Accountant – Financial Accounting Support

Job Description

ACCOUNTANT TRAINEE | State of Maryland

The Tone:
This is a full-time role at the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), located in Baltimore, MD. The Department, one of Maryland’s largest with nearly 12,000 employees and a budget exceeding $1 billion, is dedicated to promoting public safety and leading innovative restorative justice projects. Joining the DPSCS team offers an exciting career with excellent benefits, a robust pension, generous leave, a competitive salary, and opportunities for professional growth and advancement. This position provides critical professional accounting support, directly contributing to the department’s financial stability and operational mission.

The TL;DR
• Role: Early Career
• Type: Full-time
• Location: In-person, Baltimore, MD
• Team: Office of Financial Services – Accounting Division
• Mission: To provide essential professional accounting and budget management support for account reconciliation, fiscal operations, and financial analysis within the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
• Tech Stack: Microsoft Excel

What You’ll Actually Do
• Account Management: Maintain, analyze, and adjust account balances by processing daily/monthly credit card payments, recording cash receipts, logging mailed checks, and investigating/clearing discrepancies from the State Treasurer’s Office.
• Budget Support: Provide comprehensive budget management support for ITCD, which includes daily/monthly updates to expenditure projections, extracting necessary reports for budget preparation, and identifying coding errors or adjustments.
• Financial Analysis: Prepare detailed accounting analyses and investigate various accounting-related issues such as invoices, chargebacks, and past incorrect journal entries that may impact clearing accounts, revenues, or expenditures.
• Fiscal Operations: Participate in the department’s year-end closing and budget submission activities, assisting with the preparation and analysis of actual expenditures and supporting the formulation of corrective action plans.
• Journal Entries: Prepare and release daily journal entries, as assigned, and handle periodic requests for expenditure reclassification and adjustment journal entries.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Entry-Level. A Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from an accredited college or university, including or supplemented by three credit hours in auditing, is required.
• Experience: No prior professional experience is explicitly required. However, preference will be given to candidates with experience applying Government accounting principles and regulations, or Maryland state financial policies and procedures.
• Skills: Financial Record Keeping: Ability to maintain, analyze, and adjust account balances, including processing payments, recording receipts, and reconciling accounts; Budgetary Support: Capacity to provide budget management, including updating expenditure projections and identifying discrepancies; Data Analysis: Aptitude for detailed accounting analysis and investigation of financial issues; Communication: Fluent in spoken and written English; Software Proficiency: Competency in Microsoft Excel or similar spreadsheet software.
• Bonus: Professional working fluency in Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, or any other language is a plus.