Project Accountant at Adam Smith International

About the role

The Project Accountant is responsible for bridging the delivery needs of the projects (s)he is supporting, and the central needs of the Group Finance cycle. The role will support Project Managers, and will have at it’s core a client delivery focus ensuring the Group financial systems are core to servicing the client needs, and the system outputs are designed and managed to be easily digested by all project stakeholders.

The responsibilities of the Project Accountant are detailed below:

Project Accountant Role

• Working closely with the project team, to facilitate the set up of project finance and procurement policies where required.
• Understanding and constructing project structures within ASI finance systems
  • Setting up of project contracts (and amendments) on the ERP
  • Design and development of project tools beyond the ERP standard offering
• Supporting projects team in core monthly financial management processes
  • Project forecasting and variance reporting
  • Supporting PM in cost approval processes and review of supporting documentation
  • Project accruals (cost and revenue)
  • Project financial reconciliations
• Support to project debtor management
  • Client billing processes, ensuring compliance with contract specific demands
  • Processing of client sales invoices
  • Monitoring of debtor balances owed across responsible portfolio

• Support to project financial management reporting
  • Project performance data analysis
  • Written narrative of project delivery (financial perspective)
  • Project KPIs
  • Project cashflow and budget variances
• Lead on project financial audits, supported by wider back-office teams.
• Project asset management – Prepare, record and maintain a project asset register in line with donor requirements.
• Project Finance knowledge management (including archiving on Sharepoint)
• Support to project close out activities.
• Ad hoc project finance tasks that may be assigned by the Project Managers in line with client requirements
• Adherence to the Group SLA commitments
• Training of colleagues for Group financial processes and requirements.

Corporate Finance Role

• Support to the weekly payment run – Payment processing and postings
• Support to the corporate audit
• Office petty cash management
• Corporate finance knowledge management (including archiving on Sharepoint)

Key Relationships

• Regional Finance Manager – Africa
• Project Accountant Manager
• Project Delivery team (project manager, project directors etc)
• Client engagement and relationship management
• Wider finance colleague to support the overall financial management efforts.

Educational Qualifications Required:

• A graduate degree in Accounting (equivalent) with a minimum of 4 years accounting/auditing experience, including project financial management. CPA/ACCA qualification is an added advantage.

Experience Required:

• ERP experience
• Advanced Excel skills highly desired (including Power BI)
• At least 3 years practical and relevant experience on corporate accounting.

Competencies Required:

• Planning and delivering results
• Quality and accountability
• Continuous improvement
• Managing complexity
• Innovation and change management
• Communication and knowledge management
• Leadership and direction
• Collaboration and teamwork