Finance Manager - Africa Region at VisionSpring

About You

• You are a finance and accounting superhero. You Excel at making sure debits and credits are recorded correctly. For you, it’s more important to do it right the first time. If you are unsure about the right way to record an entry, you find out how it should be done before recording it quickly.
• You value precision and easily keep track of the smallest details. Numbers are prepared on time and you strive for accuracy. You create clarity for external parties – investors, auditors, and vendors. 
• You are analytical. You can read and understand budgets and financial statements, and you are quick to notice when line items don’t add up. 
• Your world needs to be predictable, so you make it so. Instinctively you adhere to routines and timelines and help others appreciate the need for structure and repeatable processes. You are always looking for a better way to get recording and reporting done more efficiently.
• You can roll with punches. You recognize and expect that some weeks will be more intense than others. You are ready to deliver at the highest level to close the books every month, complete audits, and file taxes on time.
• You have a critical eye and are not afraid to be the first person to speak up if anything looks amiss. For you, organizational accountability is personal.
• Friends would describe you as trustworthy and structured, smart with a low ego, resilient, and highly ethical.

About Us

• We are creating access to affordable eyewear, everywhere. Clear vision creates opportunities for increased learning, work, safety, civic participation, and quality of life.
• As a social enterprise, social change motivates us first. Our focus on sales and revenue targets serves and advances our mission objective – to increase functioning, productivity, and income-earning potential for our low-income consumers by correcting refractive errors with eyeglasses.
• We are working to transform the systemic dysfunction of an optical market that has failed to deliver eyeglasses – a 700-year-old technology – to 2.5 billion consumers in need of vision correction, most of whom live on less than $4 a day.
• We serve low-income consumers, not as beneficiaries but as customers. Our customers expect a high-quality and affordable product, and they will spend limited discretionary income for the immediate and tangible benefits of vision correction.
• By selling eyeglasses, we awaken new demand and seed a viable market. By selling new eyeglasses we are able to serve four times as many people per dollar input than the alternative of donating recycled ones. To efficiently scale, we must deliver each new unit with lower cost.
• We run our business on both sales metrics and social impact measures. We exploit a range of organizational forms and practices to get the job done.
• We believe in scaling our impact, not our organization. We are a lean team of doers.

What You'll Do

Bookkeeping

• Overall responsibility and accountability for the day-to-day financial operations.
• Support accounting and reporting process for all countries in Africa region.
• Provide journal entries and accruals at the end of each month.
• Approve / support payment processing and customer receipts, maintaining both accounts payable and accounts receivable, respectively.
• Reconcile local bank accounts daily.
• Provide oversight to the general ledger that supports active financial management and donor reporting.
• Complete responsibility for legal entity accounting & local reporting.
• Troubleshoot bookkeeping-related problems. 
• Attain optimal resolutions when matters go awry.

Reporting and Budget Preparation

• Analyze financial data for purposes of timely monitoring of progress/performance, financial outlook, and forecasting.
• Drive SKU-wise / category-wise profitability analysis and monitoring.
• Monitor cash flows and fund requirements.
• Prepare monthly, quarterly, and year-end financial reports for review – internal, external, and Board as per schedule.
• Drive annual business planning for VisionSpring’s work in multiple countries in Africa and other regions (as required).
• Prepare / support preparation of donor reporting.
• Perform additional administrative tasks as directed.

Audit Preparation

• Work with the Global Finance Leadership to provide reports and schedules for annual audit and tax filings, including 990 and 1099 reporting.
• Support timely completion of global audit requirements of VisionSpring.
• Monitor changes in financial and accounting protocol/laws in countries in the region to maintain compliance.
• Coordinate timely completion of required audits in each of the countries.
• Complete responsibility for legal entity audit and compliance.

Global Finance Support

• Serve as the primary finance liaison to the Sales teams, managing customer invoicing, accounts receivable, and field team expenses.
• Work with the Operations teams managing vendor payments linked to purchasing activities for goods available for sale. Must be experienced in cost accounting for, and reporting of, goods available for sale in a B2B environment and service accounting.
• Coordinate vendor payments through VisionSpring’s payment platform to ensure accurate recording of all payments and maintenance of supporting documentation.
• Manage the financial recording of all restricted grants and ensure the accurate coding of expenses assigned to such grants.
• As VisionSpring expands in key market countries, support and oversee local bookkeeping and accounting, financial review, and support.

Requirements

What's Required

• Bachelor’s degree required in accounting, finance, or another relevant field. Chartered Accountant (CA) / Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or equivalent will be preferred.
• Strong understanding of the practices and procedures of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as applied to financial accounting and reporting.
• Minimum (5) years of professional bookkeeping experience.
• Must have general accounting experience using computerized accounting systems, such as QuickBooks, SAP, or others. working knowledge of SAP (minimum 2 years experience) will be an added advantage. 
• Ability to prepare and analyze financial statements and reports.
• Technology savvy, including excellent Excel skills.
• Fluency in spoken and written English language with high verbal/written communication skills. 

Preferred experience: 

• Working with organizations that have multi-country operations in Africa; and/or
• Working with an organization having both product and service offerings.
• Must be highly organized and detail-oriented. 
• Must meet the highest standards of ethics and personal integrity. 
• You will impress us if you have any of the following:
  • CA or studying for CA;
  • Work with organizations that have international operations especially not-for-profit;
  • Experience supporting an annual external audit process;
  • Experience in an FMCG business, nonprofit organization, or enterprise with job/project-based accounting (percentage of completion accounting method); 
  • Experience preparing financial updates for leadership, including contributing to PowerPoint presentations.