Accounting Assistant

Org. Setting and Reporting

This position is located in the Income Tax Unit (ITU) of the Payroll and Accounts Payable Section (APS), Division of Administration (DA), Department of Operational Support (DOS). The Department of Operational Support was established to provide operational advisory services to operating entities across the Secretariat, including other departments, Offices-Away-from-Headquarters, field missions, and regional commissions. The Payroll and Accounts Payable Section processes global payroll and payments, income tax claims and provides policy advice and operational guidance, testing and implementation of enhancements to the payroll module and income tax portal of the enterprise resource planning/United Nations (ERP/UN) tax system. The Accounting Assistant will report to the Chief of the Unit.

Responsibilities

Within limits of delegated authority, the Accounting Assistant will be responsible for the following duties:

• Scrutinizes source documents for completeness, accuracy and validity of charges.
• Investigates erroneous charges and takes appropriate corrective accounting actions.
• Communicates with field offices and funds and programmes regarding missing documentation or any other issues related to discrepancies between their accounts and those maintained at Headquarters.
• Reconciles and reviews suspense accounts and ensures proper clearance procedures have been followed.
• Assists with the compliance data transmission to and from the United States (US) tax authorities.
• Records and reconciles more complex accounting transactions.
• Extracts details of income, expenditure, assets and liability from accounting system in order to analyze and verify accuracy and validity.
• Audits various accounting transactions, e.g., payroll, education grants final payments, income tax returns, travel claims, etc., to ensure correctness of disbursements and adherence to relevant staff rules, financial regulations and rules, ST/AI issuances or practices.
• Serves as Approving Officer for disbursements up to an authorized level.
• Provides guidance and training to colleagues as required.
• Supervises other General Service staff as required and in relation to: a) the client service activities of the Income Tax Unit; b) the filing requirements of income tax files.
• Drafts/prepares memoranda to various offices, departments and overseas offices.
• Coordinates between business areas as necessary.
• Responds to queries from staff members and third parties.
• Performs other duties as may be required.

Work Experience

• A minimum of seven years of experience in accounting, finance, budget, administrative services or related area is required. The minimum years of relevant experience is reduced to five for candidates who possess a first-level university degree or higher.
• A minimum of four years of experience focused on transactional-based accounting activities such as payroll, US income tax, vendor/travel claims processing is required.
• Experience in the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as Umoja, SAP or equivalent is required.
• Experience working with the United Nations or a large global organization’s systems and procedures is desirable.
• Experience with disbursements and adherence to relevant staff rules and regulations including entitlements and financial regulations, rules, and procedures of the United Nations or similar international organization is desirable.

Languages

• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the position advertised, fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official United Nations language is desirable.

Source: https://careers.un.org/jobSearchDescription/246911?language=en