Job Vacancy @ Plan International – Business Analyst (Sierra Leone)

The Organisation

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

Plan International Sierra Leone is seeking to recruit top-notch professional to fulfil the position of Business Analyst (Country Office / Freetown) to deliver the tasks outlined below:

SUMMARY OF THE POSITION

To provide support to the country's accounting, banking, and treasury, financial risk management and internal control practices/systems, the maintenance of its financial records, and the preparation of its financial reports.

To ensure accounting processes coordination and effective service delivery

To support the Country Finance Manager (CFM) to implement global and countrywide financial strategies.

DIMENSIONS OF ROLE

• Area of Responsibility – Country Office, PIIAs, Project offices
• Business planning processes
• Accounting and Treasury
• Financial Reporting and Analysis
• Internal Financial Controls & Risks Management
• People management
• Coordinate the day-to-day work of accounting staff

Business planning processes:

• Facilitate and coordinate business planning processes in terms of Budgeting; quarterly forecasting (Funding Budget modification, rephrasing, etc.) – year reporting.
• Support the CFM in reviewing and consolidating planning inputs for the country.
• Reviews budget entries in SAP and keeps records of budget modifications and rephrasing.
• Reviews and consolidates monthly budget Vs Actual analysis for all offices and projects of Plan International Sierra Leone.
• Support field planning processes and actively participates in partners and field-based community organizations training and empowerment.
• Participates to the budgeting process and ensures that operational plans are consistent with the approved budgets.

Accounting and treasury:

• Ensures compliance with local regulatory and tax legislation in respect of financial matters
• Keep and update the Delegation of Authority according to Plan International policy.
• Lead on communications with our bankers and ensure effective bank service delivery including forex services.
• Prepare weekly, monthly, quarterly, and midterm cash flow forecast and ensure it is uploaded in the corporate system
• Monitor cash flow on each project and ensure all projects reimburse the main bank account monthly
• Review bank reconciliation and ensure of outstanding items are cleared before the end of the month.

• Support Country Finance Manager FM in the preparation of the quarterly report or reviews periodic financial reports (Management Quarterly Report, Monthly PACK) preparation including monthly grants and year-end reports.
• Use an approved checklist to review financial reports and liquidations from implementing partners and make recommendations on areas of improvement.
• Maintaining close monitoring of advances to partners, expenditure reporting by partners, and complete supporting documentation.
• Do monthly cost recovery and cost apportionment run and ensure all necessary documentation are filed
• Ensure that balance sheets accounts are reviewed, cleared, and reconciled on a monthly basis.
   

Internal financial controls:

• Review appropriate financial controls processes, procedures and systems are in place and adhered to countrywide.
• Follow up finance-related audits with partners and ensure adequate action lists are developed to tackle issues immediately.
• Reviews and updates financial risks of all implementation partners
• Do periodically review/monitoring of implementation partners
• Trains staff and partners on fraud risks awareness and tests the effectiveness of current controls.
• Perform expenditures analyses with the cost-effectiveness of operations orientation.
• Sharing and dissemination of best practices countrywide.
• Review the actual weekly cash count form at all levels

• • Conduct interim and final evaluation of direct report staff.
  • Coach, training and provide on-spot guidance to direct reports
   
  KEY RELATIONSHIPS

• Country Finance staff
• Grant support team
• Field staff
• Partners
• Country office program support team and admin Team
• External stakeholders

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS, AND KNOWLEDGE

Qualification and Experience:

Essential

• A Bachelor Degree in Finance, Accounting or related fields Plus ACCA, ACA, or CIMA part-qualified
• Working experience in the field of accounting and finance of at least 5 years preferably with INGO.
• Experience with financial information systems and MS office especially Word and PowerPoint.
• Strong management accounting and networking skills, experience in managing teams
• Intermediate to advanced Excel
• In depth knowledge of financial systems, financial management and reporting

• Develops, motivates, coaches and manages finance team under his/her supervision in the CO.
• Promotes high performance by all staff
• Promotes innovation and learning
• Communicates clearly and effectively
• Empathy and conceptual flexibility
• Gains, develops and retains credibility about his/her performance
• Open to partners/stakeholder’s queries.
• Precision in numbers

Skills Specific to the post needed to put knowledge into practice.

• Strong analytical thinking
• Communication skills, appropriate to the audience
• Problem solving, strong team-building and motivational skills
• Action orientated and a self-starter
• Strong negotiating, facilitating and influencing skills
• Proficient in computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications, e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, database, web-based system
• Working knowledge of written and spoken English and French.

Dealing with Problems:

• Coaching of staff under his/her supervision on implementation of finance functions
• Exhibit a good sense of judgment and responsibility in performance of duties
   
  PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
  The role will be required to frequently travel to the schools/communities.

Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Child Protection (CPP) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Ensure staff understand Plan International’s commitment to driving a feminist agenda within the organization, and the ambition for gender equality and gender transformative leadership is embedded in our value-based leadership framework.

Plan International’s Values

https://plan-international.org /about-us/careers-plan-international /our-values-work

To apply for this job, kindly click on "Apply" Your application should include:

• A cover letter
• A comprehensive CV including details of two referees, one of whom should be your current or most recent supervisorOnly short-listed candidates shall be contacted. References will be taken and background and anti-terrorism checks will be carried out in conformity with Plan International Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy.
  
  
  
  
  Plan International follows an equal opportunity policy and actively encourages diversity welcoming applications from all especially women and people living with disability.
   
  Early application is encouraged as we will review applications throughout the advertising period and reserve the right to close the advert early.

Location:             Country Office / Freetown

Type of Role:      Business Analyst

Reports to:          Country Finance Manager

Grade:                 D2

Closing Date:     5th April, 2022

Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.

We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.

A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International's Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

How to Apply

Qualified and interested individuals should click on the button below to apply.