Job title: Finance Manager
Organization TPO Uganda
Country: Uganda
City Kampala
Job category: Accounting/Finance/Insurance
Closing date: November 11, 2013
Key Result Area
1. Supervise and monitor the liquidity position and treasury function of the organization to ensure that the organization can meet its financial obligations as they fall due.
What do you need to know
• Country Strategic Plan
• Project Plans and Budgets
• Accounting software –Sage-Pastel Evolution and other spreadsheets
• Statutory laws and other donor reporting requirements.
What do you need to be able to do
• Review and check country office payments, cash receipts and journal vouchers.
• Review and approve head office monthly bank reconciliation statements and petty cash statements and balance sheet reconciliation schedules.
• Monitor cash and bank balances held by the organization.
• Review cash requests on amounts to be transferred to field offices based on project budgets.
• Review and approve amounts to be transferred from foreign bank accounts to the local accounts depending on cash requirements
• Negotiate with the bankers a ‘good’ exchange rate whenever the organization is trading in foreign currencies.
• Develop meaningful finance indicators against which to assess impact, cost effectiveness and value for money in the main areas of our work, drawing on internal and external best practice and contributing to the further improvement of TPO’s expertise in the area.
• Design a system to monitor field expenditures/bank balances ensuring that all projects have funds, have accounted for funds previously received and have requested for the necessary required funds.
• Approved Statement of reconciled Head office bank accounts and petty cash statements.
• Reviewed balance sheet schedules.
• Reviewed cash position schedules of the organization.
• Reviewed field office bank reconciliations and balance sheet reconciliations.
• A developed set of financial indicators.
2. Supervise, support and maintain a competent finance team as well as training of the non finance team in line with the Human Resources policies. What you need to know
• Minimum technical knowledge for finance persons required to do the job for recruitment, retention and staff development purposes.
• Critical issues relevant to managing a professional team (accounting specific).
• Local financial manual and its provisions.
• Issues affecting accountants in their working environment.
• Training needs of the finance team.
• Opportunities available for staff development both internally and externally.
• Structures required for effective communication both internal and external.
• Human resources policies.
• Assess the training needs of the non-finance team and design tailor made programmes to address these needs.
What you need to able to do
• Ability to conceptualize and analyze accounting systems and disseminate this to the finance team especially in solving complex problems.
• Provide technical support to finance team in building their capacity and ability to deal with finances related issues.
• Participate in recruitment of Finance staff in accordance with organizations policies and procedures and with mutually agreed plans & budgets.
• In collaboration with other teams and as part of the annual planning process, analyze staffing levels and capacities to deliver work-plans.
• Be able to provide support on the minimum technical skills required for finance staff during recruitment and participate fully in the final selection.
• Follow up on staff development initiatives, i.e. induction, appropriate training, appraisals and ensure these are in line with organization mission.
• Build complimentary skills and provide opportunity for growth e.g. by exploring new areas, both vertically and horizontally.
• Develop decision making skills through planned devolution of authority and responsibility, giving recognition for effective decision making and providing a constructive forum where mistakes may be analyzed and positive action taken.
• Create an enabling environment that maximizes opportunity and tap individual potential encouraging the team to expand its boundaries in a manner that gives vision, direction & tolerance.
• Encourage and engage in open and unbiased dialogue, being sensitive to the individual and team needs, giving and receiving an honest feedback with a positive attitude.
• Contribute to appraisal and performance management process of staff who have a matrix management relationship, giving technical advice on staff development needs and providing access to training or capacity building processes as required.
• Provide support and encouragement to finance staff to take advantage of training/ staff development opportunities both internal and external.
• Establish channels where information will be delivered within and across teams, both internally and externally for clear conveyance of the messages.
• Plan regular team meetings (at least quarterly) where the finance team and non-finance team can share experiences on how to improve on service delivery.
• Full participation in the recruitment, development and retention of finance staff.
• Developed checklist on minimum technical skills for recruitment purposes.
• Performance appraisal report for finance staff highlighting their strengths, areas of weakness and recommendations.
• All accounting staff are at a certain level of functioning.
• Non finance staff and budget holders acquire capacity to provide financial oversight.
• Set finance staff performance targets.
• A plan for staff development initiatives for team members.
• Training needs assessment report for finance and non-finance staff.
3. To respond timely and consistently to audit queries and implement audit recommendations from both external and internal auditors. What do you need to know
• TPO accounting system
• Financial Manual
• Management letter and its recommendations
• Audit queries
What do you need to be able to do
• Plan and schedule timely all audit engagements.
• Support and train finance staff with audit skills to enable them handle audits better.
• Provide all the necessary information (audit schedules) to the audit team.
