Finance Assistant

Job Summary

The Finance Assistant coordinates finance related activities in the Michael Smith Laboratories. This position is responsible for providing comprehensive financial and general administrative support to the department faculty, staff, and students. They will work in a team setting and will process complex financial documents including preparing, reviewing and initiating expense reports, expenditure and receivable transactions. Provides guidance and information on various UBC and granting agency policies to faculty, staff, and researchers and ensures they are correctly applied. The Finance Assistant also requires strong interpersonal and customer service skills as it involves frequent problem resolution between researchers, vendors, University departments and/or other entities. The duties will vary from day to day and will involve a wide variety of tasks in the service to the department. When necessary, assists with general office duties as required in the department.

Organizational Status

The Michael Smith Laboratories is an interdisciplinary research unit that supports 25+ faculty members with joint-appointments spanning five UBC Faculties in 16 academic departments. Influential research is carried out in the areas of human health and disease, bioengineering, plant biology and genomics, computational biology, and science education. Faculty have research activities and grants in many different units, making it essential for constant liaison between Faculties and Departments. The Michael Smith Laboratories currently supports 350 students, research personnel, faculty and support staff.

This position reports to the Finance Manager of the Michael Smith Laboratories. The incumbent will interact and communicate regularly with faculty, department staff, research personnel as well as other UBC departments and external vendors or supplies.

Work Performed

• Prepares and processes complex financial documents related to accounts payable or revenue accounting. Requires verification of account worktag and spend category coding, signing authorities, appropriateness of expenditures, and adherence to University policies and generally accepted accounting principles. Processes include but not limited to: accounting journals, expense reports, Internal Service Delivery (ISD) transactions, PO requisitions and receipts, PO and non-PO invoices, spend authorizations, reimbursements, domestic and international travel claims, invoice preparation and cash receipts.

• Submit Workday requests as a delegate on behalf of department members for credit card reconciliations and card profile updates, expense reimbursements, professional development and faculty relocation recoveries, and other finance tasks.

• Investigates and resolves errors and discrepancies in financial data for department faculty and staff. Refers complex problems to the Finance Manager.

• Interprets and maintains updated knowledge of UBC and grant agencies policies, communicates them accurately and ensures they are correctly applied to all completed financial transactions. Attends training sessions on new and updated UBC and external granting agencies’ policies and procedures.

• Reconciles, monitors, investigates and resolves errors and discrepancies on Department’s operating worktags (programs, grants, gifts and projects) and UBC VISA Program; taking appropriate corrective actions and following up on outstanding items.

• Assesses the accuracy of GST, PST and/or HST on invoices and self-assesses taxes.

• Responds to vendor and customer queries and follows-up on cheque payments and wire transfers.

• Reviews funding availability on research grants and prepares internal summary spreadsheet with grant balances for faculty.

• Acts as a finance subject matter expert in Workday, trains staff, faculty and students on the various workflows.

• Creates and updates Supplier profiles, and worktags as necessary.

• Supports University year-end financial statement preparation by performing duties such as year-end accruals.

• Provides input for department finance policies and procedures, drafts routine correspondence or basic training material and provides input on the development of training material.

• Assists with file management and archiving of all accounting documentation required to be kept in the department for audit and reference purposes.

• Assists with document preparation for audits.

• On requests, provides general administrative support on various document preparations for department staff or faculty.

• Updates faculty CVs, (e.g. UBC, Canadian Common CV, agency specified CVs); maintains publication and invited presentations listings.

• Covers for the department Receptionist when they are on lunch, vacation, or sick leave. Processes incoming and outgoing courier shipments, room booking requests, responds to written and oral inquiries, among other duties.

• Assists the Administrative Manager on special projects.

• Helps to monitors the social environment and participate in developing systems to ensure regular social activities are planned that contribute to staff team building.

• Performs other duties related to the qualifications and requirements of the job as assigned.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

This position is required to exercise considerable tact, discretion and initiative in the performance of duties. A high level of security and confidentiality is required in all financial transactions. This position is responsible for ensuring all financial information entered into Workday is accurate, appropriate and substantiated by proper back-up. Information and recommendations must be correct and provided in a respectful, timely and supportive way. Interactions with other department and outside organization requires excellent communications skills and tact to avoid negative impact on the department and University image.

Errors in judgement and poor customer services will result in significant financial and reputational losses. Payment delays can result in poor relations with supplies/vendors. Errors in Workday could result in inappropriate financial management decisions.

Supervision Received
Reports to the Finance Manager. Works independently under general supervision in accordance with established procedures.

Supervision Given
None

Minimum Qualifications
High school graduation, plus two-year post-secondary diploma in accounting, plus three years of relevant accounting experience, or an equivalent combination of education and related experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

Demonstrated knowledge or/and ability to apply generally accepted accounting principles. Computer experience required with preference given to Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and OneDrive.

• Ability to identify and correct missing and incomplete data.

• Ability to prioritize and work effectively under pressure to meet deadlines.

• Ability to anticipate problems and issues and plan ahead.

• Ability to efficiently and effectively coordinate tasks.

• Ability to effectively manage multiple tasks.

• Ability to be thorough, accurate and have a high level of attention to detail.

• Ability to enter, retrieve, correct, and interpret data in Workday.

• Effective oral and written communication, interpersonal, planning and organizational skills.

• Ability to work effectively independently and in a team environment.

• Ability to provide quality service to customers in a courteous, respectful and patient manner.

• Ability to deal with a diversity of people in a calm, courteous, and effective manner, and to develop and maintain cooperative and productive working relationships.

• Ability to exercise tact, good judgment and initiative in decision-making and problem solving.