Vacancy Announcement

Senior Compliance and Donor Accountant

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for the following position:

Job Title: Senior Compliance and Donor Accountant

Reports to: Country Financial Controller (CFC)

Direct Reports: None

Liaises with: Internally – Country Management Team, Programme Coordinators/Managers, Finance, Admin/HR and Logistics teams.

Externally – Partners staff and management.

Job Location: Mogadishu, with regular visits to Programme locations in country and partners in line with agreed work plan.

Job Summary:

As a Senior Accountant focusing on compliance and donor grant management, the jobholder supports the CFC by ensuring that proper financial and systems controls are in place, functioning effectively in line with Concern Worldwide and donors’ procedures and policies. He will be supporting the CFC in planning and executing both scheduled and ad hoc audit engagements with the objective of obtaining clean bill of audit reports all the time. He will support in Donor grant management by ensuring that adherence to donor budgeting and reporting requirements. He will also support the CFC in ensuring that Concern’s partners fully comply with relevant policies and procedures of Concern and donors.

Main Duties &

Responsibilities:

To ensure that there is sound financial systems, controls by:

§  Testing internal controls, targeting particular high-risk areas, documenting any weaknesses and making recommendations to address these weaknesses.

• Assisting the CFC in developing audit engagements and undertaking institutional and project audits as required by Concern and donors. Do proper follow up and ensure that audit findings and recommendations are implemented in good time.
• Communicating and educating staff on compliance requirements and necessary practices for a full compliance to Concern and donors’ policies and requirements.

§  Identifying any trends or new risks to the programme and inform the senior management on the need to take any remedial action.

§  Maintaining awareness of regulatory and legal development, compliance requirements, underline possible repercussions and recommend measures to mitigate non-compliance risks.

• Assisting in the management of the organisation’s risk register, its periodic review and update by the senior management
• Assisting the CFC in completing the Emergency Country Finance Checklist and identifying any issues developing or short-term support required in the finance department during scale up of emergency response progarmmes.
• Performing procedures to identify  occurrence of financial errors (poor/lack of proper supporting documents, miscoding, non-compliance with Concern’s delegation  authority, procurement threshold, incurring excess expenditure  without prior approval, non-compliance with donor requirements) or fraud (theft, bribery, forgery, misuse of assets, etc.) and bringing any findings to the attention of the senior management (CD, SD, PD & CFC).
• Carry out regular checks/reviews on Concern’s logistics (focus on stores) and administration (file management) in order to assess any control weaknesses and report accordingly.
• Advising and monitoring on value for money and making recommendations for improvement
• Verifying  existence of assets and recommending proper safeguards for their protection where necessary
• Assessing compliance with federal and member states’ laws and requirements and keep the management updated on changes in finance and tax issues relevant to staff and organization.
• Review thoroughly all financial documents of projects funded by major donors and ensure the expenditure incurred fully comply with donor requirements before any donor audit takes place.

Donor Grant Management  & Financial Reporting

• Assist the CFC with the management of donor funds and timely production of donor reports, quarterly and annual financial reports for Dublin.
• Support grant owners/budget holders during preparation of donor and organizational budgets; ensuring compliance with donor rules and regulations.
• Prepare monthly donor expenditure report using the appropriate financial reporting format by taking into account donor requirements for CFC final review
• Assess the level of Concern programme’s adherence to compliance requirements and share your findings with the management  Obtain explanations on variances between budget and actual spending, income etc. for grants assigned to you by the CFC
• Follow up on income receivable from Donors or Consortium leads for the grants assigned to
• Ensure donor financial feedbacks are properly and timely addressed
• Carry-out monthly expenditure tracking for staff & support costs relating to grants assigned to you
• Fx rate tracking and management for grants assigned
• Capacity build grants owner/budget holders on financial management
• Attend to questions from the grant owner/budget holder on grants assigned to
• Hold monthly finance buddy meeting with the relevant programme teams for the grants assigned to
• Support the CFC with costs mapping for staff and support cost for grants assigned to you
• With the consent of the CFC, undertake periodic field visits and ensure finance and non-finance staff are training on Concern and donors compliance requirements
• Represent finance in new proposal/budget development process, donor funded workshops and meetings
• Maintain donor-reporting schedule to ensure timely reporting
• Ensure relevant reports and budgets are reviewed by Regional Accountant before submission to the Donor
• Coordinate with the relevant programme staff and ensure that Donations in Kind received during the period are accounted for in line with Concern guidelines.

To ensure that Concern  develops its partners capacity to enable them  manage donor grants effectively  (Local Partner Development & Support) by;

• Participating in the assessment of the financial management capacity of Concern’s partners,  identifying  capacity gaps on annual basis,  recommend actions  to address the gaps and make  follow ups with relevant staff for timely implementation.
• Reviewing partners’ external audit reports and following up any issues raised in the audit reports.

§  Visiting partners’ offices to assess compliance and ensure correct systems are in place.

§  Organise donor compliance training for Concern partners at least once a year

§  Organise/Attend grant opening and close out sessions with partners and discuss about key issues to be noted by the partners in relation to the new grant.

§  Making recommendations to the CFC and Management on the performance of Concern’s partners with special focus on the key areas that require management attention for immediate improvement (findings rated as high risk).

• Assessing the finance skills of both finance and key non-finance staff of partner organizations by using the partner assessment tool (CILPAT) and other relevant tools.

Other Duties

• Assist in the facilitation and smooth undertaking of Concern’s  programme/projects and Organisational Audit process.
• Cover for the other Finance Staff who may be away on sick leave, annual leave or resign their posts.

§  When requested by the senior management’s request, assist in preliminary investigations of alleged frauds, mismanagement, loss of assets or any other investigation.

• Undertake any other appropriate tasks that may be requested from time to time by your line manager.

Accountability

In line with Concern’s commitments under the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS):

• Actively promote meaningful community participation and consultation at all stages of the project cycle (planning, implementation, M&E)
• Work with relevant colleagues to ensure that the Complaints and Response Mechanism (CRM) is functional and accessible, that feedback and complaints are welcomed and addressed
• Work with relevant colleagues to ensure that information about CRM, safeguarding and expected staff behaviour is disseminated among programme participants and communities

Concern’s Code of Conduct (CCoC) and its associated policies

• Adhere to the standards of conduct outlined in the (1) Programme Participant Protection Policy; (2) Child Safeguarding Policy; and (3) Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy.