Finance & Administration Officer at Adam Smith International

Adam Smith International is an award-winning global company that delivers impact, value and lasting change through economic growth and government reform. Our reputation as a global leader has been built on the positive results our projects have achieved in many of the world’s most challenging environments.

Adam Smith International has a strong corporate presence globally, with 146 current projects across 49 countries and over 1,000 staff and associates. Headquartered in London, our regional offices are based in Africa (Nairobi, Abuja and Pretoria), Asia Pacific (Sydney) and South Asia (Delhi), with numerous registered offices across Africa and Asia.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Position: Finance & Administration Officer
Tracking Code: 1140-112
Job Location: Duty station is Kano with travel as per the need to field offices and working sites.
Department: Private Sector Development
Position Type: Full-Time/Regular

Programme Background

• Mafita is a large-scale, six-year youth employment programme operating in Nigeria’s northern states, funded by DFID and implemented by Adam Smith International.  Through a combination of innovative skills development and job creation interventions, Mafita will support over 60,000 marginalised young people to find employment or become entrepreneurs by 2021.
• Within the above scope, Mafita is mandated to support the economic empowerment of Northern Nigerian women, whose economic disenfranchisement has direct and adverse impacts on the country’s economic prosperity and development at the national, regional and community levels. Through its work, Mafita seeks to support women to access economic resources both directly by supporting women’s entrepreneurship, employment and access to finance, and indirectly by creating a more enabling environment for women.

Areas of Responsibility

• Objectives:  This position deals with the accounting/financial and administrative/HR matters of the project. The primary purpose of this position is to assure that the project is running smoothly and without disruptions with respect to financial and administrative/HR needs. This position reports to the Senior Finance and Administration and SPM.
• Duties: The Finance and Administration/HR Officer together with the existing Finance and Administration/HR Officer will be primarily responsible for supporting the supervisor in all accounting/finance and administration/HR policy, strategy and guidelines, activities and supporting project teams and partners with day to day activities.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities
Finance and Administration/HR Officer serves as a representative of ASI, displaying courtesy, tact, consideration, and discretion in all interactions with all consultants, internal staff and contracting partners of ASI. Finance and Administration/HR Officer’s duties include, but are not limited to the following:

• Payment processing, Invoice Cycle, fixed assets, budget and budgetary controls, grant management
• Checking and preparing vouchers and journal entries in line with project requirements
• Maintaining bank transaction/maintaining petty cash book
• Maintaining voucher file for bank payment/receipt, journal and others
• Field visit for financial monitoring as and when needed
• Ensuring IOUs are settled within prescribed time
• Disbursing cheques to programme’s vendors and partners
• Ensuring deduction at source and advance payment of income Tax and VAT from all kinds of payments and safe keeping of the Tax and VAT challenges
• Assisting the Finance and Administration Manager in executing financial activities and in preparing for external audits and works with external auditors
• Support the development and implementation of HR initiatives and systems
• Be actively involved in recruitment by preparing job descriptions, posting ads and managing the hiring process
• Create and implement effective onboarding plans
• Assist in performance management processes
• Support the management of disciplinary and grievance issues
• Maintain employee records (attendance, EEO data etc.) according to policy and legal requirements
• Audit and financial risk management
• Any other tasks assigned by the line supervisor

Other Duties and Responsibilities
Additional important duties performed occasionally:

• Assists in monitoring the expenditure processes in accordance with policy and procedures
• Ensures the veracity and authenticity of project’s financial transactions
• Supports administration in the procurement process, procurement budget
• Manage local welfare issues - social activities such as birthdays, get together, etc.
• Monthly circulation of templates for associates
• Staff/consultant movement tracker
• Maintains integrity and confidentiality of all the financial transactions.

Physical Demands

• Field visits play a part in the officer’s activities; as such, it is expected that the officer is willing and able to take part in such activities as and when needed and sometimes with short notice.

Working Conditions and Environment

• This will be according to the ASI Staff Manual. Note: These job descriptions can be amended by the Senior Project Manager as needed.

Required Skills
The individual must conform to the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration/Accounting/Finance or related fields
• Computer literate especially advance knowledge in excel is mandatory
• Ability to work in a team and to tight deadlines and in a dynamic work environment
• Good reporting and analytical skills
• Good command over verbal and written communication in English (verbal and written)

Required Experience

• At least 4 years of professional experience in a comparable position (banking/audit sector preferred).
• Experience of working with local NGOs and INGOs would be an advantage