AR Accounting Assistant

Position Summary

Located 45 minutes from the Nation's Capital, nestled in a history-rich community of southern Maryland, The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) is a two-time Aspen Award-winning institution (top 15% of Community Colleges) with academic programs in over 100 disciplines. CSM is among America's top 100 producers of Minority Associate Degrees in twenty categories, according to Diverse Issues in Higher Education. CSM offers excellent health insurance benefits; State Retirement Pension plan; wellness programs; Code Green early closure Fridays in the summer; college closure for spring break and several major holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year; and for several days in March for Spring Break. We are an innovative institution committed to student success and well known for our flexibility to meet student and community needs.

The AR Accounting Assistant communicates for the Bursar Office at the Prince Frederick Campus daily via in person, phone and email with students, third party billing employers, parents, college personnel and contracted entities. The individual in this position processes cash, checks and credit card transactions for students, third party payers, staff, and other departments. The AR Accounting Assistant interacts daily with partnering student service areas including Admissions, Registrar's Office, Financial Aid Office, Testing Center, Continuing Education and Workforce Development, Veteran's Affairs, College Stores, Accounting, Accounts Payable and Advising in solving problems and answering questions regarding payments, billing, restrictions, protections, current balances due, collections, petty cash, refunds, waivers and student/company tuition assistance processes. The AR Accounting Assistant reports to the Bursar.

The College of Southern Maryland conducts background checks in order to ensure the safety and well-being of the College's staff and students. The final candidate for this position will be subject to the following background checks: Criminal History Check and Sex Offender Registry Check.

This position is open until filled. The College of Southern Maryland is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

Essential Functions:

• Fields all incoming Student Accounts Services phone calls regarding payments, billings, financial aid refund reimbursements, general refunds, payment plans, third party billing, book vouchers, protections, de-registration for non-payments, financial restrictions and other inquiries.

• Maintains database integrity and ensuring correct registration billing for designated student type.

• Maintains Bursar's Office voice mail system, returning voice mail messages to students or deferring to appropriate staff member.

• Processes cash, checks and credit card transactions for students, third party payers, staff, and other departments.

• Processes tuition/fee payments on current term, prior terms and write off, and collections accounts.

• Manually invoices and posts payments for transcripts, testing, clemencies, replacement diplomas other miscellaneous charges.

• Posts dual enrollment payments receipted by Admissions Department and assists students/parents with waivers and payments from public schools.

• Re-bills student accounts for drops, section billing corrections, residency updates, waivers and appeals.

• Reviews aging reports for balances due, applying financial restriction codes and mailing statements.

• Add, update and delete multiple protection codes for student types not incorporated into the automated de-registration process.

• Assists cashiers from other campuses when needed.

• Performs daily cash reconciliation: researches discrepancies, prepares daily deposit slip for cash transactions, credit card machine transactions, prepares checks for AC Accounting Specialist II to remote deposit, balances integrated data system transactions to deposit for credit cards, checks, money orders and cash.

• Distributes petty cash for staff and balancing reimbursements to Accounts Payable.

• Processes mail-in/fax-in/walk-in student registration payments: verifies registration, validates registration charges and post payment to student account noting any payment discrepancies and follow-up.

• Reviews and assists with college store financial aid and/or tuition assistance credits book vouchers to appropriate students with financial aid, tuition assistance paperwork or as needed.

• Scans and links ImageNow documentation and assists Student Account Services staff with tuition assistance electronic forms, payment plans and cashier receipts.

• Daily electronic document management using Adobe PDF's and printing cashier sessions, checks, other supporting forms to ImageNow.

• Provides secondary back up to multiple shared email accounts in the Student Account Services Office.

Additional Duties:

• Performs other related work as required.

Minimum Education and Training

• High school diploma required

• Two years of cash handling experience required

• Two years of customer service required

• Preferred experience with an integrated data system, preferable one year with Colleague

• Preferred experience in higher education

• Preferred experience with Microsoft Outlook and Teams platforms

• Demonstrated ability to handle multiple tasks and shifting priorities

• Demonstrated ability to communicate and interact effectively at all levels of the organization

Minimum Qualifications and Standards Required

• Flexibility is required. Evening and Saturday hours will be required during peak times

• Will be required to be on campus to provide in-person customer service during operational hours

• Must be available to provide coverage at other campus locations

• Accurate data entry and word processing skills

• Residential and secure Internet service required for remote work during unscheduled college closure

• Accurate and precise attention to detail

• Assists team members when needed to accomplish team goals

• Able to use 10-key by touch, with accurate data-entry, and handle high volumes of daily data/information

Physical Requirements:

The work is sedentary work which requires exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly.