Finance Officer

Overview

The Finance Officer provides financial services ensuring high quality, accuracy, and consistency of financial reports in accordance with CIFOR-ICRAF internal financial as well as donor guidelines. The Finance Officer works in close collaboration with other teams outside finance such as PMU, Country team and Research Themes of CIFOR-ICRAF, to exchange information and ensure timely service delivery. In addition, the Finance Officer ensures that strong internal controls are instituted in following CIFOR-ICRAF’s policies and procedures.

Duties and responsibilities

Monitor Budget and Actual Expenses of restricted grants.

• Maintain a complete record of all pertinent documents of each project and coordinate with other Finance Staff and various project leaders to ensure that the financial implementation adheres with all the other aspects of the project agreement.
• Collaborate with donors, collaborators, project leaders and scientists to clarify financial issues, answer queries and give updates on the financial and budget status of the project.
• Review and verify expenditures of restricted projects assigned to ensure adherence to budgetary and donor requirements.
• Liaise with the Program Management Unit (PMU) regarding the development of Letter of Agreement (LoA) with partner Institutions, project start-ups and set ups in the internal systems (myTree and OCS), budget update and management in OCS and project tracking & closures.

Annual Budget and rolling budget updates.

• Collaborate with Principal Investigator (PI) regarding staff time allocation to be updated in OCS planner.
• Collaborate with PI on budgets for partnerships, travel, supplies, consultants, publications, and other costs based on the availability of funds of on-going restricted projects.
• Review the overall annual budgets of grants in assigned teams.

Donor Reporting.

• Prepare reports on the specific projects’ finances to donors and other users in compliance with the organization’s standards and as specifically pre-determined by the donor as mentioned on the signed Grant Agreements and Donor’s General Conditions.
• Ensure that reports to donors are submitted on time.
• draft and final financial reports in grants management system.
• Review donors report from the Country Offices assigned prior to forwarding for approval.
• Prepare invoice/payment request to the donor according to the payment term and schedule on the agreement.
• Follow up for any query or review from the donor for the submitted financial report.

Grant Proposal Budgets revised budgets for On-going Projects.

• Key resource for project amendment budget preparation.
• Review and discuss revised budget for on-going projects with PI Themes and/or from Country Offices assigned.
• Ensure that the grants recover full overheads as per relevant cost structure.
• Provide guidance and ensure the budget figures are correct, and the budget lines follow the donor requirements.

Grant Agreements.

• Review the financial part and other relevant information of the new Grant Agreements and Grant agreement amendments.

Internal Reporting.

• Update the monthly summary of restricted projects with multi-year budgets and cumulative expenses.
• Update the monthly staff time allocation and the three-year staff plans.

Special Audit of Restricted Projects.

• Execute the selection process of audit firm to appoint the auditor for special audit of restricted projects as required by donor.
• Key resource on providing supporting documents and queries from the external auditors during the audit process.
• Review the preliminary draft audit report received from the auditor.
• Review partner audit report in relation to project requirement.

Daily and Monthly Operations.

• Monitor donor receivables and payables.  Assist in ensuring that receivables are collected.  Review donor payables and remind project leaders if there is slow spending.  Provide explanation on the monthly summary of donor receivables and payables >USD 50K, prepared by Treasury team.
• Identify incoming funds from restricted donors and provide the code to the Manager of Treasury and Fixed Assets.
• Monitor and ensure that staff time allocation is in accordance with the budget and the time sheets are recorded/adjusted appropriately.
• Collect timesheets from respective staff involved in the project that required timesheets as mandatory supporting documents.

Restricted Grants Partners Financial Management Monitoring.

• Review project partner’s agreement and budget in collaboration with PMU.
• Monitor financial compliance for restricted grants partners of assigned grants and ensure partners spend within their budgets and are following the laid down donor and/or CIFOR-ICRAF financial procedures and regulations.
• Analyze restricted grants partner expenses and provide feedback of analysis to the project leaders and managers on expenditure trends and areas with significant over- or under spending.
• Review the financial reports submitted by the partners, monitor partner balances, and collect any unused funds.
• Perform other tasks assigned from time to time by the Senior Finance Officer – Grants, Finance Manager – Grants, Team Leader – Finance, and Director Corporate Services.

Education, knowledge and experience

• A minimum of university education in accounting.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience.
• Experience with an ERP, familiarity with Agresso Unit 4 and Vision XL is an advantage.
• Experience in financial and accounting services.
• Experience in project or cost accounting.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Strong computer skills in word processing, database, and other relevant office applications.
• Experience working with a wide and diverse network of groups and individuals.
• Fluent in written and spoken English.

Source: https://www.cifor-icraf.org/career/206844000028877337/finance-officer-grants/