Commitment Accountant

Commitment Accountant Be a Tar Heel!

Are you energized by problem solving, data, and making complex financial processes run smoothly? Do you enjoy being the go-to expert that others rely on? Do you enjoy impacting the lives of every employee on campus by working with the team that issues everyone’s paycheck? If so, UNC Chapel Hill’s Payroll Services team would love to meet you!

We’re seeking a Commitment Accountant to join our highly collaborative team supporting the University’s Commitment Accounting operations. This role is essential in keeping payroll funding accurate, compliant, and running like clockwork across our campus community.

UNC Chapel Hill relies on People Soft Commitment Accounting to budget, track, and reconcile personnel costs across the institution. As part of the HR/Payroll team, you’ll help ensure systems stay aligned, payroll runs smoothly, and financial information remains accurate and reliable. Your work will directly support thousands of employees and departments across the University.

Payroll Services processes and issues salary and wage payments to all University employees, processes and remits deductions for federal, state, and local taxes, retirement, and other with holdings, and processes and remits University payments for employee benefits. Payroll Services also reviews and processes personnel actions for pay rolling purposes; reviews and processes TIM (Kronos) transactions for leave and payment, and performs data control and reconciliation functions for earning, taxes, deductions and benefits.

Payroll Services maintains personnel funding records and processes payroll expense distribution along with the reconciliations between the Human Resource and Finance Modules for posting to the General Ledger. Payroll Services monitors payroll compliance, including non-resident alien payroll, and submits reports required for federal, state, and other purposes. Payroll Services serves as the functional lead for Payroll and Commitment Accounting modules within People Soft.

Hybrid:
This position may be eligible for a hybrid work arrangement that may include a partially remote work location, consistent with System Office policy. UNC Chapel Hill employees are generally required to reside within a reasonable commuting distance of their assigned duty station.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill utilizes the People Soft Commitment Accounting module for the budgeting, tracking and expenses of personnel costs. The Commitment Accounting unit is part of the HR/Payroll component and exchanges this information with PS Financials to keep both system in sync and to keep the University financial information accurate. The Commitment Accountant business processes are used to define fiscal year budgets, validate chart field information to be utilized in the payroll runs, and post actual earnings and fringes to the payroll subsidiary and general ledger.

The primary purpose of this position is to assist with the administration and provide campus support of Commitment Accounting functions which heavily focuses on production payroll and their distributions but also connect to related systems such as projections. The position monitors and manages the employee funding process through the processes that bridge HR/Payroll and Finance People Soft modules. This includes maintaining, monitoring, and providing campus support on the People Soft department budget table and PAAT (Payroll Accounting Adjustment Tool);

payroll chart field validation and processing; running the processes that send vendor payment information to Accounts Payable, distribution of salaries, taxes, and benefits to the appropriate chart field strings in the appropriate ledgers, and review and monitoring of the payroll liability accounts. The position runs and analyze queries, research potential error related to position funding and posting of payroll expenses to the General Ledger, and advises on ways to improve those processes.

The position also reviews and analyzes the payroll liability account for variances utilizing various tools including but not limited to SQL. The position also takes lead in Finance module payroll activities such as payroll journal entries, cash deposits, and balance sheet reconciliation.

Mid to late career with Master’s and 2 – 4 years experience;
Bachelor’s and 3 – 5 years experience.

• Experience in Accounting.

• Experience with University personnel funding and/or experience with People Soft Finance, including complex journal entries.
• Working knowledge of modern data analytics tools, including Power BI, AI tools, or SQL/queries.