Pros
The work time is flexible; they use ADP system to clock in and out. Start time is anywhere from 7 to 9, but you need to clock out after exactly 8 hours of work.
Cons
Property accountant (AKA GL) has lots of duties, including approve payable, pay big bills (like mortgage, prop tax, or insurance), print all checks, reply to several emails a day, run AP Aging report each week, prepare financials (main duty) and send to the owner on or before the due date. Financials include bank rec, accruals, reclass, record other JEs, like interest income or wires, and run lots of reports to send to PM and assistant controller for review before sending to the owner. The job is challenging at the beginning, since the training is minimal, and you have to put all together as a puzzle to figure out how to do the job. They use Yardi, which is a software for renting business. If you are self motivated and fast at learning, you can do the job well after 4 months or so. Some takes up to a year, but the company expects that. The only issue after one year is not how to perform he job well, but how to find time to take days off. Averagely, one GL gets assigned 12 properties or more. Some new GL get 8 to 10. When you take days off, you will come back with lots of work and fall so behind. It’s common here that some employee has not taken vacations for years. They dare not. They have the so-called partners who will back you up when you take days off, to take care of emergency issues. Otherwise, you will have to take care of the work when you come back. That’s understandable as others have the same amount of work plus the partner help work. They give an employee benefit at the cost of other employees, not out of the owner’s pocket. If an employee takes too long vacation, they will have others cover the properties temporarily, which means more work for other GL, which I don’t see a fair management system. Also you can only accumulate vacations up to 240 hours and lose hours after that limit if you don’t use them. The company does not have the option of paying money for your vacations. Once you get a property, all the issues become yours including the mess created by the previous ones. You will suddenly owe the problems that come from other’s irresponsibility. Although the previous accountants are still working, they are free from their mess and enjoy trashing new properties. The management keeping changing GL for the properties, so the ones who do the good job will keep cleaning, and the ones who creat the mess will enjoy easy work with no effort of improving. There’s no punishment or complaint for them, so why worry? This system won’t encourage people who try hard; what’s the benefit at the end of the day? No bonus for good job or punishment for bad job. Payment here is not the same for all GLs, some get up to 68k, others get around 50k, but I think more get paid at the lower end, which is not compatible in the accounting practice. Overtime is very limited here, unless you get too many properties, or you offer to help others who miss the due date. Still requesting OT gives the feeling of begging more than deserving by default. Turn over rate is high for all departments, I notice. I wonder why the management don’t realize the reason of the high turn over rate and improve the situation. They keep recruiting and training. Why don’t they use the training cost to compensate employees who do good jobs, like bonus, to keep good employees?
