Finance Officer at Helen Keller International

Qualification:

• A minimum of B.Sc/HND in Accounting
• Possession of professional qualification such as ICAN, ACA or ACCA,
• At least 3 year working experience especially in development work

Job Summary:
Under the supervision of the Finance and Admin Manager, the Finance Officer oversees the finance functions in the agency.

Reports directly to: Finance and Admin Manager

Specific duties include:

Accounting:

• Enter data into financial accounting software on daily basis.
• Ensure Core Costs are correctly entered in the template.
• Deal with retirement of advances, in particular:
• Verify/ check calculation on receipts
• Verify/ assign accounting codes;
• Cross check to ensure program staff assign activity codes on all retirements, then assign natural codes to same so as to ensure accurate posting by the Finance Assistant.
• Assign sequential reference to each transaction for cross checking in the Accounting systems and receipts; this refers to sequential filling of our documents. Verify and file receipts and other work papers; Same as directly above
• Check the accounting records for accuracy and correctness as necessary;
• Assist in maintaining files and updating finance records

Financial Management

• Prepare and verify the accuracy of the monthly report prior to submission to Finance Manager by the 8th of each month for review and submission to AFRO
• Prepare donors financial reports according to donor requirements.
• Familiarize with project budgets and any reporting timelines to anticipate and take action on this.
• Prepare all other financial reports as needed.
• Check matching expenses for compliance with donor regulations in collaboration with FM.
• Reconcile all bank account monthly against bank statement and submit to FM for review. This should be done as part of our monthly reporting
• Prepare monthly intercompany invoice to be sent out by 1st of every month to the country expense is incurred on behalf of.
• Ensure requests submitted by project staff match their monthly work plans which in turn match the annual work plan. If there is any variance, CD’s approval must be sort before processing.
• Ensure hard copy financial report including supporting document for transactions of $10,000 and above for every month are sent to AFRO in a timely manner.

Budget Management

• Assist the administration in the preparation of office running budget. Study the PSR sent every month and highlight any wrong information to the FM for proper follow up with AFRO/HQ
• Assist the FM to come up with a budget monitoring process to ensure project staffs adhere to budgets submitted by them during the annual budgeting process to reduce variance in our budget execution.
• Come up with a plan to ensure the monthly work plans submitted by project staff also agree with their annual work plan or donor budget where applicable
• Collaborate with the Finance Manager and the Project Coordinators to create budgets for new projects.

Project Monitoring & Reporting

• Analyze and monitor all grants and provide feedback to Finance Manager.
• Interact with program staff on project funding status.
• Prepare all necessary donor reports and submit to Finance Manager for review and onward processing.
• Monitor any sub-grant spending as dictated by the donor rules and regulations.

Human Resources

• Check/ Prepare tax and pension deductions and ensure they are correct and paid in timely manner.
• Check/ Prepare staff severance payment prior to entry in the accounting software.

Office Management

• Assist in country audit as needed.
• Perform other tasks as assigned by the Finance Manager.
• Stand in for FM in the event of FM’s absence

Competencies Required:

• Able to work under pressure minimal supervision and able to meet up deadlines.
• Ability to use computer software such as Microsoft office, internet and accounting software.
• Must possess good interpersonal skills and a good team player.
• Exhibit strong leadership and decision making skills
• Demonstrated excellent personal integrity and confidentially
• Able to provide efficient and effective support for the day to day running of the office;
• Able to work comfortably with numbers.