Finance Senior Officer – LICA9 At UNOPS

Under the direct supervision of the Head of Support Services, the contractor will be entrusted with the following duties and responsibilities:

Summary of Key Functions:

Implementation of operational strategies
Budget preparation, monitoring and control
Reporting
Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing

1. Ensures implementation of operational strategies and adapts processes and procedures focusing on achievement of the following results:

Full compliance with the provisions of the UNOPS Financial Rules and Regulations, the Finance Manual and Finance and Budget Technical Instructions in all financial transactions, recording, reporting, etc.
Country Office business processes mapping and elaboration/establishment of internal Standard Operating Procedures in Finance in the Country Office, control of the workflow in the Finance unit.
Routinely monitoring of financial exception reports for unusual activities, transactions, and investigation of anomalies or unusual transactions.
Proper management of the contributions management and accounting for contributions to ensure that funds due to UNOPS are properly identified, consistently and uniformly classified, recorded on a timely basis and received with sufficient supporting documentation.
Operational efficiency of the managerial or accounting aspects of the areas managed.

2. Budget preparation, monitoring and control

Ensure that budgets are prepared in the right format with clearly written assumptions, within the required timeframe and with a high level of accuracy.
Coordination of the preparation of the field operating budget; review of budget submissions, regular analysis and reporting on the budget approvals and the delivery situation; monitoring of expenditures against budget allotments and reporting on variances
Coordination with the PSC finance counterpart and the portfolio manager to ensure compliance with UNOPS financial rules and regulations, financial policies and procedures and that project budgets and revisions are prepared in accordance with established procedures and budgetary guidelines of the funding agency; project budget re-phasing processed accurately and punctually
Identification of administrative budgetary requirements; guidance on guidelines for budget preparation, the format to be used in reflecting budget proposals and the procedures for submission to facilitate consolidation at the Country level, and ensure an optimal cost-recovery system is in place.
Review of budget proposals for reasonableness, consistency with the organizational goals and priorities.
Continuous monitoring of budgetary allocations and contact with clients to strengthen budget management and take corrective actions when required.
Maintenance of the UNOPS Project Budget formulation system, ensuring timely input and processing of data; proposals for update and change (with ICT unit) to ensure relevance of the system at all times in the financial management of projects and enhancement of financial reporting.
Establishment of the development projects’ budgets preparation/modification monitoring system, control of budgetary status versus authorized spending limits and budgets delivery levels.
Ensure full supporting documents are in place for all transactions (Payments, Journals, etc) under review.

3. Reporting

Ensure compliance with UNOPS Financial Regulations and Rules, Organizational Directive (ODs) and Administrative instructions, financial procedures, systems, policies and the donor’s requirements.
Assist the Head of Support Services and the project teams in reviewing and consolidation of Periodical expenditure/financial reports.
Prepare the financial exception reports for unusual activities, transactions and investigation of any anomalies and advice necessary adjustments to the Program team.
Provide responses to audit queries and ensure compliance and timely implementation of all audit recommendations related to financial reports.
Ensure timely book closure and actively coordinate the Quarter & Year end UNOPS books closure activities with the program team.
Ensure timely and proper financial and grant closure process of completed projects and review donor reports prepared by the program team.
Archive the hard and soft copies of financial reporting documents in appropriate manner.

4. Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing

Organization and conduct of training for the operations/ projects staff on Finance.
Synthesis of lessons learned and best practices in Finance.
Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

a. Education:

Master’s Degree in Accounting, Financial Management, Treasury Management, Business Administration or other related field with 2 years of relevant experience is required OR;
Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Financial Management, Treasury Management, Business Administration or other related field with 4 of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s Degree.

b. Professional experience:

Relevant experience is experience in Financial management or Financial reporting or Accounting.

Within relevant experience; 2 years of experience in the area of planning, budgeting and financial reporting in the public sector and/or development organizations is required.
Experience in Accounting software (Preferably ERP Systems) is an asset.
Ability to work with minimal supervision in a complex environment

c. Language