Accountant: Grants and Funding

About the role

Purpose of the role

The Grant and Fund Accounting Consultant supports the Director of Finance on GFNE's grant and fund accounting. GFNE works with an external accounting firm that handles core bookkeeping, reconciliations, and the monthly close. This role is the organization's hands-on, day-to-day link to that firm: preparing and reviewing source information, resolving fund and grant coding questions, and quality-checking the firm's work before it reaches the Director of Finance.

The role suits someone who is organized and detail-driven, comfortable managing an external relationship alongside a steady accounting cadence, and able to keep the close, the audit, and funder deadlines on track.

Scope of work

The central function of this role is to keep GFNE's grant and fund accounting running smoothly in partnership with the external accounting firm, in support of the Director of Finance. The Consultant is the day-to-day point of contact for the firm, makes the fund and grant coding decisions, and quality-checks the firm's output, escalating only exceptions and strategic decisions to the Director of Finance.

These tasks fall across the areas below. The points under each are illustrative of the kind of work involved rather than an exhaustive list.

• Grant and fund accounting:

- Make the fund and grant coding decisions in the general ledger, guiding the firm on how transactions map to each award's chart of accounts and budget categories. - Track grant budgets against actual expenditures and prepare budget-to-actual variance analyses by funding source, using the data the firm produces. - Confirm that indirect cost rates and cost allocation methods are applied consistently across grants and programs. - Monitor grant spending timelines and flag under or over-spending, no-cost extension needs, or budget modifications to the Director of Finance. - Maintain grant files with executed agreements, budgets, modifications, and correspondence in an organized, audit-ready way.

• General ledger and core accounting:

- Provide the firm with coded transactions, approvals, and supporting backup for journal entries, accruals, and reclassifications each month. - Review the bank, credit card, and balance sheet reconciliations prepared by the firm, and resolve open reconciling items. - Manage accounts payable and accounts receivable coding and approval routing, handing processed batches to the firm. - Review the monthly financial statements produced by the firm (statement of financial position, statement of activities, statement of functional expenses), segmented by fund and program, and confirm accuracy before distribution.