Christal G. Craig
Lakemont,Georgia
Overview
27
27
years of professional experience
Work History
Controller, Financial Operations and Compliance
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
Demorest, GA
09.2025 - Current
- Investment and endowment management
- Monthly reconciliations and reporting
- Grant budget management and accounting
- Supervising Accounts Payable and Payroll
- Cash flow management and reporting
- Financial Aid Draws and reconciliations
- Insurance renewals and policy management
- Assist with writing and updating university policies and procedures
- Maintaining compliance with federal and state and other regulations, as applicable
- Form 990 completion with auditors
- Business personal property tax returns
- Assist with annual audits, working closely with the auditors and submitting requested information; assist with footnotes and review audit before sending for CFO approval
- Reporting insurance claims
- General Ledger accounting in accordance with GAAP
- Financial system and process improvement
- Restricted account management and oversight
- Spending allowance calculation and allocation of endowed spending annually
- Weave reporting
- SACS reporting for my area
- Donation reconciliation and reporting
- P-card review and reporting to CFO
- Assist every area of the University with various financial accounting matters
- Maintains confidentiality and ensures records are secure and documents are maintained and stored securely for appropriate lengths of time.
- Serves on various committees to assist with university matters
- Signer on all company bank accounts
- Works closely with investment bank to ensure proper handling of endowed funds and annuity payments
- Monthly transfer of endowed funds received to investment account
- Analysis and reporting to the CFO and President on various Financial matters
- Monthly investment reconciliation and preparation and posting of associated entries
Assistant Controller & Grants and Contracts Administrator
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
Demorest, GA
08.2023 - 08.2025
- Grants research and accounting, pre-award and post-award.
- Responsible for general ledger accounting including daily journal entries and account reconciliations associated with donations, grants, and a host of other regular university activities.
- Assists with special projects.
- Monitors bank accounts for irregularities, initiates inter-bank and external transfers.
- Initiates financial aid draws, reconciles financial aid accounts.
- Reviews cash receipts.
- Reviews camp documents and camp worker payments.
- Imports files for JP Morgan, Divvy, and Donations.
- Donation reconciliation and spreadsheet maintenance.
- Cashes checks for petty cash and student travel needs.
- Responds to a large quantity of email requests.
- Coaches staff and faculty with Self-Service and Colleague procedures and operations.
- Acts as liaison with insurance company and initiates claims for vehicle accidents and other types of property damage.
- Approves Payroll and student refund ach payments in Treasury Navigator for processing.
- Maintains files and confidentiality
Staff Accountant
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
Demorest, GA
10.2020 - 08.2023
- Responsible for general ledger accounting including daily journal entries and account reconciliations associated with donations, grants, and a host of other regular university activities.
- Assists with special projects.
- Monitors bank accounts for irregularities, initiates inter-bank and external transfers.
- Initiates financial aid draws, reconciles financial aid accounts.
- Reviews cash receipts.
- Reviews camp documents and camp worker payments.
- Imports files for JP Morgan, Divvy, and Donations.
- Donation reconciliation and spreadsheet maintenance.
- Cashes checks for petty cash and student travel needs.
- Responds to a large quantity of email requests.
- Coaches staff and faculty with Self-Service and Colleague procedures and operations.
- Acts as liaison with insurance company and initiates claims for vehicle accidents and other types of property damage.
- Approves Payroll and student refund ach payments in Treasury Navigator for processing.
- Maintains files and confidentiality.
Finance Manager
NINTH DISTRICT OPPORTUNITY, INC.
Gainesville, GA
01.1999 - 10.2020
- Manages accounts payable and payroll staff.
- Ensures staff compliance with policies and procedures.
- Monitors all agency bank accounts.
- Follows up on aged invoices.
- Conducts periodic reconciliations of accounts.
- Assigns and distributes duties to accounts payable and payroll staff to promote workflow consistency, proper separation of duties, and most effective use of time.
- Assigns, monitors the use of, and makes payments for agency credit cards.
- Provides training to all agency staff on proper submission of payrolls and purchase orders.
- Maintains payroll files and confidentiality.
- Prepares, enters, and processes payroll information, initiates direct deposits, draws the money down for the payroll, prints paychecks and stubs and mails pay stubs/checks to centers or individuals per instruction for about 500 staff.
- Reviews payroll summaries and draws down funding for payrolls from appropriate grant sources.
- Updates Program Directors when deposits are received electronically for their respective grants.
- Reconciles multiple bank accounts and initiates transfers between accounts as needed.
- Processes W2's, helped with processing of 1099’s in the past.
- Identifies location(s) and grant(s) associated with purchases to determine proper G/L coding of transactions.
- Provides a monthly G/L report for each Program Director complete with copies of the Purchase Orders, receipts and invoices for gasoline purchases using credit cards.
- Sets up newly hired staff files in SAGE system, including pension plan, direct deposit, tax information, benefit coding, workman’s comp coding, pay rates, personal information, etc.
- Operates accounting software (MAS 90, MAS 200, SAGE), Excel, Word, Lotus.
- Receives, records, prepares deposits (verify receipts and deposit monies match and code deposits appropriately for data entry) and delivers to the bank.
- Complies with federal, state, and company policies, procedures, and regulations.
- Prints financial reports/statements as requested or monthly for Program Directors.
- Notes, reports to directors and reconciles discrepancies found in records.
- Reviews time sheets for proper approvals and accuracy.
- Distributes benefit accrual reports to Program Directors bi-weekly.
- Prints payroll reports and uses the data to prepare spreadsheets for determining cost allocations and grant draw amounts and sources.
Timeline
Controller, Financial Operations and Compliance
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
09.2025 - Current
Assistant Controller & Grants and Contracts Administrator
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
08.2023 - 08.2025
Staff Accountant
PIEDMONT UNIVERSITY, INC.
10.2020 - 08.2023
Finance Manager
NINTH DISTRICT OPPORTUNITY, INC.
01.1999 - 10.2020