Staff Accountant-Administration Milwaukee Office

STAFF ACCOUNTANT - ADMINISTRATION
MILWAUKEE OFFICE
MARCH 20, 2023

Legal Action of Wisconsin (LAW), Inc. is seeking to fill one full-time Staff Accountant position. This position is under the direction of the firm's Controller. The Staff Accountant will be assigned responsibilities to perform or help oversee the daily operations of the firm's accounting department. Since we are so heavily grant funded, understanding grant accounting would be desired, but not required, to perform this job as these tasks would require recording expenses and revenue at the grant level in the general ledger. The Staff Accountant is in the administrative division of the Milwaukee office.

LEGAL ACTION OF WISCONSIN, INC
Legal Action is a non-profit law firm, funded by the federal Legal Services Corporation, the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation, and other sources. Legal Action provides free legal aid services to about 13,500 low-income persons annually in the southern 39 counties of Wisconsin with offices in Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Oshkosh, Green Bay, and La Crosse. In addition, Legal Action operates a statewide farmworker project. Legal Action attorneys have expertise in a range of substantive areas, but most direct representation is in the areas of housing, public benefits, removing barriers to employment, consumer law, and family law. Legal Action attorneys specialize in specific areas of legal aid work and provide high-quality and aggressive representation and maintain a direct service caseload on behalf of individual clients and engage in law reform litigation and other impact work.

Legal Action of Wisconsin believes that equal justice under law can only be achieved through the collaboration of a diverse staff. We strongly encourage applications from people of color, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, women, and people with life experiences or educational backgrounds that add to the firm’s diversity and our capacity to provide high-quality legal aid.

OFFICE LOCATION
The Milwaukee Area Office staff is located at 633 West Wisconsin Avenue and is comprised of approximately 42 attorneys, 18 paralegals, and 15 other administrative, professional and technical staff. LAW has prioritized staff and client safety throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. LAW provides telecommuting options, flexible schedules, and remote access to certain job responsibilities.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
The Staff Accountant Performs routine accounting duties that require thorough knowledge and application of generally accepted accounting principles, practices, and concepts that impact the operations and management of the agency.

Accounts Receivable:
• Performs daily financial transactions including verifying, classifying, computing, posting and recording account receivables, including grants and other receivables, and reconciling the account receivables ledger.
• Reviews and monitors grant revenue actual to budget and alerting CFO and Controller of any material variances.
• Reviews expenses by funding sources and properly invoice funders for incurred expenses.
Accounts Payable:
• Performs accounts payable functions by ensuring that all invoices submitted for payment are recorded accurately for the period, and coded to the proper grant, department, purpose, location, etc., and reconcile the accounts payable ledger.
Journal Entries and Account Reconciliation:
• Makes proper journal entries and maintains the general ledger.
• Prepares reconciliation of balance sheet accounts (including bank accounts and others).
• Participates in month-end closing and monthly financial reporting process.
Grant Accounting:
• Tracks and records all grant activity including revenues, expenses, accounts receivables and deferred revenue on grant reports.
• Creates financial statements in the accounting software for each grant including reconciliation of the revenue and expenses.
• Prepares grant budgets for discussion and presentation to the organization’s management and funding sources.
• Prepares of funding source financial statements and client service reports to the oversight authority.
• Effectively works with management and communicates on all aspects of the grant financials.
Month-End/Financial Statements:
• Assists with preparing accurate, timely financial statements in accordance with our established schedule and with input from the rest of the accounting department, including comparative budget to actual.
• Assists with preparing forecasts and projections of cash flow and other performance indicators.
Year-End:
• Assists in the preparatory work for each financial audit including preparation and review of accounting schedules, preparation of journal entries, and communicate with auditors during audits.
• Prepares grant, government, and service reports, from Client database Legal Server and assists in tracking year to date expenses.
Compliance:
• Maintains physical inventory system including updating spreadsheets, inventory database, tagging new items and processing disposal forms including auditing assets as required by grant funders.
• Spots errors and suggest ways for improving procedures.
• Ensures compliance with GAAP standards.
• Ensures proper record retention is upheld for all financial records.
Other Job Duties:
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

The Staff Accountant will also be expected to perform other duties related to the administration of the program which are not related to the substantive legal work of the program.

COVID-19 VACCINATION POLICY
At Legal Action of Wisconsin, health and safety is a top priority. We require all new, unrepresented employees and interns, law clerks, volunteers, and contractors from employment agencies or consulting firms to have completed their COVID-19 vaccinations and booster and to provide medical proof from Wisconsin's Immunization Registry or from a medical provider of their fully vaccinated status as a condition of employment with Legal Action of Wisconsin within 28 days of their first day of employment. Individuals may request a medical or religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT
The position involves sedentary work, working in a stationary position for an extended period, operating a computer, and using a telephone. Specific vision abilities required for this job include close vision of a computer screen. The position may require driving a motor vehicle while seated for short trips and/or extensive travel. The position requires occasional reaching, bending, kneeling, and stooping to retrieve assorted items and materials and the need to exert up to 10 pounds of force to lift, carry, push, or otherwise move objects.

SALARY
The salary range for this position is $46,814 to $91,288 annually. The starting salary is based on total years of relevant work experience (for example, $46,814 for 0 year of experience and $53,316 for 5 years of experience, $59,818 for 10 years of experience, $66,320 for 15 years of experience and $72,562 for 20 years of experience). Thirty-six (36) years of experience, at an annual salary of $91,288, is the maximum salary step for the Staff Accountant salary range.

Legal Action’s salary plan provides for an annual step increase as long as the Staff Accountant is meeting performance expectations. Salaries are not negotiable and will follow the experience-based salary range.

SPANISH OR HMONG LANGUAGE FLUENCY PREMIUM
Legal Action’s Salary Administration Plan includes additional pay of up to $4,800 annually for those employees who are fluent in Spanish or Hmong and utilize their language skills in performing their work

FRINGE BENEFITS
Legal Action provides a generous fringe benefit package which currently includes employer-paid health and dental insurance for employee, spouse, and family, and life and long-term disability insurance; voluntary employee-paid income protection benefits for employees and their dependents, a 401-K salary deferral plan, a profit-sharing retirement plan contribution; generous sick leave accrual; and four weeks of vacation leave and four days of personal leave per year. (Legal Action employees with a spouse may be required to contribute $200/month to the health insurance premium if the spouse has other health insurance available.)

GOVERNANCE AND SUPERVISION
This position is subject to a probationary period of up to six months. This position is governed by LAW's personnel policies, which are subject to unilateral change by the LAW Board of Directors. As with any LAW position, there is no guaranteed period of employment and employment is "at will," subject to termination at any time.

This position will be supervised by Joseph Benson, Controller for Legal Action of Wisconsin.