Finance Officer at British Council

Nigeria is the British Council’s largest operation in SSA with offices in four cities: Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano. NSRP is a DFID-funded programme managed by the British Council (who lead a consortium including International Alert and Social Development Direct) that aims to enhance collective efforts to identify and respond effectively to potential sources of violent conflict in Nigeria and reduce the negative impacts of conflict on the most vulnerable among the Nigerian population.

Job Title: Finance Officer

Location of post: Abuja
Reports to: Programme Accountant

Job Description
The British Council The British Council in Nigeria has been contracted by the UK’s Department for International Development to manage the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP). The British Council works in partnership with International Alert and with Social Development Direct.

Main Duties:

• Responsible for the day to day management of all financial, banking and tax operations.
• Accountable for the efficient day to day running of the programme’s financial systems and processes.
• Responsible for accurate and timely management of purchase orders.
• Responsible for management of vendor creation process and travel, expenses and advances.
• Accountable for effective and efficient management of programme’s account payables.

Responsibilities and main duties
Financial management and control – 35%
Responsible for the day-to-day management of all financial, banking and tax operations, including:

• Support Programme Accountant in completing monthly cash-flow forecast and request
• Manage and process fund remittances to Abuja and State offices monthly
• Manage NSRP Cash journals on SAP
• Payment Processing: monitor payment process on a day-to-day basis to ensure that performance is in line with British Council standards and in line with NSRP systems, processes and policies
• Lead on processing payment for invoices submitted; manage down-payment, offline payments, Operational Advances and other disbursement
• Upload payment data on straight to bank for offline payments processing
• Carry out monthly bank reconciliations, petty cash reconciliations, offline payment reconciliations and other financial reconciliations that may be required from time to time
• o Prepare correction journals as necessary for wrong postings and ensure that they are posted before month-end
• o Payroll: Production of monthly payroll for temporary staff, support British Council Finance team in processing fixed-term staff salaries and overtime payments
• o Provide support to staff on invoice queries
• o Ensuring accurate management of programme store and inventory, including applying appropriate segregation of duties in receipt and audit of goods.
• o Carrying out a quarterly audit of the store.
• o Invoicing: Create Sales Orders as might be required
• Tax: Monthly remittance of tax returns to Nigerian tax authority; resolve issues on tax; work with remitting bank to process tax credit notes for vendors; support Programme Accountant to file for annual PAYE tax certificate; maintain tax monitoring spreadsheet
• Banking: Support Programme Accountant in managing relationship with Bankers and resolve issues on NSRP banking processes.
• Assist in preparation for external and internal audit of NSRP

Vendor Creation and Update Maintenance – 20%

• Review Vendor and Customer creation forms before SAP set-up
• Provide guidelines and support to Staff on vendor and customer creation
• Support Facilities & Procurement Manager when reviewing Vendor Master List (VML) review
• Resolve issues on Vendor and Customers accounts in SAP
• Update vendor and customer creation checklist as required
• In coordination with Facilities & Procurement Manager, provide information to and liaise with British Council’s Audit & Compliance Manager regarding Approved Suppliers List (ASL) and Vendor Master List (VML)
• Work with Programme Accountant and Facilities & Procurement Manager to collect quarterly statement request from NSRP top Vendors

Purchase Order management – 20%
Ensure the accurate and timely management of purchase orders, including:

• Timely review of programme purchase orders
• Manage open POs to highlight purchase orders that are no longer needed
• Liaise with PO creators to clear and resolve issues of open POs
• Manage late PO issues – Support PO creators to ensure POs for activities are created following the procurement policy and process
• Resolve blocked invoices and payments to vendors
• Manage the Purchase Order Monitoring Sheet
• In coordination with Facilities & Procurement Manager, prepare strategic procurement Report quarterly
• Monitor Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt on SAP
• Support Staff in managing PO issues

Travel, expenses and advances – 15%

• Prepare regular reports on open travel requests
• Carry out monthly and quarterly trip audits
• Review retirement documents where necessary
• Liaise and communicate with British Council Finance Hub on Trip Envelope Audits

Training – 10%

• Support Programme Accountant to deliver training for staff, consultants and other stakeholders

Key relationships
Internal: Programme Manager; Programme Accountant; Programme Team (management and technical).
External: External relationship management where appropriate (i.e. linked to function of role), to include: external partner organisations; state institutions, academic institutions, etc.

Qualifications

• First Degree or Equivalent in Accountancy/Business Administration/Economics/Banking & Finance

Experience
Financial management

• Experience of designing, implementing and managing financial management systems and controls

Application Closing Date
22nd November, 2013

Method of Application
Read through the role profile for Finance Officer. Download and complete the application form. To help you understand and complete the application form, read through the ‘How to complete the application’ in the application form. Listed within the role profile document, you will find a number of listed ‘behaviours’ and ‘skills and knowledge’. Evidence against those criteria’s will need to be provided in your role application form. To help you understand those criteria’s, we have provided a ‘behaviours’ and ‘generic skills' dictionary.

Please read all the documents carefully before you fill in the job application form. Telephone applications will not be considered. Completed applications should be sent via email to: [email protected] .

Applications received after the deadline will not be considered. Only candidates shortlisted for interview will be contacted. We do not accept CV's, handwritten applications or expressions of interest.

The application form must clearly explain how your experience matches the above profile and include names and contact details of 3 references. We will not be able to consider any application which arrives after that date.

Please ensure that the position you are applying for is given as the subject head of your e-mail. Any application not completed on the British Council ‘application form’ will not be accepted.

Please note all posts will be filled for two years in the first instance subject to the standard probationary period.