Senior Finance Officer at International Alert

Job Purpose

This post holder has responsibility and will support finance and administration functions for Alert’s Nigeria programme. The Senior Finance Officer will work under the supervision of the Finance Manager or Senior Business Owner at the Global Office where necessary and will work closely with programme/project managers/budget holders and implementing partner staff, in line with Alert and donor policies and procedures, and Nigerian law.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Support on the management of Alert Nigeria’s financial systems
• Maintain office accounts in accordance with local legislation, Alert’s finance systems and donor requirements.
• Support on the preparation and submission all internal and donor finance reports, forecasts and fund requests in a timely, accurate and compliant manner.
• Ensure that the accounting package (MS D365) is maintained and utilized in an appropriate and effective manner. This will include uploading the monthly accounts and then running the subsequent reports (e.g monthly monitoring budgets)
• In providing support, ensure that all expenses are authorized and efficiently processed, with effective controls and segregation of duties;
• Support the maintenance and update of country operational budget and ensure costs are managed with fair allocations. Be proactive in identifying gaps and surpluses and proposing remedial action including preparing budget realignments.
• Support capacity development of the programme and finance teams in field offices to ensure that a high standard of financial management is maintained;
• Organize and participate in monthly expenditure reviews with budget holders;
• Effectively monitor and trace income and expenditure on all commercial contracts, and manage payments of consultants and invoicing of donors.
• Support audit processes ensuring all necessary documentation is available.
• Prepare budgets for new proposals, working closely with programme team
• Ensure adequate controls over cash and bank management are constantly monitored and updated to minimise the risk of fraud and misappropriation.
• Support on the review of existing systems on an on-going basis in order to develop and improve internal controls, in compliance with Alert’s policies and procedures.
• Support in ensuring that sufficient funds are maintained in bank and cash accounts and initiate requests for additional funds;
• Assist with investigations into alleged fraud and irregularities;
• Conduct month-end reallocations of prepayments and misallocation of expenditures.
• Ensure all tax and statutory payments, registration, and reports are made to the relevant agencies in a timely manner.
• Support on effective grant management by implementing partners in collaboration with project managers
• Conduct or oversee partner assessments (financial and operational) and provide training and coaching to partner staff as needed;
• Support the timely transfer of agreed funds to partners;
• Monitor and review partner financial reports;
• Maintain regular relations with grant partners on issues of finance and administration;
• Support partners in the development of sound finance systems and the management of funds, as required;
• Build the capacity of programme and partner staff in partner financial management.

Cross-cutting functions

• Ensure field offices are running at optimal capacity with limited administrative constraints
• Participate in the management of Alert Nigeria and contribute to organisational development
• Ensure understanding of programme strategies and activities;
• Occasionally, liaise closely with Alert’s London office, especially the Finance team, ensuring streamlined finance management between Nigeria and London, and providing required information in appropriate formats;
• Any other reasonable duties which contribute to the smooth running of Alert, as required by the Country Director.

Travel requirements

• This position is based in Abuja, Nigeria.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Talents 

At Alert, we have introduced Talent Management to our business model as we believe talented people are crucial to the success of our work. We believe all individuals are talented and success comes in matching the right talents to the right roles. For this role, the skills, qualifications and experience listed below are important, but we believe that to be successful in this job you will have a talent for systems thinking and systems management, and in particular for protecting systems from risk. You will have highly developed communication skills and a talent for presenting complex technical (finance and administration) information, tools and concepts in an accessible way, including to non-technical staff. You will have an ability to build the kind of relationships, both internally and externally, that will gain cooperation and constructively ensure compliance.

Qualification

• A Masters degree or equivalent in a relevant subject or 7 years post-graduation experience
• Extensive experience in finance and administrative management for an international NGO project/country office and at a similar level
• Demonstrable experience in grants management as well as an understanding of major donors including UK government, EU, UN agencies
• Experience in people management, supervision and support
• Proven experience and skill with budget preparation and analysis, financial reporting preparation and presentation
• Strong accounting skills and experience, including management of the general ledger, journal entries, payroll, payables and balance sheet
• Excellent communication, networking and inter-personal skills including the ability to communicate effectively (write, speak, and prepare reports)
• Considerable experience in working in partnerships with local organisations and building their financial capacities.
• Excellent computer literacy and knowledge of Microsoft Office applications – Word, Excel, Power point, etc.
• Ability to prioritise, to work under pressure and to tight deadlines and deliver high-quality outputs, with minimal supervision
• Personal and professional integrity, flexibility, initiative and a “can-do” attitude and meticulous

DESIRABLE REQUIREMENTS

• Qualification in Accounting, Banking and Finance, Management; ACA/ACCA/CIMA
• Experience of using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Systems
• Understanding of Microsoft Power Suite (i.e. Power automate, Power Apps and Power BI
• Experience in managing Microsoft Sharepoint