The position will be in charge of accounting for Save the Children (SCI) and its partner expenses, handling function of payment in Country Office. The individual will support the Finance Manager to ensure the integrity, transparency, and timeliness of expense data recorded in the system, aligning with general accounting principles, SCI policies, and donor regulations.
In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder may be required to work outside of the regular scope of duties and adjust working hours as necessary to respond to the situation.
KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
- The following are the main accountabilities
Accounting
- Income and Expenditures Records: Review, verify, and recognize income and expenditures in the system in a timely manner, ensuring the eligibility of expenditures in line with general accounting principles, SCI, and donor policies and procedures.
- Balance Sheet Accounts Records: Maintain strong and healthy balance sheet accounts with management indicators to ensure the accuracy, appropriateness, and valuation of balance sheet accounts are not significantly misstated.
- Payroll, SHUI, and Trade Union Calculation and Payment: Calculate and reconcile payroll, SHUI, and Trade Union contributions. Process final payments and allocate payroll expenses accurately.
- Other Accounting Estimates (prepayments, allocations, accruals, etc.): Ensure the completeness, accuracy, and timely recording under SCI policies.
- Procurement and Contract Review: Participate in the Procurement Committee as assigned by the Finance Manager to minimize risks during the procurement process and ensure value for money.
- Month-End and Year-End Processes: Handle month-end and year-end processes, ensuring checklists are completed accurately and in a timely manner.
- Cash Forecast: Collaborate with Project Managers to prepare an accurate cash forecast for the month, supporting the Finance Manager in consolidating the monthly cash forecast.
- Other Accounting Tasks: Perform other accounting-related duties as assigned
Taxation Management
- Declare and pay monthly/quarterly PIT (Personal Income Tax), FCT (Foreign Contractor Tax), and other applicable taxes in a timely manner.
- Reconcile PIT for expatriates and finalize taxes at year-end.
- Liaise with and contact tax authorities regarding tax declarations, finalizations, reconciliations, and related tax issues.
Internal Control Policies Development
- Support the Finance Manager in developing, rolling out, and implementing SCI internal control policies (including but not limited to accounting policy, payment policy, cost norms, and partner guidelines).
- Provide policy induction/training to staff to ensure understanding and correct application of the policies.
System Maintenance Tasks
+ Agresso ( Financial Management System - FMS) is maintained in accordance with SCI policies, ensuring:
- Create new codes on a timely basis (ensure a thorough understanding of budget codes and coordinate with stakeholders for available codes in Agresso).
- Record budget codes accurately in Agresso and appropriately charge them to approved project
- Ensure a central filing system is in place and easy to trace.
- Backup data as scheduled.
- Be responsible for working with the FMS helpdesk to resolve system issues.
- Fully understand and practice the S2P process to ensure payments comply with SCI policies.
- Fully understand and practice other automated accounting estimates in compliance with SCI policies, such as auto-accruals, auto-prepayments, auto-allocations, and other related issues.
+ ProSave:
- Consult internal requestors on budget codes for raising PR/PO (Purchase Request/Purchase Order).
- Review all raised PR/PO in ProSave, ensuring timely reconciliation of invoices for expenditure records and timely payment to suppliers.
Partner Financial Management:
Review of Partner Advance and Reports
- Review partner reports in a timely manner to ensure the data is well justified by accounting records, that cost items are within the budget and cost norms
- Review partner advance requests promptly, ensuring the advance is within the approved budget and aligns with the partner’s disbursement capacity, avoiding situations where the partner’s cash balance is too high. The last advance will be carefully reviewed and will comply with partner guidelines to ensure sufficient funds for disbursement, with provisions made for final amounts payable to partners instead of receivable.
- Ensure compliance with SCI accounting policies regarding partner advances and advance clearance, including the use of correct account codes and recording the clearance date to adhere to foreign exchange difference guidelines.
Partner Capacity Building
- Conduct timely partner assessments to identify strengths and weaknesses.
- Deliver financial management training and fraud awareness sessions to partners. Induction is compulsory for new partners; ongoing partners should receive refresh training, focusing on areas identified as weaknesses during finance visits and assessments.
Partner Close Out
- Carry out a proper handover before final payment (including handover of equipment/assets).
- Complete the close-out process according to the close-out checklist.
Staff and Partner Capacity Training
Staff and Budget Holder Training
- Provide capacity building for staff including training and development of financial skills for both finance and non-finance staff;
- Support budget holder training (Budget Holders induction, annual Budget Holder training, ad hoc Budget Holder training);
Partner Capacity Building
- Conduct partner assessment in due time so as to identify properly partner strength and weakness;
- Deliver partners’ training including financial management training and on fraud raising awareness: for new partners, induction is compulsory; for on-going partners, refresh training is needed and refresh training should focus on partnres’ weaknesses which have been pointed out during finance visits and assessment;
Support/Back up and other tasks
- Back up the accounting related tasks for other finance colleagues when needed.
- Back up FP&A team in task of budget phasing during forecast period and Monitoring team if required.
- Other tasks assigned by Finance Manager (ad-hoc, emergency responses,…)
Working contacts/ stakeholders
- Internal: Finance Manager, Finance and ICT Director, Senior Management Team, Programme and Finance staff, and other functional teams.
- External: Government Agencies, INGOs, donors, suppliers of goods and services, Bank, Tax Authorities,…