Staff Accountant II or III

This position plays a critical role in supporting Plant Accounting operations and ensuring the integrity of financial reporting in accordance with **United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP)**, regulatory requirements, and Southern Company Gas accounting policies. The role is heavily focused on **month-end close execution, balance sheet account reconciliations, fixed asset accounting, capital project accounting, and financial analysis**. The successful candidate will partner closely with Operations, Engineering, Shared Services, Regulatory Accounting, and external auditors to ensure timely and accurate financial reporting, maintain strong internal controls, resolve reconciling items, and support a disciplined financial close process. This role offers the opportunity to contribute to a highly regulated environment while driving accuracy, compliance, and continuous process improvement. **Key Responsibilities:** - Apply strong accounting knowledge and expertise in **United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP)** to Plant Accounting, fixed asset accounting, and capital project accounting activities. - Serve as a key contributor to the **monthly, quarterly, and annual financial close processes**, ensuring all accounting activities are completed accurately and on schedule. - Prepare, review, upload, and post journal entries related to fixed assets, depreciation, leases, and capital projects as part of the month-end close cycle. - Own and maintain **balance sheet account reconciliations**, ensuring accounts are fully reconciled, supported, and compliant with corporate policies and internal control requirements. - Investigate, analyze, and resolve complex **reconciling items**, discrepancies, accounting variances, and coding errors while identifying root causes and implementing corrective actions. - Prepare detailed monthly account analyses, roll-forward schedules, and supporting documentation to support internal and external reporting requirements. - Support fixed asset transactional processing, including asset additions, retirements, transfers, impairments, and other adjustments across financial systems. - Review capital project documentation to ensure proper approvals, asset classifications, capitalization criteria, and accounting treatment. - Monitor capital work orders throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring accurate accounting, timely closure, and proper unitization of completed projects. - Perform variance analysis and financial reviews to identify unusual trends, risks, and opportunities for process improvements. - Collaborate with Plant Accounting, Shared Services, Operations, Engineering, and external auditors to support financial reporting, compliance, audits, and regulatory filings. - Provide regulatory accounting support, including participation in **Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)** reporting, **Form 21 reporting**, depreciation studies, audits, and rate case activities. - Support testing, validation, and implementation of accounting system enhancements, upgrades, and process improvements. - Prepare recurring and ad hoc financial reports, analyses, and management schedules to support business decision-making. - Apply sound professional judgment when performing accounting estimates, calculations, and technical accounting evaluations. - Continuously seek opportunities to strengthen controls, streamline close activities, improve reconciliation processes, and enhance reporting accuracy. - Perform additional duties as assigned while meeting deadlines in a fast-paced, highly regulated environment. **Required Qualifications:** - Bachelor's Degree in Accounting or Finance. - Three to ten years of progressively responsible accounting experience. - Experience supporting month-end close processes, account reconciliations, and financial reporting activities. **Preferred Qualifications:** - **Certified Public Accountant (CPA)** certification or active pursuit of certifica…