Senior Financial Associate: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering - UTK

Job Description

The Senior Financial Associate reports to the Financial Specialist and supports the Principal Business Manager by performing financial management, human resource coordination, and administrative tasks for the unit. This position provides guidance to faculty and staff on fiscal and HR policy compliance, supports sponsored project activity, and ensures adherence to university, state, and granting agency requirements. The Senior Financial Associate represents the unit in a professional manner and makes decisions that directly affect the department’s ability to meet fiscal obligations, maintain compliance, and sustain relationships with internal and external partners.

The Senior Financial Associate performs essential financial duties by validating cash management prepared by other staff, ensuring accurate and timely submission of receipts, guiding internal transfer transactions, and preparing or reviewing journal entries for cost allocations and corrections. The position assists with effort certification, prepares reports for faculty review, and supports processes related to nine-month payroll deferrals, NIH salary cap considerations, and NSF restrictions for sponsored projects.

The Senior Financial Associate provides budget and funding support for externally sponsored projects, assists with monitoring expenditures, reconciles monthly activity, reviews budget projections, and manages close out tasks and contract modification needs. The position works directly with OSP and FMC for pre-award and post-award activity, helps manage internal funding sources such as seed awards and technology fees, and supports processing of cost share and internal funding transactions.

Responsibilities include managing labor distribution schedules, performing analysis and validation, preparing data reports, and assisting with accounts receivable through invoice creation, customer setup, collections, and reconciliation of aged receivables including bad debt write off preparation.

Human resource responsibilities include coordinating all personnel documents such as hiring packets, terminations, retirement forms, leave requests, faculty development leave materials, and final paycheck checklists. The Senior Financial Associate ensures I-9 E-verification compliance, serves as hiring manager for research related positions, manages job postings, distributes candidate files, processes job offer transactions, and coordinates onboarding schedules. The position supports international scholar processes including OPT, visiting researcher activity, and J one requirements, and works closely with CIE, CGE, College HR, and Campus HR to maintain compliance.

The role facilitates new and renewal H one B and J one cases, prepares visiting researcher packages, reviews HR documents for accuracy, evaluates departmental position titles for Actual Wage Certification, confirms departmental financial commitments, generates HR compliance reports, manages payroll costs and projections for sponsored projects, ensures payroll record retention compliance, and processes additional pay transactions related to research and faculty programs.

The Senior Financial Associate also manages Interfolio activity for faculty searches, tenure and promotion cases, and faculty development leave files.

Administrative responsibilities include assisting with timetable entry and report generation, coordinating departmental events through preparation of name tags, venue reservations, decor, contracts, and logistics, organizing guest speaker arrangements, supporting student organization activities, and coordinating seminar related tasks. The Senior Financial Associate…