Area Senior Finance Officer

Finance & Economy

Overview

Ensure high quality financial management and compliance across area offices.

You have:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics or equivalent; professional certification preferred.
• 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.
• 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.

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT ROLE PROFILE TITLE: Area Senior Finance Officer (FOR MYANMAR NATIONAL) TEAM/PROGRAMME: Finance LOCATION: Sittwe Number of Positions: 1 GRADE: NAT-4 CONTRACT LENGTH: Fixed Term

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:

Level 1: The role holder will not have contact with children and/or young people, or access to personal data about children or young people, as part of their work; therefore a police check will not be mandatory unless the content or location of the role changes, in which case the Child Safeguarding level will be reviewed.

ROLE PURPOSE: The Area Senior Finance Officer (ASFO) plays a key role in ensuring high quality financial management, compliance, and basic award support across the Area/Regional Offices. ASFO provides financial oversight, supports day to day financial operations, strengthens internal controls, and ensures that both SCI Essential Standards and donor requirements are met. The ASFO also supports Budget Holders (BHs), project teams, and partner organizations in financial planning, reporting, and compliance. This position contributes to improved budget management, accurate and timely reporting, and effective support to programme implementation.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Area Operations Manager Staff reporting to this post: 1 Finance Assistant Budget Responsibilities: No financial approval Role Dimensions: No regular contact KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Key Areas of Accountability 1. Financial Operations & Controls • Review and validate payments prepared by staff, ensuring correct coding, documentation completeness, and proper authorization under SCI’s Scheme of Delegation. • Oversee high value or complex payments and ensure compliance with financial policies, donor requirements, and internal controls. • Supervise and review cash management across field offices, including weekly/monthly cash counts, float controls, cashbooks, bank reconciliations, and cash forecasting. • Ensure financial transactions from field offices are accurately entered into accounting templates/spreadsheets and align with the Agresso FMS structure. • Maintain and strengthen audit ready filing systems in both electronic and hard copy formats with clear audit trails. • Conduct periodic spot checks of field finance records and provide follow up support to address gaps.

2. Budget Monitoring & Awards Support • Support Country Office One Finance Team in monthly Budget vs Actual (BvA) monitoring processes by preparing variance analyses, checking coding accuracy, and cross validating expenditures. • Review justifications provided by Budget Holders to ensure they are reasonable, consistent, and supported by financial records. • Identify mis codings, unallowable costs, or irregularities and recommend corrective actions. • Support BHs in identifying cost reallocations between SOFs/DEAs where necessary. • Respond to query from relevant CO FP&A focal in preparing financial reports in donor formats and ensure compliance with donor budget guidelines. • Monitor regional support cost allocations (RO and FO levels) and identify issues requiring adjustment or reforecasting.

3. Cash Forecasting, Month-End & Reporting • Lead preparation and first level review of monthly cash transfer requests from field offices, ensuring reliable forecasting aligned with programmatic needs. • Support month end closing processes including reconciliations, financial diaries, cashbooks, and submission packages from field offices. • Ensure timely submission of complete and accurate financial documents to country office one finance team. • Provide required operational expenditure lines, cost information and analysis support for reforecasting of regional budgets.

4. Capacity Building & Supervision • Provide technical guidance and mentoring to finance assistants in field offices. • Conduct on the job coaching for project staff, Budget Holders, and delegated BHs on budget management, compliance, procurement requirements, and internal controls. • Support dissemination and rollout of SCI financial policies and donor rules across the region.

5. Partner Financial Management Support • Support partner assessments, financial due diligence reviews, and risk analysis as and when required. • Coordinate and support capacity strengthening to implementing partners on budgeting, documentation, reporting, and compliance.

6. Audit Support & Compliance • Support the preparation for internal and external audits by ensuring completeness and accuracy of supporting documents. • Address audit findings and follow up action plans with relevant staff and partners. • Escalate significant compliance concerns to the Area focal of FP&A and C&C finance team at country office promptly.

7. Coordination, Communication & Other Duties • Liaise regularly with Yangon finance and program operations teams to resolve issues, clarify coding, and seek updated guidance. • Contribute to proposal budget development by providing cost inputs and technical finance support when required. • Perform any additional duties assigned by the Regional Finance Coordinator, Head of Office, or senior management. • Uphold Save the Children safeguarding, safety, security, and equal opportunity policies in all activities.

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice) Accountability: • Holds self accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values • Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved. Ambition: • Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same • Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others • Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale. Collaboration: • Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters • Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength • Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to. Creativity: • Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions • Willing to take disciplined risks. Integrity: • Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity • Always acts in the best interests of children QUALIFICATIONS • Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics or equivalent; professional certification preferred (LCCI III, ACCA Part I/II, CPA etc.).

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS Essential • 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.

Desirable • Experience supervising junior finance staff. • Experience working in emergency or complex operating environments. • Knowledge of SCI systems, Essential Standards, and award management processes. Additional job responsibilities The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Child Safeguarding and counter fraud responsibilities • Take all necessary and appropriate steps to prevent abuse, exploitation, neglect, harm and modern slavery within their areas of responsibility, and in the way they conduct themselves, report and respond to all incidents and concerns whether online or in person, and comply with the Safeguarding Policy and Procedure. • Take all necessary and appropriate steps to prevent fraud, bribery, and corruption within their areas of responsibility, report and respond to all incidents and concerns and comply with the Counter-Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Policy and Procedure. All types of fraud, bribery, and corruption must be prevented, including where it benefits the organisation (SCI).

Equal Opportunities The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures. Child Safeguarding: We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

All staff has an obligation and a responsibility to: • Ensure they fully understand the provisions of the Child Safeguarding Policy, the Code of Conduct and Local/Country Procedures. • Conduct themselves in accordance with the rules of the Child Safeguarding Policy, in their personal and professional lives – which includes reporting suspicions of child abuse. • Ensure the way they are carrying out their work is not putting children at risk (or further risk) – this means constantly scrutinizing their work through a child safeguarding lens and talking to children about possible design/implementation “flaws”. • Promote the message of child safeguarding to colleagues in other organizations and government ministries, children in their own and beneficiary families, and community members in general. • Be vigilant about observing possible child abuse/harm in their personal and professional lives.

All managers have the above responsibilities as well as ensuring • Their staff are doing the above. • That child safeguarding is integrated and given a “voice” in all management processes including recruitment, induction, performance management, team meetings, annual planning processes, field level monitoring, etc.

Safeguarding our Staff: The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy. Health and Safety The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

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Added 4 hours ago - Updated 4 hours ago - Source: savethechildren.net