Internal Control Manager at Operation Smile Foundation

Operation Smile Foundation (OSF) provides basic business Credit extension in a manner that, the under employed and marginalized rural and urban groups and individuals can create or expand their businesses by planning and managing themselves to generate income for their families/households. The objective is to liberate rural women and youth from economic marginalization in a manner that they would own their means of livelihood.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Internal Control Manager

Location: Owerri, Imo
Employment Type: Full-time

Job Description

• An internal control manager is essentially a policeman or watchdog in a company, division or department.
• His basic responsibilities are to develop policies and procedures, ensure their implementation and monitor compliance.
• In essence, the internal control manager helps keep a company from engaging in potentially illegal or unethical activities that could get it into hot water.
• An internal control manager typically has experience in one or more of the following: management, legal compliance, accounting and auditing.

Compliance Procedures:

• A primary duty of the internal control manager is to review existing accounting and financial controls and other legal compliance processes in place and make any necessary revisions or additions.
• In doing so, she communicates urgent changes immediately with department managers and staff.
• She also works with human resources to update policy manuals and other documentation to ensure immediate compliance by all staff involved.
• In financial services, for instance, many companies rushed to develop social media compliance policies to prevent brokers and serve reps from unwittingly providing financial advice through their accounts.

Internal Audits and Reviews:

• The internal control manager also conducts regular internal audits and reviews to assess the compliance of departments and individual employees.
• In accounting, for instance, the internal control manager reviews processes and records to see that accountants are operating in line with generally accepted accounting principles, laws, industry and company standards.
• The results of the reviews are shared with managers to aid in feedback, training and development to ensure greater overall compliance.

Training and Development:

• Another role of the control manager is to address specific training and development needs to fill compliance gaps.
• As a result of comparing department and employee activities to prescribed standards, the officer identifies specific gaps.
• He then meets or communicates with the CEO, division or department managers to advise them of the necessary training to bring the company, a department or particular employees up to speed on compliance standards. New government regulations sometimes necessitate additional training.

Liaison:

• Given his role of ensuring internal compliance, it is natural that the internal control manager commonly serves as the go-between with his company and external government and auditing agencies.
• He must stay on top of changes in accounting and external audit procedures to ensure his company complies.
• He also communicates with other governmental agencies or legal professionals with insights into changing regulations, standard compliance practices and other changes that may impact the merit of current internal control policies.

Implementing Systems:

• The main role of internal control officers is to implement an organization’s internal control system.
• To achieve this, they administer training to ensure that workers have an intricate understanding of all internal control guidelines and standards. They also conduct regular audits to verify whether departments follow the established procedures.
• For example, when there is a sudden increase in organizational spending, the internal control officer may audit the accounting department to detect procurement irregularities.

Mitigating Risk:

• Another duty of internal control officers is to identify the risks that a business faces and develop preventive strategies. For example, when a business does not have a legal department, it might fail to monitor changes in relevant laws and risk violating them. Internal control officers will take note of this and may advise management to hire an attorney.
• These officers also evaluate the business' recovery procedures for operational disruptions and maintain communication with external auditors and regulatory agencies.

Requirements
Getting There:

• To become an internal control officer, you need to hold at least a Bachelor’s Degree in fields such as Finance, Business Administration and Accounting.
• 2 - 10 years relevant work experience.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2022.