Business Manager, Center Farm Financial Management

About the Job

The Business Manager will lead and oversee the operations of the Center for Farm Financial Management (CFFM), ensuring smooth day-to-day activities and efficient financial management. In close collaboration with the CFANS finance team, this position will have primary responsibility for managing CFFM's budgets and grants, providing comprehensive oversight of financial operations. This includes the development and monitoring of complex budgets, financial reports, and performance metrics, covering 16 grants and a variety of revenue sources.

This role will also manage and implement a range of operational functions, including grants, contracts, procurements, and compliance, ensuring adherence to university policies and regulations. The Business Manager will serve as the main point of contact for both University and CFANS Finance and Human Resources departments, ensuring smooth coordination across teams. As a key member of the leadership team, the Business Manager will provide strategic planning and analysis, developing processes and tools to streamline monitoring and reporting efforts.

The role will also triage administrative issues, determining which require the attention of the CFFM Director while minimizing unnecessary involvement from the Director in daily operational matters. Additionally, the Business Manager will serve as an advisor to the CFFM Director on wide-reaching initiatives and strategic planning efforts, contributing to the overall vision and growth of CFFM. This is a hybrid position.

The University of Minnesota is currently offering flexible working options. Specifics will be discussed during the interview stage. Starting date is negotiable upon offer.

CFFM Business and Operations Management (55%)

• Lead, monitor, and advance CFFM's operational functions and provide operations guidance to the CFFM director and senior management.
• Monitor and ensure compliance with U of MN policies and procedures and further develop operational standards, policies, and procedures for CFFM as needed.
• Develop relationships with and represent CFFM with university administrative units (including human resources and finance).
• Serve as the resident administrative resource and knowledge base for all other CFFM employees.
• Lead CFFM collaborations with university accounting, procurement, and compliance departments.
• Initiate frequent reviews of workloads related to grants and develop proposals for the CFFM director and CFANS finance team to manage CFFM budget and payroll distributions across grants and programs.
• Oversee the management of software license records and fees for more than 3,000 farmers,
  lenders, and educators across the country. Track licenses for software renewals.
• Compile PCard activity, including receipts, agendas, attendee lists, and substantiating materials, and provide an audit-worthy justification for PCard purchases.
• Partner with CFANS human resources to coordinate the onboarding and offboarding processes for CFFM employees.
• Partner with CFANS human resources to help develop new position descriptions for CFFM.
• Oversee the documentation of CFFM's annual SOC2 security review. Implement an efficient process to track data requirements throughout the year per our SOC2 document and help assemble data and documents required for this review. Be involved in all meetings with the outside auditor. This includes monitoring and reporting administrative activities monthly and quarterly.

Oversight of CFFM Grants (45%)

• Serve as a key member of the grant proposal team that prepares CFFM grant applications with a focus on helping determine the portion of each staff member that will be involved in the project and developing required documents and forms.
• Lead communications with the CFANS finance team regarding the development of grant budgets.
• Conduct the monitoring and tracking of grant related research, development, and training to ensure grant commitments are fulfilled. Monitor progress on grant commitments and schedule regular meetings with the CFFM economist's team to review accomplishments and work remaining on grants.
• Update the CFFM grant monitoring spreadsheet as new grants are obtained and as work is completed.
• Lead communications and liaison with sub-award institutions; monitoring the timeliness of their expenditures and submission of reports. Monitor reporting by the sub-awardees and ensure timely financial and accomplishment reporting.
• Coordinate communication between Sponsored Projects team, sponsors, subawards, and grant partners to ensure timely processing of grant updates and approvals.
• Manage CFFM-sponsored contracts for professional services.
• Facilitate the preparation of progress and final reports for granting agencies and assist principal investigators with the development of the reports.
• Coordinate efforts to ensure that all federal grant reporting is submitted on time including routing these reports through reporting channel, track grant reports due dates, assign appropriate staff to complete the…