Assistant Director of Finance

Department
 

Law Administration and Budget

About the Department
 

The University of Chicago Law School occupies a unique niche among this country's premier law schools. Located on a residential campus in one of America's great cities, UChicago Law offers a rigorous and interdisciplinary professional education that blends the study of law with the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Students, faculty, and staff form a small, tightly knit community devoted to the life of the mind.

Job Summary
 

Reporting to the Associate Dean for Finance and Administration, the Assistant Director of Finance uses financial knowledge and applicable skills, methods, and practices in support of Law School budget and operations functions.

The University recently undertook a Financial Systems Transformation (FST) to replace the University’s 40 year old, cobalt based Financial Accounting System with Oracle Cloud ERP. This role is critical to supporting the Law School’s transition in the overall transformation to Oracle and to a new University Budget Model.

Responsibilities

• Understands Law School and internal unit priorities and exercises that knowledge to help achieve goals within budget.

• Assists and provides support to prepare annual budgets, create internal tracking mechanisms, ensure compliance with policies, procedures and leadership’s expectations, and perform research, reporting and analysis as directed.

• Represents the Law School at University financial meetings and events. Keeps abreast of changes to University financial systems, policies, regulations, and guidelines.

• Provides relevant training and act as a resource to faculty and staff; assists internal units with University financial systems, as needed.

• Performs all related accounting functions required to maintain the general ledger, such as monitoring accounts, preparing financial projections and/or reports, and account creation, reconciliation and closing, in compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and University policies and procedures.

• Reconciles monthly financial data, assists in the preparation of monthly variance reports and annual effort reports, supports the yearend close process.

• Makes deposits, tracks gifts, payments and pledges to ensure proper allocation, reconciles stale dated checks and monthly wire transfers.

• Serves as the primary contact for grants and contracts; assists with proposal preparation, maintains records, and prepares audit and closing documentation as needed.

• Processes payments to vendors as needed, assists with account set-up for vendors and independent contractors, advises internal unit administrators on the procurement process.

• Proposes efficiency improvements as needed and manage deadlines.

• Creates and maintains accurate financial resources and content on Law School webpage to provide relevant references, documented processes, and training materials to the Law School community.

• Develops strong working relationships with internal units and University-wide offices.

• Cross-trains to ensure adequate departmental coverage.

• Provides professional support as a primary account administrator for account owners in an intensive customer service environment.

• Analyzes and prepares budgets, creates accounts, and works with the financial accounting system to allocate, authorize, monitor, and control expenses.

• Perform other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications
 

Education:

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

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Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 2-5 years of work experience in a related job discipline.

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Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:  

• Bachelor’s degree in finance or related field strongly preferred. 

Experience: 

• Previous experience in higher education strongly preferred. 

• Experience with Oracle Cloud ERP and/or chart of accounts mapping strongly preferred. 

• Experience training colleagues strongly preferred. 

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).  

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). 

Preferred Competencies

• Strong financial and analytical skills. 

• Communicate accounting and financial information clearl