Principal Accountant - Remote Work Available

The Principal Accountant at Applied Research Associate's (ARA) is a key member of our Corporate Headquarters' accounting staff. This position offers an excellent opportunity for growth for an accountant who has demonstrated technical excellence, a collaborative nature, excellent communication skills, and is committed to continuous business systems improvement. As ARA continues to grow, our Principal Accountant will be critical to our success as you will be responsible for ensuring proper accounting for a variety of complex transactions, help ensure that appropriate accounting control procedures are maintained for all relevant process areas, and support both financial and government audits while providing high-level customer service to our employee-owners.

ARA's Corporate office is focused on providing efficient, effective, and compliant business systems and financial records to our internal and external customers, maintaining a culture that minimizes bureaucracy and promotes both personal and professional growth, while maintaining a work-life balance.

Interested in becoming an employee-owner and joining our team?

What you'll do as a Principal Accountant

• Evaluate the overall company financial performance and its individual Sectors and their Divisions on both an actual and forecasted basis
• Support the CFO and operational units with budget planning, forecasting, and financial analysis of investments
• Support month end close activities including bonus calculations, NM Gross Receipts Tax accruals, and expense and facility pool verification
• Manage the company General Ledger (G/L) reconciliation process to ensure all balance sheet accounts are reconciled, documented, and approved monthly/quarterly based on a predetermined schedule
• Review all contracts and project setup for proper revenue recognition, documenting revenue recognition based on understanding of the contract and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), specifically ASC606 requirements. Identify and correct revenue errors. Provide monthly revenue report and revenue variance reporting.
• Help implement ASC 842 Lease accounting standard and then maintain accounting records for all ARA Leases.
• Assist with other general accounting activities as needed and complete month end closing processes
• Assist in preparation of the annual Incurred Cost Submission (ICE model) and Provisional Billing Rate requests
• Support various DCAA, DCMA, financial, internal and contract audits. Maintain central repository for DCAA audit reports and various rate agreements
• Provide backup to others in the accounting department as needed
• Other duties as assigned.

Principal Accountant Requirements

• Eight to ten years related experience with a bachelor's degree, six to eight years with a master's degree
• Demonstrated strong attention to detail
• Previous government contract experience and a solid working knowledge of GAAP, FAR and CAS
• Understanding of corporate financial planning, reporting & analysis, and costing/profitability methodologies and processes
• To succeed in this position, you must be proactive, results-oriented, have excellent leadership and communication skills
• Ability to work independently and within a team in both tactical and strategic capacities
• Excellent written, verbal communication, and interpersonal skills, particularly the ability to communicate effectively with all levels of the organization
• Successful completion of background and credit checks

Principal Accountant Preferences

• CPA or CMA designation
• Audit background or experienced lead in supporting audits
• FASB ASC 842 lease standard implementation experience
• Ability to source and work with large amounts of data from different sources, and demonstrate strong quantitative and analytical skills
• Strong Excel skills
• Ability to support, and experience with, financial analysis modeling including internal rate of return calculations and discounted cash flow calculations
• Deltek Costpoint and Cognos experience

Applied Research Associates, Inc. Company Information:

Applied Research Associates, Inc. is a 100% employee-owned international research and engineering company recognized for providing technically superior solutions to complex and challenging problems in the physical sciences. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about who we are, what we do, the excellent careers and benefits we offer and explore some of our featured offices.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)