Finance and Budget Assistant

Result of Service

The ultimate result of service expected from the Finance and Budget Assistant, national individual contractor are: 1- Timely clearance of any issues with Colombian tax authority. 2- Timely submissions of the bi-monthly VAT Refund requests. 3- Proper filing of tax documentations and VAT Refund submissions to Colombian tax authority. 4- Regular reconciliation between Accounts Receivables VAT, Accounts Receivables Government, refund amounts received from Colombian tax authority and any outstanding balances. A performance evaluation is expected to be conducted at the end of the assignment.

Duties and Responsibilities

This position is located within the Financial Resourcing, Performance and Risk Management Unit of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMC). The Finance and Budget Assistant will be based in Bogota and will work under the direct supervision of the Finance and Budget Officer (FS-6) and the overall supervision of the Chief Finance and Budget Unit (P-4). Within delegated authority, the national Individual Contractor will be responsible for the following duties:

• Perform, under guidance and supervision, a range of different office tasks to support various requirements related to the work of the Financial Resourcing, Performance and Risk Management Unit, in particular in clearing of Valued-Added Tax (VAT) receivables;
• Perform basic research concerning tax receivables and government receivables;
• Gather information, consolidate, evaluate, summarize and present VAT information for submission to Colombian national tax authority;
• Perform reconciliation of all account receivables balances;
• Liaise with relevant colleagues within UNVMC and with national tax authority concerning past submissions, resolve pending matters, follow up regularly outstanding balances;
• Set up and maintain accurate and complete files/records for the Unit;
• Draft memos and correspondence in English and Spanish;
• Assist in the clearance of financial issues for the preparation of year-end closing of accounts;
• Ensuring smooth and efficient flow of information within the Unit and with the Finance and Budget Officer;
• Provide logistical support for meetings, prepare minutes and monitoring follow-up activities;
• Receive and record all invoices received in the unit and maintain invoice tracking records to ensure timely processing of invoices and minimum unnecessary delay;
• Manage all incoming and outgoing correspondence for Finance and Budget Unit;
• Review imprest and petty cash account journals against the original/scanned copies of invoices;
• Coordinate with the Bank and Imprest/PC account custodians on the payment status and collection of cash payment from the bank including recording of payment in the cash journal in the system;
• Assists the team in clearances of UNFSS check-in/check-out process;
• Assists in the review and preparation of an upload file for further processing of UNVMC Telephone Billing Report.
• Ensures that all UNVMC policies are applied and followed thoroughly across all processes; including adherence to UNVMC code of conduct and ethics and integrates a gender sensitive approach in all functions;
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications/special skills

• High School degree or equivalent diploma is required.
• A minimum of three (3) years of relevant experience in Finance, Budget and Administration is required.
• Experience working with excel worksheet is required.
• Experience working in managing VAT refunds and dealing with national tax authority is desirable.
• Experience working in the United Nations or an international organizations is desirable.
• Experience working in ERP (such as SAP) is desirable.
• Training or certification in Finance and Budget is desirable.

Languages

• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the post advertised, fluency in Spanish is required. Knowledge of English is desirable. NOTE: “fluency equals a rating of “fluent” in all four areas (read, write, speak, understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of “confident” in two of the four areas.

Source:https://careers.un.org/jobSearchDescription/248858?language=en