Job Title:  Finance Lead                                     Updated: 30.06.2020

Reporting to:Programme Manager

Hours: 40/week (8:30am – 5:30pm)

Principal Location: Buea

Background: 

Street Child believes that every child deserves the chance to go to school and learn. Our projects focus on a combination of education, child protection and livelihood support to address the social, economic and structural issues that underpin today’s education crisis. We partner with local organisations and communities to deliver our locally rooted programmes, using evidence to drive learning and the refinement and scale up of programmes to create maximum impact for the most children at the lowest cost. We pride ourselves on being willing to go to the world’s toughest places where others won’t, including remote, hard-to-reach areas and fragile, disaster-affected states across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Since 2008 we have helped over 250,000 children to go to school and learn and supported over 25,000 families to set up businesses so they can afford the cost of educating their children.

Part 1:  Role Purpose:

Responsible for day-to-day general financial administration and working to build the financial capacity of partner organisations. Key responsibility of setting-up and implementing financial management framework, reporting framework and financial policies, with the support of the Programme Manager and Regional Finance Manager. 

Part 2:  Key Responsibilities:

1. General Financial Management 

• With the support of the Cameroon Programme Manager and Regional Finance Manager, establish and maintain relevant financial systems, processes and policies for Street Child
• Support and mentor our partner organisation’s finance team to maintain accurate financial records and planning throughout the child protection project

2. Financial Reporting 

• Approve payments, purchase authorizations and other financial transactions to ensure compliance with staff rules, financial rules and implementing instruments/authority under specified threshold 
• Establish and maintain a system to monitor and forecast cash requirements to meet administrative and project expenditures.
• Prepare monthly financial reports and activity-based budget v. expense reports 
• Prepare financial records for auditing processes

3. Petty Cash and Banking 

• Check and reconcile cash requests from staff
• Prepare office petty cash requests for sign off
• Organise the monthly cash count

4. Administrative Tasks   

• Provide general financial support as required for the office management and for projects
• Prepare correspondence regarding taxation, insurance and other fees for executive review
• Establish and maintain a strong financial filing system in both hard copy and electronic form

5. Audit and Partnership

• Ensure implementing partners to submit timely and accurate financial reports
• Provide coaching and mentorship to partners’ finance staff 
• Proactively identified capacity gaps in partners, and liaise with programme manager and regional finance manager to provide relevant support;
• Perform during the internal and partners’ audit cycle including risk management over operations’ effectiveness, financial reliability and compliance with all applicable directives and regulations. 
• Obtain, analyse and evaluate accounting documentation, previous reports, data, flowcharts etc. 
• Prepare reports that reflect audit’s results and document process. 

Part 3:  Person Specification                                 

1. Education/Qualifications

Essential: 

• Educated to degree level or higher

Desirable:

• Masters degree in relevant field; or attendance at specific relevant training courses

2. Experience and Knowledge

Essential: 

• Demonstrable work experience in financial processes for NGO
• Experience in implementing financial policies and procedure
• Knowledge of the accounting norms of Cameroon
• Experience in donor funded project budgeting and reporting.

Desirable: 

• Finance experience in an NGO for not less than 3 years

3. Skills and Abilities 

Essential: 

• Ability to use the IT tools employed in accounting and financial management
• Excellent spoken and written English
• Excellent interpersonal, listening and communication skills
• Ability to positively influence others and reconcile differences.

Desirable:

• Good excel skills.