Finance Officer – German Red Cross

Background

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, with 192 member National Societies. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, our work is guided by seven fundamental principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

Organizational Context

In 2012, after a few unilateral collaborations in different countries in the MENA zone, German Red Cross established its Regional Office in Beirut. Currently the RO provides support to 9 offices in the Region that are implementing Emergency Relief, Cash, Organizational Development, Disaster Risk Reduction programs both bilateral and multilateral. The team in Beirut is composed of about 14 colleagues in total (nationals and expats). German Red Cross_ Regional Office_ Finance team Hazmieh_ Frehia Street Center Camilla II Beirut Lebanon.

Job Purpose

The Finance Officer is reporting to the Regional Finance Delegate. Finance Officer is based in Beirut and provides support to Regional Office and GRC Offices based in Yemen, Egypt, Palestine, Libya and Syria (countries of responsibility may change at the time of the recruitment). The objective of this assignment is to carryout, coordinate, support and advice on the GRC Financial Procedures and any finance related matters of the countries under Finance Officer’s responsibility, to ensure efficient and effective management of financial system. It is envisaged that the Finance Officer will travel to countries under responsibility to advice and guide staff in financial related matters.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Four Countries MENA Region

• Receive monthly closings from the country on timely basis.
• Check and verify the vouchers received to ensure correctness, eligibility and completeness according to GRC Financial Procedures and Donor Financial requirements.
• Identify missing documentations, non-adhering to financial guidelines of the monthly closings and inform the Finance Delegate regarding any irregularities.
• Ensure contractual compliance as part of the voucher verification, this involves checking the existing contracts, Payment schedules and whether Taxation terms are respected.
• Prepare voucher clarification sheet with the findings and share with the respective country financial team.
• Follow up with the country financial team on findings of voucher clarifications and collect necessary explanations or missing documentations for monthly closures.
• Check and verify the Budget Line, Items used, booking dates and booking descriptions of pre booked vouchers. If there are any inconsistencies inform finance delegate with the findings.
• Ensure all the vouchers are charged within the project implementation period and inform finance delegate if any expenses are falling outside project implementation period.
• Check whether inventories which are above EUR 100 are classified as inventories and booked in the fundspro system.
• Maintain a proper filling system in accordance with filling best practices, donor document retention policies and GRC guidelines.
• Ensure all documents are sufficiently translated.
• Arrange and Prepare financial closures and courier to GRC HQ on monthly basis.

FundsPro System Entry

• Input Data into FundsPro financial system in an accurate, efficient & timely manner.
• Checking on the quality of vouchers and decide whether vouchers are fit for the entry into the booking system.
• Verify the un-booked vouchers received from Partner Organizations and record them in the accounting system fundspro.
• Checking that financial codes are correct before booking the transactions.
• Assist Finance Delegate in month end closure process.

Partner Receivables

• Create, follow up and ensure clearance of the receivables.
• Monitor the receivables issued, check and match the balances of GRC books and HNS books and obtain sign off on month end balances.
• Calculate, reconcile and advise staff on the outstanding receivable amounts
• Identify pending receivables, inform the finance delegate on long outstanding receivables.
• Track cash and bank receivables excel sheets with bank statement and the cash vouchers to ensure correctness.

Support Visits

• Visit countries under responsibility to support and train financial staff and delegates in finance related matters.
• Inform the line manager in case if any problems with financial procedure or financial payments if any found during the visits.
• Suggest finance delegates any improvements needed.

Petty Cash Transactions – If needed

• Responsible for all aspects of petty cash, receipts into and payments out of petty cash, including ensuring that all transactions are correctly authorized and fully documented.
• Monitor the petty cash balances, and advice on any need to re-feed the petty cash on a timely manner.
• Daily cash counts and reconciliation of journal balances.
• Preparation of the monthly cash count and obtain the required management signature for Cash Box.

Field original document files

• Perform translation as required on vouchers, CBAs, quotations, contracts and agreements etc before documents are submitted to Berlin.
• After validation of the accountancies ensure that all accountancies are copied filed to the same order for retention within the MENA RO.
• Organizing & filing of FundsPro documents, according to the standard filing system.
• Ensure that originals are securely packaged / labeled, and sent to Berlin on a timely manner.

General

• Support the MENA Finance team with translations, copy and filing monthly closures in case needed.
• Be aware of the GRC’s financial procedures, budgeting system, monthly accounts closure, bank reconciliation & processes.
• Check CBA’s related to the countries responsible and make sure the CBA’s are allocated to correct cost center and correct budget line.
• Any other tasks assigned by the line manager as required

Education

Accounts/Finance/Business/Administration Studies or minimum professional experience in Finance-Administration - required

Experience

Required:

• Minimum 2 years work experience in a financial role
• Experience of working for an Humanitarian Organization
• Experience of working with web based accounting systems

Knowledge, skills and languages

• Strong communication skills - required 
• Organization and planning skills - required
• Teamwork - required
• Ability to work under pressure - required
• Commitment to the International Red Cross & Red Crescent Movement - preferred
• Flexibility - required
• Analytical thinking - required
• Highly organized - required

Languages:

• English and Arabic - required
• French- preferred