Finance Officer

**The Opportunity - **Finance Officer**

The position will be in charge of accounting for Save the Children (SCI) and its partner expenses, handling function of payment in Country Office. He/she should support Accounting and Partner Coordinator so as to ensure the integrity, transparency and timeliness of the expense data recognised in the system in line with General accounting principles, SCI policies and donor rules and regulations.

In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

**CHILD SAFEGUARDING: 2***

**Level 2**: either the post holder will have access to personal data about children and/or young people as part of their work; or the post holder will be working in a ‘regulated’ position (accountant, barrister, solicitor, legal executive); therefore, a police check will be required (at ‘standard’ level in the UK or equivalent in other countries).

**KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY**:
The following are the main accountabilities:
**Accounting**
- Strictly follow steps in month end/year end checklist are strictly followed;
- Support Accounting and Partner Coordinator in maintaining strong/healthy balance sheet and its management indicators;
- Review, verify and recognise expenses to the system in due time, ensuring eligibility of expenses in line with General accounting principles, SCI and donor policies and procedures;
- Work with Project Manager to prepare for accurate cash forecast needed for the month so as to support Accounting and Partner Coordinator to have an accurate consolidated cash forecast for the month;
**Internal Control Policies Development**
- Support Accounting and Partner Coordinator in the process of SCI internal control policy development, rolling out and implementation (including but not limited to accounting policy, payment policy, cost norm, partner guidelines);
**System Maintenance Tasks**

Agresso (Financial Management System - FMS) is kept clean and accordance to Global Policy ensuring:

- New codes are created on timely basis.
- All users must have passwords to log into Agresso
- Data is backup as scheduled
- Budget code are correctly recorded in to FMS and appropriately charged into approved grant
- A central filling system is in place and easy to trace back
- All donor budgets are mapped with organisation’s code before posting to FMS.

**Partner Financial Management**:
Review of Partner Advance and Reports
- Review partner reports in due time to verify the reports data are well justified by accounting books, cost items are justified, being within the budget and cost norm;
- Review partner advance request in due time, ensuring advance is within the approved budget, in line with the partner disbursement capacity, avoiding the situation that partner cash balance being high;
Partner Capacity Building
- Conduct partner assessment in due time so as to identify properly partner strength and weakness;
- Deliver partners’ training including financial management training and on fraud raising awareness: for new partners, induction is compulsory; for on-going partners, refresh training is needed and refresh training should focus on partners’ weaknesses which have been pointed out during finance visits and assessment;
Partner Close Out
- Carry out proper handover before final payment (handover of equipment/assets hand over).
- Process close out according to close out checklist.

**Staff and Partner Capacity Training**

Staff and Budget Holder Training
- Provide capacity building for staff including training and development of financial skills for both finance and non-finance staff;
- Support budget holder training (Budget Holders induction, annual Budget Holder training, ad hoc Budget Holder training);
Partner Capacity Building
- Conduct partner assessment in due time so as to identify properly partner strength and weakness;
- Deliver partners’ training including financial management training and on fraud raising awareness: for new partners, induction is compulsory; for on-going partners, refresh training is needed and refresh training should focus on partners’ weaknesses which have been pointed out during finance visits and assessment;
**Support/Back up and other tasks***
- Back up the task of bank and cash reconciliation at the month end when needed;
- Back up FP&A team in task of budget phasing during forecast period

**Working contacts**
- Internal: Finance Manager, Finance and ICT Director, Senior Management Team, Programme and Finance Staff
- External: Government Agencies, INGOs, donors, suppliers of goods and services

**BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice**)**

**_ Accountability:_**
- Holds self-accountable for managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling SC values
- Holds staff and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities with strong support for using their knowledge and creativity to deliver according to communitie