Senior Finance Officer at Street Child of Nigeria

Location: Maiduguri, or Mubi

Report to: Finance Manager

Specification: Nigerian Nationals Only

Background:

Street Child believes that every child deserves the chance to go to school and learn. Our projects focus on a combination of education, child protection and livelihood support to address the social, economic and structural issues that underpin today’s education crisis. We partner with local organisations and communities to deliver our locally rooted programmes, using evidence to drive learning and the refinement and scale up of programmes to create maximum impact for the most children at the lowest cost. We pride ourselves on being willing to go to the world’s toughest places where others won’t, including remote, hard-to-reach areas and fragile, disaster-affected states across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Since 2008 we have helped over

338,000 children to go to school and learn and supported over 29,000 families to set up businesses so they can afford the cost of educating their children.

Role Purpose:

Street Child is looking for a dedicated finance officer for our office in Maduguri and Mubi Our planned programme will include emergency education interventions in collaboration with the Education in Emergencies Working Group, such as building temporary learning centers, training education facilitators in delivery of the curriculum and trauma counselling, and providing teaching and learning materials. Street Child is also planning activities relating to unaccompanied and separated children, working to create a referral network and supporting as many children as possible to be reunified with their families and access education.

Key Responsibilities Planning and implementation:

To support the Finance Manager in the continued development and implementation of Street Child overriding financial management and reporting framework and financial policies.

Responsible for the day-to-day general financial and administration of the organisation, assisting the Country Representative, Finance Manager and supporting the staff team.

1. Specific Responsibilities

• Financial reporting and auditing
  • Approve payments, purchase authorizations and other financial transactions to ensure compliance with staff rules, financial rules and implementing instruments/authority under specified threshold.
  • Maintain a system to monitor and forecast cash requirements to meet administrative and project expenditures.  Establishes monthly cash requirements for the office and requests timely replenishments from Head office
  • Support the Finance manager with the preparation of Street Child financial records for annual auditing processes.
  • Under the supervision of the Finance Manager, prepare monthly financial reports and activity based budget versus expense project reports for the Country Coordinator.
  • Under the supervision of the Finance Manager, prepare monthly updated budgets of different projects for the Country Coordinator.

• Petty Cash and Banking
  • Check and reconcile cash requests from Street Child staff and liaise with Project/Country Coordinator on outstanding administrative issues.
  • Prepare office petty cash requests for sign off by the Country Coordinator.
  • Initiate the monthly cash count with the Country Coordinator.

• Administrative tasks
  • To provide general financial support as required for the office management and for the projects.
  • To prepare correspondence regarding taxation, social and health insurance and union fees for executive review and signature.
  • To maintain a strong financial filling system and manage filing the financial documents in both hard and electronic form.
  • Briefs new staff members or staff assigned to the Field on finance matters
  • In close coordination with Finance manager and Programme Director, coordinate replies to finance related audit comments
• Audit and Partnership
  • Ensure Implementing Partners submit timely and accurate financial reports
  • Provide coaching and mentorship to partners’ Finance Staff in liaison with the Learning & Partnership Manager and the Finance Manager
  • Perform during the internal and partners’ audit cycle including risk management over operations’ effectiveness, financial reliability and compliance with all applicable directives and regulations
  • Obtain, analyse and evaluate accounting documentation, previous reports, data, flowcharts etc
  • Prepare reports that reflect audit’s results and document process
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3. Qualifications, Skills and Experience

• • University degree in finance and accounting or other relevant disciplines.
  • At least 2 years’ experience in a Finance and Administration role with similar responsibilities.
  • Experience working with an international NGO will be an advantage.
  • Fluency in English and Hausa (both oral and written).
  • Strong computer skills and experience working with accounting software.
  • Experience liaising with a range of stakeholders regarding financial issues.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team.
  • Ability to work independently, prioritize tasks and to take initiative.
  • Strong attention to detail and problem solving skills.
  • Honest, meticulous, responsible and well organized.

• Strong work ethic and commitment to financial accountability and transparency