Senior Accountant, NGO Finance & Compliance Leader

Job Title: Senior Accountant
Organisation:
Self Help Africa
Contract Type: Fixed term Contract
Hours: 37.5 per week
Location: Lilongwe, Malawi
Reports to: Finance Manager

About Self Help Africa :

Established in 1984, Self Help Africa is an international development organisation that works through agriculture and agri-enterprise development to address hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impacts of climate change. We believe that equitable economic development is key to lifting communities out of long-term poverty, empowering them to take control of their futures and improving their quality of life.

In early 2023 we launched a new five-year organisation strategy, which defines shared mission as the alleviation of hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise-focused approaches, so that people can have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources.

Our wider organisation also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, which provides ethical auditing and consultancy services, and CUMO, Malawi’s largest micro-finance provider.

Our three core values are:
▪ Impact:
We are accountable, ambitious and committed to systemic change.

▪ Innovation: We are agile, creative and enterprising in an ever-changing World.
▪ Community:
We are inclusive, honest and have integrity in our relationships.

Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Finance Manager and working closely with relevant Project Managers, the Senior

Accountant is responsible for the maintenance of timely, accurate, up to date and easily accessible

financial information and the provision of training and mentoring to project staff (non-finance staff) on

finance and related matters for relevant Projects.

In addition, the jobholder has line management responsibility over specific Project Accountants and

oversight of the shared costs allocation.

Key Responsibilities:

-Financial data management and reporting.

– Read, understand and keep abreast of donor contracts and guidelines to ably guide Project team

in interpretation and compliance of donor policies and procedures on budgeting, expenditures and

reporting

– Review financial data for accuracy, completeness, and integrity to ensure its in line with SHA and

donor policies and procedures.

– Prepare timely and accurate internal and donor financial reports in line with narrative reports,

generally accepted accounting practices but also donor requirements to ensure effective project

– Prepare monthly management accounts for Project managers and SMT’s review

– Take initiative to investigate all project variances on budget variance reports (for assigned projects)

and liaise with project managers on timely remedial action to ensure acceptable maximum budget utilization.

– Assist in the uploading and posting of transactions in the Accounting System on daily basis

– Ensure manual and electronic files are maintained for project payment vouchers, liquidations, journals, invoices, receipts and other support documentation.

-In conjunction with project managers update the Financial Controller and HRA Manager with any information regarding staff grade, funding percentages and salary changes.

– Support project managers with project narratives in relation to expenditure, financial risks and

– Review, reconcile and update project asset listing, stock listing and verify to physical assets and stocks respectively.

– Implementation and provide oversight of all system, policies and procedures to ensure efficient project implementation, compliance to SHA and donor policies and procedures, reporting to management on any findings and areas of improvement.

– Monitor the cash and bank balances to avoid projects bank accounts running out of resources.

– Periodically conduct field visits to project sites to familiarize oneself with project activities but also confirm expenditure and provide finance induction, on- site support to staff, partners where necessary in all aspects related to accounting, finance and budget.

Month end procedures:

Monthly prepare timely and accurate bank reconciliations of the assigned bank accounts,…