Accounting Specialist, AP/AR

Accounting Specialist, AP/AR

Reports To: Director of Finance & Strategy
Organization: Communities In Schools of the Dallas Region (CISDR)
Location: Dallas, Texas — Hybrid

Position Summary

Communities In Schools of the Dallas Region is seeking a detail-oriented, systems-oriented Accounting Specialist, AP/AR to own the organization’s day-to-day transactional accounting processes.

This role is responsible for the transactional foundation of the finance function: ensuring that financial activity entered into QuickBooks Online Advanced is accurate, complete, timely, appropriately coded, properly allocated, fully supported, and tied to underlying source systems.

The Accounting Specialist will own day-to-day accounts payable and accounts receivable processing and work across payroll, employee expenses, revenue, grants, and other financial processes to identify discrepancies, obtain missing documentation, correct coding and allocation issues, and ensure clean financial inputs.

This role partners with CISDR’s outsourced Controller/accounting partner who owns the general ledger, month-end close, financial statement preparation, and higher-level accounting review.

Key Responsibilities

Accounts Payable & Transaction Processing

• Enter and maintain vendor bills, credits, payments, and related transaction records in QuickBooks Online Advanced, ensuring completeness, accuracy, appropriate coding, approvals, and supporting documentation.
• Own day-to-day accounts payable processing, including invoice intake, payment preparation, employee reimbursements, corporate card activity, and related transactional accounting processes.
• Apply and validate multidimensional coding across natural account, department, program, grant, funding source, class, location, and other organizational dimensions.
• Manage vendor onboarding and records, including collection of Form W-9s, and follow up with employees, vendors, and internal teams to resolve missing documentation or unclear transactions.
• Administer approval workflows, monitor open payables, reconcile vendor statements, help prevent duplicate invoices, and prepare payments in accordance with separation-of-duties and approval controls.
• Maintain organized, audit-ready supporting documentation and assist with year-end 1099 support.

Accounts Receivable & Cash Receipts

• Prepare and enter customer, grant, contract, program, and partner invoices and billings, including reimbursement requests.
• Record and apply cash receipts, deposits, pledges or contributions receivable, and other receivable activity as directed.
• Manage customer and funder records and supporting documentation.
• Monitor open receivables and aging, follow up on outstanding balances, and tie accounts receivable, cash receipts, and revenue activity to underlying invoices, contracts, contribution records, Salesforce, and other source systems.
• Investigate payment-application and other transaction-level discrepancies through resolution or appropriate escalation and maintain clear documentation of outstanding items.

Coding, Allocations & Transaction Support

• Review coding and allocations to ensure expenses are charged to the appropriate natural account, programs, departments, grants, funding sources, classes, locations, and other required dimensions.
• Validate payroll and other recurring allocation inputs, including source data from Rippling.
• Maintain transaction-level documentation needed to support grant reporting, reimbursement requests, monitoring, and audits.
• Ensure grant-related expenditures are supported by appropriate documentation and source data.
• Identify coding, documentation, or allocation issues and resolve or escalate them before reporting and close.
• Prepare transaction detail and supporting schedules used by finance leadership in grant reporting.

Controller, Close & Process Support

• Complete assigned transactional cutoff and support activities according to the monthly close calendar.
• Provide transaction detail, source documentation, and subledger support for Controller review.
• Identify missing activity, unusual transactions, cutoff issues, or unresolved discrepancies before close and resolve or escalate promptly.
• Support audit and year-end requests by producing organized transaction support.
• Help document and improve recurring AP, AR, accounting processes, workflows, systems, and controls.Responsibilities may evolve over time, and additional transactional accounting tasks, projects, and related duties may be assigned based on organizational needs.

Qualifications Required

• 2–5 years of hands-on transactional accounting experience, including direct responsibility for accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash application, and transaction processing.
• Prior nonprofit accounting experience required.
• Strong understanding of accounting fundamentals, including debits and credits, accrual accounting, coding, allocations, and how transactional activity flows into the general ledger.
• Strong Microsoft Excel skills required, including the ability to work with detailed transaction-level data, perform reconciliations, use formulas and lookups, and prepare clear supporting schedules.
• Strong attention to detail, organization, follow-through, and communication skills.
• Experience with QuickBooks Online or comparable hands-on QuickBooks accounting experience.
• Strong systems aptitude, including the ability to understand how information moves between platforms, identify discrepancies, and learn new technology quickly.

Preferred

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, or related field.
• Experience with QuickBooks Online Advanced.
• Experience with restricted funding, grant- or contract-related transactions, reimbursement requests, or program/fund coding.
• Experience with Ramp, Rippling, Salesforce, fundraising or donor-management systems, or grant-management platforms.

What Success Looks Like

• Day-to-day AP, AR, cash receipt, and transaction-processing activities are completed accurately and on time, with transactions appropriately coded, allocated, approved, and supported by complete documentation.
• Transaction and subledger activity is tied to the relevant accounting and source-system records.
• Grant and program transactions have the coding and transaction-level support needed for accurate reporting.
• Open AP and AR balances, missing documentation, coding issues, and discrepancies are actively monitored and resolved promptly.
• Transaction-level tie-outs and supporting schedules are current, clear, and ready for Controller review.
• Month-end, audit, and grant support can be produced without having to reconstruct underlying transactions.
• Finance leadership and the outsourced Controller can rely on the accuracy and completeness of the underlying financial data.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

Communities In Schools of the Dallas Region is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded locally in 1985. The Communities In Schools intervention is a series of evidence-based best practices within the community school model, placing trained staff on campuses to provide daily intervention to high-need students and families. The four main components of service delivery include academics, behavior/mental health, social services, and attendance. Once these barriers to success are addressed, Communities In Schools is able to re-direct these K–12 children towards improved outcomes in a coordinated, caring, and individualized way.

In partnership with eleven area school districts, Communities In Schools of the Dallas Region is housed on campuses across North Texas to address the issues that place a child on the Texas Education Agency’s statewide “at-risk” list. These indicators measure a student’s potential academic success based on a series of key points in the child’s history (failed standardized test, failed core subjects, limited English proficiency, etc.). Many of these markers are beyond the students’ control (foster care, family crisis, etc.), but based on TEA metrics, it places them at a higher risk of dropping out of school, retention, and failure to complete high school in four years.