Senior Finance Officer at Wildlife Conservation Society

Job Summary

The position holder will support financial management activities of WCS Kenya.

Overview

Reporting to the Finance and HR Director, the Senior Finance Officer will provide financial support to WCS Mombasa Office and related programs to ensure the smooth running of the office. This includes handling day to day financial operations with particular emphasis on accounts payable and receivable, expense reports, cash management, processing payments while ensuring a culture of compliance is upheld.

Emphasis will be directed to ensuring that financial management is conducted in compliance with WCS and donor policies and maintain an effective financial accounting and bookkeeping system required to assure integrity of WCS’ financial operations.

Responsibilities

Accounting & Finance

• Maintain, monitor, and disburse funds from the project in accordance with WCS Kenya’s financial policies and procedures as outlined in the Finance and Accounting policies manual for country office, SAP Manual, Finance Policy, Procurement Policy and any other policies.
• Examine financial documents such as invoices, vouchers, expense reports, purchase orders and other documents to ensure the completeness, accuracy, reasonability, and validity of financial data according to WCS and donor guidelines
• Preparing JV templates for upload to SAP on a weekly basis for all transactions
• Reconciliation of balance sheet control accounts on monthly basis and at year end.
• Ensure payroll statutory payroll deductions are filed and submitted on time.
• Review of bank reconciliation on a timely basis and conducting petty cash counts
• Assist the Finance and Administration Director in preparation of monthly financial report, accruals and projections, and any other financial reports for review.
• Prepare and update Budget Follow-Up reports for programs on a timely basis.

Grants, Procurement and Logistics

• Monitoring contractor and grantee performance to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of award including review of financial status reports.
• Managing the necessary closeout processes
• Providing on-going assistance to sub-grantees to administer sub-agreement in compliance with all terms and conditions.
• Ensure that procurement of goods, services, and works are done in compliance and within the stipulated policies and guidelines, that WCS will get value for money by ensuring that negotiation opportunities are optimized and documented.
• Ensure use of the Preferred vendor list, fair distribution of business and deliberately ensuring that the suppliers are treated with due respect, complaints, and compliments are handled professionally while in all engagements, WCS interests and image/brand are put ahead of everything else.
• Review supplier evaluations/bids analysis, requests for awards, purchase orders, contracts for services, and other procurement documents, ensuring strict adherence to applicable procedures, accuracy, and completeness of procurement supporting documents.
• Identification of risks related to procurement recommend mitigating solutions to the Finance & HR Director.
• Ensure continuous innovations, adoption of best practices, and regular reviews of Procurement processes, for optimal efficiency.
• Conducting Asset Verification exercises.

Audit

• Assisting with donor and statutory audit through retrieval of sampled documents
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Finance & HR Director.

Qualification Requirements

• Degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or related field
• Minimum of five (5) years relevant experience in finance or accounting.
• CPA Qualification or equivalent and a member of a recognized Accountancy professional body such as ICPAK will be an added advantage
• Knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP and Knowledge of internal controls
• In-depth knowledge of USAID projects, regulations, compliance, and reporting. Previous experience with donor-funded projects preferred
• Excellent verbal, written communications, and presentation skills with professional level oral and written English
• Excellent organizational skills, detail-oriented with high degree of accuracy.
• Computer skills including use of spreadsheets and/or accounting packages

Functional Skills And Knowledge

• Demonstrates a systematic and efficient approach to work.
• Works collaboratively with team members to achieve results.
• Relates and works well with people of different cultures, gender and backgrounds.