Property Accountant

Why Join Us?

As part of the Highwoods team, you’re not just taking on a job; you’re joining a culture that values integrity, collaboration, and growth. We believe our culture is the key to success in the dynamic world of commercial real estate. Every member of our team plays a role in defining and upholding this culture—it's not just words on a page, but a way of working and living every day.

When you join Highwoods, you’ll bring your unique skills, experiences, and values to life through our shared mission. Together, we create a thriving workplace where every teammate has the support and opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

As a Highwoods Property Accountant, you will be responsible for managing the accrual based financial accounting of an assigned portfolio of properties in a fast-paced environment. This position will be primarily responsible for generating building-level financial statements and variance analysis for Senior Executives and Business Operations personnel, researching and analyzing specific property information and trends for ultimate use in reports for investors, banks, and other regulatory agencies, and recording building expenses and verifying invoices. These financial accounting responsibilities will be performed to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the Company’s Sarbanes-Oxley internal control documentation. This position will interact with other corporate departments and field personnel related to the assigned portfolio.

Key Responsibilities:

• Obtain, review, and analyze property lease agreements, including review of new leases, amendments, modifications, renewals, and termination agreements.
• Verify fully executed lease documents to approved lease parameters
• Determine applicable lease information for use in calculating the net effective rent for each new lease
• Calculate operating expense reimbursement billings (estimates, reconciliations, and year-end accruals) for specific properties, taking into consideration budgets, adjusting for occupancy, specific expense exclusions, and other clauses
• Determination of monthly revenue and expense accruals based on an analysis of trends, timing, and general ledgers of assigned portfolios; requires the ability to interact with operations personnel and translate discussions into impactful accounting decisions
• Review building expenses for proper coding and research variances, engaging with field personnel to resolve potential issues/discrepancies
• Perform operating revenue and expense variance analysis, comparing multiple periods as well as forecasted and actual results for use by field personnel and executive management
• Provide recovery analysis for discretionary building costs to help optimize recoverability which includes discussions with property managers to understand the impact of certain costs
• Review of annual building budgets; understanding year over year changes and trends
• Prepare building-level entries, reconciliations and reports: i.e., balance sheet account reconciliations, occupancy statistics, terminations/early move-outs

Requirements:

Strong attention to detail with the ability to analyze significant financial information. Ability to thrive in an environment of complex calculations. Assume responsibility for the accuracy and timeliness of work. Excellent organizational and time management skills. Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Ability to appropriately prioritize multiple tasks. Strong skills in analyzing and interpreting lease contracts and related financial data.

Education/Experience:

Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or related field. 4+ years of experience in accounting, finance, or analytical capacity, preferably in the real estate field. General Ledger experience is required. Experience with JD Edwards software preferred.

Work Environment

This job operates in an office setting. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, and scanners.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to perform the essential functions of this job successfully. Work is of a general office nature; while performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear, and see; prolonged periods of sitting / standing at a desk and working on a computer; required to use arms and hands to reach and handle; typing on a computer keyboard and using a phone required. Ability to read, understand, and communicate information and ideas clearly in writing and orally required. The employee may occasionally need to climb, balance, stoop, kneel, or crouch, and lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.