Senior Administrative Officer

Join to apply for the Senior Administrative Officer role at Vanderbilt University 1 month ago Be among the first 25 applicants Join to apply for the Senior Administrative Officer role at Vanderbilt University Get AI-powered advice on this job and more exclusive features. Position Summary The Senior Administrative Officer, Finance is part of the finance and administration team for Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and the Vanderbilt Divinity School and is responsible for high-level support of administrative and financial operations of the schools. Reporting directly to the Chief Business Officer (CBO) of the schools, this position analyzes and monitors all Blair School and Divinity School operating funds and endowments, gifts, research, and grants projects as the Data Analyst and Grants Manager (GM). Working closely with the CBO, the Senior Administrative Officer develops, analyzes, and conducts complex financial analyses to assess the viability of strategic and financial programs and independently develops internal procedures and financial reports. This position provides analytical support to faculty and staff on the activities and operations of the schools that they manage or have direct impact on. In coordination with the Associate Administrative Officer, works with faculty and staff to ensure their budgets are transparent, and activities do not exceed budget parameters, and monitors systems and procedures to ensure compliance with accounting principles, University, State, and Federal regulations, and audit requirements. In conjunction with the Deans’ staff, CBO and other school partners, designs, implements, and updates operating policies and procedures, and monitors on an ongoing basis to ensure best practices are in place. The Senior Administrative Officer, Finance serves as the backup HCM Specialist to the Senior Administrative Officer, HR for all faculty and staff employment transactions, and serves as the backup Financial Unit Manager (FUM) to the Associate Administrative Officer for review/approval of all financial transactions. This position will interface with a wide constituency of partners across the school and University, including regular interactions with senior-level administrators. The Senior Administrative Manager, Finance will enjoy balancing routine reporting schedules and deadlines with ad hoc reporting and project requests. A strong foundation in accounting and finance coupled with the ability to understand the details and their impact on the big picture and overall operations is also necessary. A demonstrated desire, passion, and drive for providing excellent and timely deliverables; building an understanding of the complexity of the campus community; and fostering constituent trust and confidence is needed in all engagement and undertakings. The Senior Administrative Officer, Finance also performs essential operational and project management assignments as assigned. About the Work Unit: About the Blair School of Music: Situated on Vanderbilt Campus in the heart of Nashville, TN, the Blair School of Music is a vibrant and fast-paced school at Vanderbilt University, focused on the personal and professional education of highly talented young musicians who demonstrate exceptional artistic capacity and a motivation to help shape the world through music. The school has approximately 115 full and part-time faculty members and industry professionals who teach an estimated 260 music majors, 65 music minors and second majors, and 800 Blair Academy students (comprised of pre-college and adult students) Vanderbilt is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. It offers more than 70 undergraduate majors and a full range of graduate and professional degrees across 11 schools and colleges, all on a beautiful campus—an accredited arboretum—complete with athletic facilities and state-of-the-art laboratories. Vanderbilt is optimized to inspire and nurture cross-disciplinary research that fosters discoveries that have global impact. About the Divinity School: The Divinity School administrators and staff comprise a team committed to excellence in theological education. From different composite areas: admissions, community life, academics, special programming, communications, theological and religious library resources, and development and alumni relations, each person contributes to an innovative and collegial environment. The unit as a whole is committed to the mission of both the University and the Divinity School. We seek to lead the nation in the care, preparation, and professional qualification of our students to the religious and theological professions. In a global and multi-religious world, the Divinity school seeks to fulfill the following objectives:

• to engage in theological inquiry;
• to help persons prepare for the practice of Christian ministry and public leadership;
• to encourage personal and spiritual formation;
• to prepare agents of social justice; and
• to educate future scholars and teachers, locally and globally.

