Payments Accountant at NCBA Group

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The principal role is to ensure prompt settlement, recording and filing of all claims, operating and capital expenses, commissions, reinsures and other payables. It also ensures reconciling of Ledger accounts in line with the prescribed frequency.

NATURE & SCOPE

• The holder is the custodian of all settlement promises made by all employees in the course of their duties hence a crucial service point for the organization. The holder is guided by corporate accounting practices and policies, tax legislation and service standards in executing the duties at hand.
• Though the holder has no direct reports, the job requires that one coordinates and prioritizes payments requests from suppliers, claimants, regulators, and internal customers within set cash flow budgets.
• Inaccurate or unauthorized and fraudulent payments would result in the loss of company resources. Prompt accurate payments on the other hand assure the company of customer satisfaction.
• Delayed or inaccurate tax payments and returns will result in huge penalties and imprisonment in some cases.
• The holder is expected to maintain cordial working relationships with banks and other persons in the disbursements value chain.

PRINCIPLE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Supplier payments: Ensure all payments are paid within the system. Any requests off the system should be booked into the system within 24 hours.
• Cash flow forecast: Prepare bi-weekly and quarterly cash flow to ensure that there enough liquidity to support the payment process.
• Expense payment and monitoring; Ensure that all expenses that have not been paid by close of each month are accrued at the cutoff date and the same is paid on time.
• Accruals; Ensure all prepayments; a monthly amortization journal is passed to spread the costs over the useful life of the contracts.
• Account Reconciliations: Relevant accounts should be reconciled on a timely basis and any reconciling items investigated and resolved within 60 days.
• Commissions payments: Preparation of commission payments to intermediaries as per the set payment cycle including recovery of any commission advances given agents and coordinating any queries to the credit control section and the marketing and distribution department.
• Review of payments requests: Collect daily payments requests and ensure that the invoices or payment requisitions are genuine, correct, goods and services have been received, adequately approved, code and record then in readiness for payment.
• Reports Issuance: Prepare monthly reports and follow up staff loans and advances accounts ensuring that they are current and realizable. Perform adjustments and correction of ledger accounts.
• Tax payments: Prepare the weekly/monthly tax payments to the relevant authorities and ensuring that payments are done on or before the set statutory deadlines.
• Policies; processes and procedures; Enforce the payments processes and procedures.
• Expense Analysis: Assist in explanation of monthly expense analysis and provision of information to aid in variance explanations.
• Other duties as may be allocated and directed by the supervisors to this position.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Undergraduate degree in finance, accounting or related field
• Professional qualification : CPA (K) or ACCA
• Member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK)

EXPERIENCE:

• Relevant experience, preferably in the insurance industry
• Practical experience in accounts payable
• Strong analytical, planning and organization skills.
• Proven ability to perform well under pressure and regularly meet strict deadlines a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent spreadsheet skills (Excel)
• Strong communication skills (both written & oral) and interpersonal skills to effectively work with different departments

SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES / LEVELS

• Communication:  Effective communication skills at all levels of business.
• Strong team player
• Customer-focused
• Innovative
• Decisive
• Communicative
• Trusted
• Results-oriented