Finance Officer at The African Academy of Sciences (AAS)

Role overview

The Finance Officer is responsible for the Academy’s payroll administration, budgetary planning and control to ensure effective and efficient utilization of resources. The incumbent has overall responsibility for ensuring the Academy’s statutory compliance and cash management.

Duties and responsibilities

Payable and Receivable Maintenance

• Vendor Reconciliation for Payments or lack of.
• Staff aging analysis and reconciliations i.e Customer Cards, Credit Cards, Imprest Accounts, Workshop Accounts, Travel Accounts.
• Grantee Reconciliations and Analysis.
• APTI Grant Management.
• Monthly System reconciliations Grantee, Cash and Bank.
• Passing Journals and Grantee Journals to make corrections to wrong system entries monthly before month end closure.

Organizational and Grant Management

• APTI Grant Donor Reporting.
• Run monthly budget analysis reports to review budgets vs actuals, with trends, insights, concerns and recommendations clearly elaborated as requested.
• Grantee Support with reviews monitoring and General Support.
• Grantee Reconciliations and payments
• Promote accountability of grants processes, funds, compliance to funders requirements. Ensure they adhere to reporting timelines by developing and maintaining a grant tracking database to monitor the flow of grants from the time full grant documentation is received to the time the first payment is made;
• Verify reported expenses to ensure they are allowable, allocable, and reasonable by maintaining a comprehensive timetable for grant financial reporting from Grantees to the Donors and follow-up to ensure adherence of reporting timelines;
• Provide financial backstopping to grantees when implementing grants to achieve set objectives. Review of grantees reported expenses through cross examination of expenses and providing feedbacks;
• Analyze financial transactions to ensure that they are correctly charged, and financial positions provided to funders are a true & fair representation of financial position. Support the Head of Finance in reviewing and consolidating grantees financial reports for grants within specified donor formats, ensuring accuracy and compliance with Donors Requirements.
• Advise the Programme Managers and the Management on current financial status by ensuring accuracy and correct coding of financial transactions and reconciliations of grants financial reports in the financial system;
• Facilitate smooth, prompt (timely), and quality implementation of grants by preparing adhoc operating reports, analysis and financial statements from general and subsidiary ledgers for Management consumption.
• Facilitating Grant Audits and Funding to Grantees.
• Requesting Grant Funding from Donors.
• Grant Assessment and Capacity Building to Grantees where needed.

Accounts Administration

• Process Withholding tax in compliance with regulator's standards;
• Maintain custody of the safe, petty cash and cheque books and ensure approved requisitions for staff travel and purchase office supplies are disbursed in time.
• Perform monthly bank and cash reconciliations.
• Invoicing and Disbursement of vendor payments within the negotiated credit period and ensure all the requisite documents such as invoices and delivery notes are provided prior to the remittance of payment to suppliers.
• Upload Statutory payments into the NCBA portal.
• Facilitate internal and external audit processes by ensuring all supporting financial information required is available before commencement of the annual audit exercise;
• Serve as an agent of the organization to the bank and negotiate for suitable forex exchange rates with treasury dealers.
• Participate in Organizational Month end Closure.
• Fixed Asset Management and Custody Control.

Person Specifications

Academic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, Accounting or its equivalent.

Professional Qualifications

• Partial completion of ACCA/CPA certifications

Experience and Knowledge

• At least 3 years’ relevant experience in Accounting with an NGO Set up;
• Knowledge of processing payments through online Banking required
• Knowledge of non-profit organization accounting regulations an advantage
• Computer proficiency and familiarity with a range of software applications including MS Excel, MS Word, and other accounting packages
• Knowledge of MS Dynamics Serenic Navigator or Ms Navision an added advantage

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

Skills /Competencies

• Sound judgment and decision-making skills.
• Capacity to build, develop and maintain partnerships and coordinate with a range of partners.
• Familiarity with the work and general functioning of the African Union, international organizations and /or the UN system.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, MS Project, Outlook, Database
• Possess well-developed interpersonal skills
• Excellent communication skills across age groups, organizational levels, and partners
• Able to perform work independently with minimal supervision, but also work in a team
• Possess strong attention to detail and maintaining a timely and efficient workflow
• Have strong analytical skills and excellent organizational skills
• Able to prioritize, work under pressure, and multi-task
• Have unquestionable integrity, confidentiality and respect.

Languages

• Excellent knowledge of English (written and spoken)