Key Functions and Expected Performance: Financial Analysis (25%)

• Analyzes and reports on current and long-range financial and operational activity, including routine and ad hoc reporting.
• Uses advanced knowledge of spreadsheets; presentation tools; and Vanderbilt systems to analyze, understand, and prepare reporting of trends/variances/or other needs to determine correlations with Blair and Divinity goals and recommends appropriate courses of action.
• Develops high quality deliverables with metrics for analysis and decision making.
• Works closely with the Chief Business Officer and other constituents to develop a deep understanding of operational and financial drivers and challenges at Blair and Divinity.
• Builds the story visually and verbally, effectively using a full range of tools – including spreadsheets, graphs/graphics, and narratives.
• Presents insightful information in ways to reach and speak to the target audience.
• Investigates and analyzes detailed accounting system transactions to understand activity, look for inconsistencies and errors, and recommend improvements.
• Compiles data and prepares narratives for accreditation and stewardship reports.
• Analyzes future trends and indicators in related areas of interest for each school; reviews data periodically to analyze trends affecting budget needs using a broad knowledge of economic and financial information in conjunction with Vanderbilt University budget calendars.
• Serves as a financial officer for the Divinity School’s Field Education program to ensure budget, as well as financial responsibilities to intern supervisors, are met.
• Reviews and approves Graduate Award Forms and/or batch upload spreadsheets for Graduate and Professional degree programs at the Divinity School to ensure the students’ financial aid is costed appropriately.
• Reviews and approves Blair School and Divinity School Student Prizes/Awards through the Office of Student Financial Aid to ensure the students are awarded for their academic accomplishments.
• Serves as back-up to Associate Administrative Officer for review and approval of financial transactions for Blair School and Divinity School in the Oracle Cloud system, including procurement requisitions, expense reports (including travel and entertainment), and procurement card expense reports.

Budgeting and Forecasting (25%)

• Provides quarterly revenue/projections/spending analysis to Blair School and Divinity School major programs to ensure all the expenses are allowable and recorded appropriately.
• Reconciles endowment distributions on a quarterly basis to ensure accurate application to faculty salaries, scholarships, and programmatic funds; monitors fund balances and spending to ensure compliance with donor intent and fiscal year deadlines.
• In collaboration with the Blair and Divinity Senior Administrative Officer, HR, reviews and updates personnel expense models to ensure accurate projection of all personnel expenses. Works closely with SAO, HR to understand the various systems and processes involved in personnel expense management.
• Reconciles Blair guest artist and faculty travel endowment projects monthly.
• Develops financial forecasting models which support the development of budgets and projections.
• Supports development of annual operating and capital budgets and monthly financial forecasts.
• Assesses financial projections compared to budget, as well as to financial drivers and past and future decisions.
• Develops tuition and scholarships financial models and processes to ensure accurate billing, reconciliation, and projection of net tuition revenue.
• Generates monthly and quarterly variance analysis and trend reporting.
• Analyzes Divinity School scholarships and Blair Academy scholarship endowment funds on a quarterly basis to ensure the endowed distributed revenue is spent within fiscal year.
• Forecasts revenue for endowed lectures/student awards and library funds on a quarterly basis to ensure the information is available to stakeholders for funds distribution.
• Analyzes and projects revenue salary distribution for all Chair endowments to make sure all the revenue is distributed to Chair faculty salaries accordingly.

Accounting (15%)

• Reconciles checks/cash/credit card revenue for Blair School and Divinity School to ensure the payments are deposited and recorded appropriately, including making deposits and preparing monthly cash management upload templates.
• Oversees external transactions and reporting for Blair School event ticketing and performances, ensuring timely reconciliation.
• Prepares and reconciles journal entries related to ticketing revenue to ensure accurate recording and alignment with event activity.
• Prepares and submits monthly tax report related to sales.
• Monitors, reconciles, and analyzes Accounts Receivable balance related to the Blair Academy, preparing year-end journal entries as appropriate.
• Reconciles Blair Academy scholarship entry in Destiny One and records the expense and offsetting endowment revenue in Oracle Cloud on a quarterly basis.
• Reconciles Divinity professional student scholarship entry to ensure accuracy and availability of funds on a quarterly basis.
• Reconciles and prepares Divinity School Doctor of Ministry revenue share payment once per semester.