• Implement the audit recommendations as stated in the report or take appropriate action as required.
• Train and share experiences with the concerned units/projects in areas of weaknesses identified.
• Monitor through support supervision visits to projects whether the recommendations are being implemented.
• Be available to answer audit queries as they arise.
• Refer auditors to relevant persons who can clear any non-finance matters.
• Training needs assessment report.
• Periodic follow up report on audit recommendations.
• Implementation report on key areas of weaknesses identified.
• A written Audit response report
• Identified gaps in the organization’s accounting system and solutions sought to have them fixed prior subsequent audits.
• Adherence and awareness of International accounting standards by all the organization’s accounting staff.
4. Participate in the review and preparation of project budget and cash flow statements that comply with grant agreements and are realistic to the financial needs of TPO. What do you need to know
• Donor allowable and disallowable costs.
• Cost centers and costs estimates for each spending unit.
• Donor budget guidelines and time frames for the budgeting exercise.
• How to use spreadsheets
What do you need to be able to do
• Prepare a master budget for the entire organization.
• Use spreadsheets to generate and consolidate the budgets.
• Use Sage Pastel Evolution software to monitor actual expenditure against budget.
• Produce monthly, biannual and annual financial reports to monitor actual expenditure against budget.
• Review, check the accuracy and completeness of the project budgets before upload in accounting software.
• Design budget templates with appropriate formulae for use during budgeting exercise.
• Provide support to project teams in the area of costing of activities and budget preparation.
• Monitor and supervise the implementation and reporting of donor funded projects.
• Copies of project budget
• Monthly variance reports
• Budget template for project budgets.
• Improved budget planning and monitoring.
• Prepare cash flow statements
5. Improve and maintain financial and management gathering information systems that will enable accurate and timely reporting (both internally and externally).
What you need to know
• Organization Chart of accounts
• Operation of Sage –Pastel Software
• How to administer Sage –Pastel software
• Coding structure for Sage Pastel
• Design reports in Sage Pastel software
What you need to able to do
• Understand the workings of Sage-Pastel software and be able to disseminate this information to finance staff.
• Check for accuracy, completeness and validity of financial data before it is posted into accounting software
• Refer to software manual to solve problems.
• Backup and restore procedures to ensure system integrity /security and also relate this to operation of the system and detection of system failures.
• Manage and administer Sage Pastel software to ensure it runs efficiently.
• Design and write reports from Sage Pastel to address the information requirements of stakeholders.
• Supervise the maintenance of an updated fixed asset register for TPO Uganda.
• Coordinate and supervise the preparation of donor reports on a timely basis.
• Establish the information reporting requirements of these stakeholders, the deadlines for reporting and design reports to meet the information needs to the stakeholders.
• Be able to support the interpretation of the reports for non -financial staff
• Through analysis and evaluation of performance reports develop a learning culture for capturing both personal and institutional learning and knowledge and making it available in a way that ensures it can be accessed, adapted and used by others
• Log book showing information on the back-up system.
• Schedule of stakeholder information requirements
• Copies of developed and written Sage -Pastel reports
• Monthly, Biannual and Annual donor and management reports
• List of reporting requirements and deadlines
• Updated chart of accounts.
6. Monitor and maintain the general internal control environment by ensuring proper utilization of organizational resources. What you need to know
• Financial manual
• Organizational accounting system
• Internal control system and its operation
• How other departments fit into the internal control system.
What you need to able to do
• Apply financial polices to daily operations in the finance department.
• Identify weaknesses in the accounting system and propose possible improvements.
• Check that all authorizing persons are operating within their authorized limits.
• Understand the workings of the internal control system.
• Support the country office and field teams in development and maintenance of good and generally accepted financial discipline, financial management and accountability.
• Check that there is full compliance to organizational financial policies and procedures.
• List of weaknesses identified in the internal control system and the possible solutions to the weaknesses.
• Flow diagram of the movement of documentation within the organization.
• List of high-risk areas and suggested solutions to mitigate the risk.
Person Specifications:
• Minimum ACCA Associate with an accounting degree preferably Bcom
• Should have managed an annual portfolio exceeding US$2million
• Over 5 years experience in senior financial management capacity
• Ability to supervise and manage a diverse team
• Multi-donor experience with some of the following; USAID, UNICEF, DANIDA as well as Foundations.
• Experience managing subgrants.
• Previous experience as head of department or accounting unit.
• Risk management, and external, internal audit experience.
• Excellent skills in excel and familiarity with computerized accounting in particular SAGE Pastel accounting software
How to apply:
Send cover letter, resume and salary history table of 3 most recent employers to: ponyango@tpoug.org
