Finance Associate (Post # 105364) in General Accounting Stream, Finance Section, Global Shared Services Centre (GSSC), Budapest, Hungary

Contract

This is a G-6 contract. This kind of contract is known as General Service and related categories. It is normally only for nationals. It usually requires 6 years of experience, depending on education. More about G-6 contracts.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, results.

We are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not a job, it’s a calling.

UNICEF’s Global Shared Services Centre (GSSC) provides services to UNICEF offices around the world in the areas of Finance, Master Data Management, Human Resources Administration, Payroll, and IT Customer Care.

Our mission is to be a Centre of Excellence for the global delivery of efficient services within a culture of customer service, continuous business improvement, knowledge-sharing and innovation to support the effective achievement of UNICEF's programme results worldwide. ​

GSSC has won the 2019 Business Services Firm of the Year in Hungary, 26 regional awards announced at the Central and Eastern European Business Services Summit & Awards held in Warsaw, Poland.

How can you make a difference?

The Finance Section of the GSSC oversees global processing of finance and master data management transactions ensuring cost effective and secure operations consistent with the organization’s goals, strategy, and objectives. UNICEF is looking for a Finance Associate who will be responsible for supporting the day-to-day operations of the Contributions Unit workstream within the General Accounting (GA) stream. The Finance Associate will provide country offices and stakeholders with practical guidance on how to resolve cases to completion among several other tasks. The Finance Associate will take corrective action ensuring adherence to standard operating procedures and related policies and be responsible for maintaining up to date standard operating procedures.

Key functions/accountabilities:

• Supporting the day-to-day operations of the Contributions Unit workstream within the General Accounting (GA) stream ensuring excellent service delivery, client satisfaction and team involvement.
• Handling public partnership grant agreements on behalf of Public Partnership Division in New York Headquarters and other outposted locations. This service is delivered within agreed SLA’s divided by donor, serving our stakeholders around the globe.
• Review and approve transactional and case processing to ensure compliance with Standard Operating Procedures and Service Level Agreement and escalate returned cases to line manager within agreed timelines.
• Support in the annual review of Standard Operating Procedures and work instructions to ensure compliance with DFAM policies and internal controls.
• Support cross-functional collaboration to implement projects with other streams within General Accounting.
• Participate in process improvement initiatives in liaison with other team members and stakeholders.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, sharing knowledge and contributing to best practice.
• Identify updates in framework agreements and checklists, liaise with PPD or FRU focal points to make required changes and inform QA team of any such updates.
• Support the Investigation and responding to audit and QA findings within agreed timelines.
• Analyze and report on open outstanding items and timely follow up with cluster focal points, country offices and donors.
• Act as reporting focal point for the stream.
• Support line manager in ad hoc tasks and other periodic reports as required.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education:

Completion of secondary education (high school degree) is a minimum requirement. University level courses in Accounting and Finance/Business administration is an asset.

Experience:

• Minimum of six (6) years of increasingly responsible professional experience in finance and accounting is required. A completed university degree from an accredited institution will be counted toward the minimum work experience requirements. i.e. in the form of one year of completed education being equivalent to one year of relevant work experience (for fully completed degrees only).
• Working knowledge of accounting standards and technical prerequisites relevant for bank reconciliations, journal voucher processing, asset maintenance, clearing of VAT, Advances and staff Personal Advances and Recoveries balance processing.
• Strong knowledge of Enterprise Resource Planning systems such as SAP and Microsoft 365 Products (including MS Word, MS Excel & MS PowerPoint) is required.
• Experience in planning, organizing and delivering administrative support services is highly desirable.
• Ability to communicate clearly with stakeholders of various levels, both internal and external.
• Knowledge of VBA programming, Power BI and SQL is an asset
• Fluency in English (verbal and spoken) required
• Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish), or local language of the duty station, is considered an asset

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Applicants must be nationals of EU countries or in possession of a valid work permit. Please attach a copy of your work permit to your application submission.

General Service (GS) staff are locally recruited staff and therefore, candidates are personally responsible for any travel and accommodation arrangements. UNICEF does not facilitate MFA accreditation for locally recruited staff.

Remarks: Requirement for internal applicants

Please attach the snapshot of the completed courses of Learning Path when applying to the level of this post. You may visit the L&D Portal Learning and Development (sharepoint.com) for more information.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it.

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

To view our competency framework, please visit: https://uni.cf/Competencies

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: UNICEF's Competency Framework here

As an advocate for every child, you will receive…

• Access here the UN Salary Scale for Hungary.
• Holidays and leave, including 2.5 days of annual leave accrual per month
• Parental leave
• Dependency allowance
• United Nations sponsored medical insurance plan, pension plan and optional life insurance plan
• Access to professional development and learning programs, online learning and learning path
• Access to staff well-being and career development support

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to A diverse and inclusive workforce to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of Compensation and benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children.

All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID). UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

This VA is open to all (internal and external candidates).