Grants Manager (10%)

• Manages all pre and post award grants activities for Divinity School and Blair School of Music.
• Pre – Award activities include developing budgets in accordance with sponsor guidelines and expense factors: analyzing sponsor guidelines for all grant proposal submissions; developing, reviewing and submitting grant proposals in VERA to ensure all the grants’ proposals are entered and approved internally.
• Post – Award activities include developing budget revisions for existing awards; serving as the primary contact for grant’s rollover activities; producing grants annual financial reports to sponsors as needed; conducting grants transactions review to ensure all costs posting to external or internal grants are allowable and appropriate and are consistent with sponsor guidelines.
• Other grant activities include processing retroactive costing transfers for all unallowable transactions; requesting, monitoring, and reviewing subcontract invoices; monitoring approaching end dates for all grants; managing the financial aspects of no-cost extension, and closeout activities for all grant/contract projects.
• Serves as a manager for ECRT (effort certifications) for grants to ensure all faculty effort is recorded and approved in the system.
• Serves as CORES and ILAB administrator to ensure all charges are costed correctly, and projects added to the applications.
• Provides financial grants information for the annual budget to the CBO.

Operations (25%)

• Regularly reviews CBO Toolbox reports and notifies staff as needed to take action.
• Administers PCI compliance for Blair Academy, Blair Performing Arts Center, and other programs as needed.
• Manages Lifelong Learning audit, refunds, report review in Destiny One platform.
• Manages and updates internal costing/project numbers spreadsheet. Shares updated spreadsheet with Blair School and Divinity School procurement requestors.
• Provides financial onboarding, Oracle Cloud and ongoing support to encourage adherence to University and School policies and procedures and offers training as needed.
• Functions as back-up to the Senior Administrative Officer, HR for all HCM transactions.
• Functions as back-up to the Associate Administrative Officer for all FUM transactions.
• Prepares comprehensive annual stewardship reports on gift and endowed fund usage for submission to Development and Alumni Relations.
• Works closely with external departments, e.g., Finance, Development and Alumni Relations, and Internal Audit, on budget, accounting, and audit issues.
• Tracks, funds, and administers commitments to individual faculty members and areas.
• Manages closeout of fiscal year-end, including analysis of all projects for application of First-Dollar Principle, identification of any deficits, and submission of necessary adjusting entries or accruals.
• Assists the Chief Business Officer with special projects and analyses as needed, occasionally requiring the identification and development of novel data sources and methods of analysis.
• Plans, executes, and manages projects as assigned.
• Other responsibilities as assigned.

Supervisory Relationships: This position has supervisory responsibility over the Associate Administrative Officer and mentors staff on VU financial and School policies and procedures. This position reports administratively and functionally to the Chief Business Officer for the Blair School of Music and the Divinity School. Education and Certifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited institution of higher education is necessary.
• Master’s Degree in Business Administration from an accredited institution of higher education is preferred.

Experience and Skills:

• 5 years of financial background, including budgets and grants, is necessary.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an environment requiring strong attention to detail is necessary.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and in a highly collaborative setting is necessary.
• Aptitude to solve problems in a timely manner and prioritize responsibilities appropriately is necessary.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are necessary.
• Professionalism, maturity, and experience with the prudent handling of confidential and highly sensitive information is necessary.
• Ability to make administrative/procedural decisions and judgments is necessary.
• Ability to perform complex tasks and to prioritize multiple projects is necessary.
• Dependable, motivated, and willing to learn is necessary.
• Expert Excel, Word and PowerPoint skills are necessary.
• Experience with Oracle or similar ERP systems, and familiarity with Vanderbilt policies and procedures, is preferred.
• Familiarity with systems used for reporting and presentations is necessary.
• Strong data analysis and reporting skills with an inquisitive approach to interpreting the data, anticipating constituent questions, and/or capturing the context is necessary.
• Ability to effectively distill complex data to essential elements is necessary.
• Derives energy from working closely and collaboratively as a team to make positive impact but also able to work independently on projects while providing appropriate work status updates is necessary.

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