by service, jurisdiction and rate class. Report is compared with taxes collected for the month from customers in the general ledger accounts. Calculation of compensating tax owed on construction materials.
• Verification of revenue from tax exempt customers must be made each month by running a query on the Central Square system. The final CRS-1 report is filed on-line monthly and payment is made by ACH.
• Navajo sales tax is tracked monthly and a tax return is prepared with payment by FPO (Field Purchase Order) quarterly.
• Monthly the water conservation fee is calculated, return is prepared and payment is made by FPO.
• Prepares annual application for the Electric Utility Ad Valorem tax. Monthly the expense is accrued.
• Prepares monthly franchise tax payments.
• Compiles revenue and statistical utility billing report for Enterprise Accountant. Monthly utility statistics report are prepared for the four utilities.
• Monthly procedure of "WF Month End" is ran which assigns overhead amounts for Electric work requests and takes all costs (materials, labor, overhead, and other miscellaneous charges) and creates an entry for every City work request that charges various general ledger work-in-progress accounts and an associated contra work in progress account. Accuracy of this procedure is crucial.
• Monthly Electric overhead entries, and wages and benefits are transferred from various Electric divisions to the Electric construction division. An adjusting journal entry is then made into the ERP system.
• Monthly warning tag revenues are transferred from the Electric Utility to the Water and Wastewater Utilities.
• Monthly entries are made to accrue interest and amortization expenses for long-term debt.
• Monthly Interdepartmental billing reconciliation. Ensures the reconciliation is balanced and will follow up with Accounting Techs Supervisor on any descrepancies.
• Responsible for entering adjusting journal entries for the Enterprise Accountant.
• Monthly depreciation is computed in the Continuing Property Records (CPR) module in Central Square NaviLine for all City assets. The report is ran, amounts in the plant-in-service accounts in the general ledger are reconciled with amounts in the CPR system, and adjusting journal entries are made monthly into the general ledger.
• Quarterly aged receivables report by utility are prepared with a graph.
• The accounting assistant files all work requests, all tax reports, adjusting journal entries and periodically boxes, codes and archives all Utility reports.
• Prepares additional monthly, quarterly, and annual utility reports as necessary.
• Generates reports using query software as needed.
• Documents and maintains procedures for job duties within the Finance division.
• Cross train on other positions and train others to be a backup for this position.
• Maintains and adheres to safety procedures.
• Ability to maintain confidential and sensitive material.
• Attendance at work is an essential function of this position.
• Using excellent communication and customer service skills, establishes and maintains effective working relationships with other employees, officials, and all members of the general public.
• May serve on various employee committees, as required and assigned.

Benefits

• The City of Farmington's Drug and Alcohol Testing Policy which includes: pre-employment testing, post-accident testing, reasonable suspicion testing, return to duty testing, and follow-up testing.
• A pre-employment physical and or drug/alcohol test is required for this position.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Associate degree