Overview
The Area Senior Finance Officer plays a key role in ensuring high quality financial management, compliance, and basic award support across Area/Regional Offices. This position contributes to improved budget management, accurate and timely reporting, and effective support to programme implementation.
Key Responsibilities
- Review and validate payments, oversee high value or complex payments, and ensure compliance with financial policies.
- Supervise and review cash management, including cash counts, float controls, and cash forecasting.
- Ensure financial transactions are accurately entered into accounting templates and align with the FMS structure.
- Maintain and strengthen audit ready filing systems.
- Conduct periodic spot checks of field finance records.
- Support monthly Budget vs Actual (BvA) monitoring processes.
- Review justifications provided by Budget Holders.
- Identify mis codings, unallowable costs, or irregularities and recommend corrective actions.
- Support Budget Holders in identifying cost reallocations.
- Respond to queries from relevant CO FP&A focal in preparing financial reports.
- Monitor regional support cost allocations.
- Lead preparation and first level review of monthly cash transfer requests.
- Support month end closing processes.
- Ensure timely submission of complete and accurate financial documents.
- Provide required operational expenditure lines, cost information and analysis support for reforecasting.
- Provide technical guidance and mentoring to finance assistants.
- Conduct on the job coaching for project staff, Budget Holders, and delegated BHs.
- Support dissemination and rollout of SCI financial policies and donor rules.
- Support partner assessments, financial due diligence reviews, and risk analysis.
- Coordinate and support capacity strengthening to implementing partners.
- Support the preparation for internal and external audits.
- Address audit findings and follow up action plans.
- Escalate significant compliance concerns.
- Liaise regularly with Yangon finance and program operations teams.
- Contribute to proposal budget development.
- Perform any additional duties assigned.
Required Experience
- Minimum 5 years of experience in INGOs or NGOs in financial operations, accounting, or grants management.
- Strong understanding of donors such as USAID, EU, FCDO, UNICEF, KOICA, Japanese donors, etc.
- Solid knowledge of financial controls, compliance, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
- Proven ability to analyze financial data, identify issues, and recommend solutions.
- Strong Excel skills; experience with accounting systems (Agresso is an advantage).
- Ability to provide coaching, mentoring, and capacity strengthening to staff and partners.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
- High integrity, attention to detail, and ability to meet deadlines.
- Experience supervising junior finance staff (Desirable).
- Experience working in emergency or complex operating environments (Desirable).
- Knowledge of SCI systems, Essential Standards, and award management processes (Desirable).
Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics or equivalent; professional certification preferred (LCCI III, ACCA Part I/II, CPA etc.).
