Programme Accountant

Trócaire is a partnership based Irish NGO supporting local civil society organizations. Trocaire Somalia country programme focuses on health, nutrition and education in Gedo region in Somalia. A vacancy has arisen for Kenyan Nationals for the position of Programme Accountant, based in Nairobi.

The Finance department is responsible for ensuring a sound management of the financial resources entrusted with the Somalia office and to ensure that there are effective procedures in place to facilitate internal controls and accountability of grants to the implementing partners.

Main Purpose of Role

The Role of Programme Accountant is to provide support to programme team during donor proposals, budgeting and financial reporting.She/he has responsibility for supporting partners’ on governance and financial management capacity development efforts, facilitating grant management processes within the programmes and provide technical support and advice all programmes within the Country Office.

Key Duties & Responsibilities:

Take Lead in Supporting all Trocaire Somalia’s Grants Management Processes

Working Closely with the respective program officer and the Program Support Manager:

• Under the coordination of the Program team, participate in donor proposal and budget development.
• Review of partner submitted budgets for relevance, cost efficacy, relation to proposal and log frame.
• Undertake partner pre-award trainings around Trocaire/Donor regulations & requirements/tools/processes and other expectations, including generally accepted international financial management practices.
• Facilitate timely grant processing through Agreso and subsequent disbursements regularly updating programs on disbursement status
• Monitor and review field and partner financial reporting ensuring timeliness, compliance with Trocaire/Donor requirements, cost efficiency and effectiveness in utilization of financial resources, validity, accuracy and completeness of reported expenses.
• Undertake partner expenditure verifications exercises, positively and constructively providing feedback to the partner and PO, ensuring that arising issues are resolved in a timely manner
• Support PO’s in arranging for project specific audits of partners as well as liaising with those partners on their statutory audit obligations
• Track and support field staff and partners in implementation of audit recommendations
• Support programs team in the close out of concluding grants
• **Lead Efforts to Ensure that all field payroll and field requisition transactions are collected on time and captured in Agresso.***Working Closely with the Program support Manager and the Finance coordinator:*
• Follow up on a monthly basis with the zonal coordinators to ensure that they send field (DHB staff) payroll on time.
• Review the field payroll and make sure that salary transfer to field based staff is made on time.
• Review field requisitions received from the field and give feedback to the field finance officer.
• Ensure that the field requisitions and other finance documents are properly labelled and filed following the transfer of the money to the field.
• Provide feedback on payroll and on field finance reports to the field finance officer and to the zonal coordinators or administrators
• Travel to the field and give technical financial capacity development to the program staff and field based partner staff based on need.
• Support Trocaire Finance and Program staff in enhancing their governance and financial management capacity building skills.
• Contribute to and facilitate inter-organizational learning on our collective capacity building efforts, including providing input to improvements to such efforts at both national and Trocaire global levels

Provide Technical Financial Management Advice and Support to Programmes

• Support PO’s in country programme budget preparations, & revisions
• Support PO’s in the regular monitoring of programme expenditures through review of up to date BVA’s and appropriately advice on arising variances
• Up on review of BVAs, ensure that the reversals and corrections are appropriately captured in Agresso.
• Participate in regular programme meetings providing technical financial inputs and advice
• Analyse, alert and advice program team on financial risks that would impact on programmes.
• Assist and suggest improvement to work processes and increase efficiency within the programme function.
• As called upon by the country management, undertake fraud & irregularity investigations within identified partners
• Take the lead in the preparation of (all) accurate and timely donor financial reports
• Support programmes in any arising external and internal control audits as required and in the implementation of recommendations both internally and with partners.
• Assist the program team in grant close out processes

Any Other Duties

Any other duties as may be assigned

Expected Outputs

• Updated donor reporting and monitoring tracker with all previous donor reports properly filed, soft and hard copies.
• Monthly BVA analysis shared with the programs team and with management.
• Timely donor reports drafted and shared for review prior to submission to the donor.
• Timely Transfer of Funds to Partners
• Updated Partner Reporting and Audit Trackers
• Good, Realistic and viable budgets per program
• Complaint and Accountable Financial Reporting by Partners consistent with project implementation expectations
• Minimal or no ineligible costs arising from expenditure verification or audit reviews
• Financial alert Program staff on Trocaire, donor and basic generally accepted financial management practices.
• Financial risk mitigation within the programs

Essential Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, Finance, Accounting or Business Administration
• Professional accountancy qualification (CPA or ACCA)
• A minimum of 5 years in a finance department, 2 of which would be working with partners institutions in a financial capacity building setting
• Ability to regularly travel to the field
• Ability to prepare concise, informative financial reports
• Strong organizational skills, with an emphasis on time management and the ability to plan, organize and implement various activities within a time-pressured environment
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team
• Excellent interpersonal and team dynamics skills

CORE VALUES AND CRITICAL COMPETENCIES

• Team player with excellent inter personal and communication skills, both verbal and written
• Excellent supervision and leadership skills
• Mature, Honest, diplomatic and a positive attitude
• Proactive and reliable with ability to command respect and grace among peers and all levels of organizations, including ability to comfortably interact with the highest hierarchy within an entity
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills
• Ability to organize and coordinate schedules, incl. effective supervision and delegation
• Work effectively and cooperatively with others towards shared goals, establishing and maintaining principle-centred working relationships and possess excellent planning and organization skills
• Clearly conveys information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain their message.
• Demonstrate ability to use innovative approaches, strategies and personal initiative.

HOW TO APPLY:

For full details of the position and how to apply, please use the following linkhttp://www.trocaire.org/about/work-with-trocaire/jobs .