UN Women: Finance Specialist - Business Analysis ERP

Contract

This is a P-4 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 7 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 171,387 USD and 220,969 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

Background

NOTE: The duration of the assignment is for 364 days. Whereas an external candidate will be offered a temporary appointment, subject to release agreements, staff members in UN Women may be administered as a temporary assignment and staff members in the UN Common system may be administered under a loan arrangement.

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

UN Women uses PeopleSoft ERP system, referred to internally as “Atlas” which was implemented in 2004 and comprises various modules including, Accounts Payable, Contracts Module (used for management of revenues and receivables), General Ledger, Treasury Module, Human Resources, Grants and Project Management, Bank-to-Book (B2B) and Asset Management modules. Given the decentralized nature of UN Women’s operations with presence in over 60 country offices, access to the Atlas is controlled via customized user profiles and access rights which permit users to access and perform specified functions in accordance with their approved access rights. UN Women has embarked on the process of migrating from the current PeopleSoft ERP to Oracle Cloud ERP in order to improve internal processes and keep up with evolving industry standards. The implementation of the Oracle Cloud ERP will be staggered with target dates for the roll-out of different modules spread from the second half of 2021 and 2022.

The Finance Specialist position forms part of Financial Management Section (FMS) Global Network’s response to the new Oracle Cloud ERP. This position will be under the daily supervision of the Deputy Director of Financial Management.

The Finance Specialist is responsible for providing technical support to FMS on new Oracle Cloud ERP including review, design, piloting and implementation phases, and facilitate a review of all financial management policies and procedures to ensure relevance in line with new Oracle ERP.

The Finance Specialist will always promote a client-oriented approach and abide by UN Women’s financial regulations and rules, ensuring compliance with UN Women Internal Control Framework, financial rules, regulations, policies, procedures and IPSAS.

The Financial Management Section (FMS) is the part of Division of Management and Administration (DMA) and comprises five teams – Finance Section: Revenue & Asset management, Virtual Global Service Centre - Financial donor reporting and project closure (includes regional office VGSC Finance Associate staff), Financial operations, Finance Field support; and Regional Office Finance Specialists. FMS is responsible for the strategic planning and management of all activities related to financial services and accounting, revenue management and reporting, treasury operations and financial services, implementation of internal controls and audit co-ordination, financial processing and preparing statutory financial statements for the entity and financial statements for the donors, as well as other ad-hoc financial and management reports on UN Women financial resources.

Due to their central role FMS plays in the accounting function at UN Women, FMS will be heavily involved in the implementation of the Oracle Cloud ERP including the review and configuration of the Chart of Accounts in the new ERP and play a key role in the configuration of all modules in the new ERP that result in recording of financial transactions, which is a cross-cutting function across all business owners of the ERP. FMS is looking to hire a Finance Specialist to support the section in the roll-out of the Oracle Cloud ERP. The Finance Specialist will perform the functions described in the section below.

A Finance Specialist is sought to support FMS during the roll-out of the Oracle Cloud ERP including back-filing roles of staff within FMS, where assigned, to free up capacity to perform other key functions related to the ERP implementation and FMS high-priority tasks as identified in its workplan.

Duties and Responsibilities

Act as the ERP Focal Person within the FMS Global Network:

• Monitor relevant meetings and documentation emanating from the Oracle Cloud ERP Project (Project) and assess their content.
• Attend meetings on ERP meetings on behalf of Financial Management Section (FMS).
• Coordinate with Financial Management Section (FMS) Global Network and keep them updated.
• Assess the contents and bring to the attention of the relevant personnel within FMS Global Network. Discuss as appropriate with the FMS Global Network and respond and provide inputs to the Project accordingly.
• Provide advice to FMS Global Network on available options and make recommendations as appropriate on matters related to the ERP implementation, taking into account the objective of UNWomen, DMA and FMS Global Network.

Lead the coordination of the ERP Financial implementation for UN Women:

• Develop and maintain an Oracle implementation timetable and schedule of activities for FMS Global Network.
• Prepare documentation, reports and SOPs and other material that will be required for the ERP implementation.
• Coordinate ERP or FMS, including consolidate the multiple financial ERP modules and cross-cutting other business streams
• Identify cross-cutting areas for accounting eg. Procurement Vendor approvals; Travel; Assets; non-core budgets; Project monitoring and reporting; Payroll; Investments
• Ensure linkages to external systems for corporate RMS financial reporting, IATI etc;
• Coordinate and support testing and reconciliation to ensure the integrity of the migration from the PeopleSoft ERP to the new Oracle Cloud ERP.

Provide technical, business analysis support in developing the new ERP functions:

• Map existing ATLAS functionalities, modules and external systems to new Oracle ERP and identify gaps and workarounds needed
• Identify all existing automated reports and queries as well as needed new automated financial reporting such as Results-based Financial Donor Reports, UN Data Cube, EDAR reporting, IATI, Financial Statements, monthly Management Accounts, etc
• Participate in the design, piloting, and implementation phases
• Manage data migration plan and reconciliation to ensure the integrity of the migration of financial data from the PeopleSoft, subject to funding provided.
• Plan and perform training of trainers for financial management modules, subject to funding provided.

Provide technical support in the development of Finance Policies, Procedures, Guidelines and Finance Manual:

• Review and advise on the impact of the new Oracle Cloud ERP on existing procedures and policies within the unit and review and update or drafting of new policies, procedures and guidelines as appropriate.
• Review (with FMS Global Network business owners) all existing processes to ensure relevance and current status of screen shots, links to PPG etc. to ensure relevance to new ERP.
• Ensure consistent and cohesive content

Provide Accounting services:

• Manage data cleansing with FMS Global Network.
• Perform General Ledger reconciliations and investigations and accounting services as needed.
• Provide support to FMS during year-end closure as required
• Provide support to FMS in the audit preparation period and during the year-end audit as required.

Perform other duties as specified by Deputy Director.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Active participation in the Project Formulation and Implementation sessions and other working groups on the new Oracle Cloud ERP.
• Timely and accurate advice related to project given.
• Regular coordination with FMS Global Network.
• Deputy Director and all Finance Technical leads are kept up to date with design and implementation.
• Potential conflicts and/or issues in the ERP development against UN Women’s financial regulations and/or policies, escalated in a timely manner.
• Data cleansing, migration and training plan implemented in a timely manner.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

• Very strong knowledge in accounting and financial management.
• Strong knowledge of complex financial rules and regulations, preferably UN/UN Women Financial Rules and regulations.
• Strong knowledge in the application of complex financial systems and modules (such as Atlas).
• Demonstrated business acumen and judgment.
• Strong conceptual/strategic skills and success in implementing financial re-engineering, management systems development, policy design, innovation, and knowledge product development.
• Advance knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages.
• Ability to provide advice and support.
• Strong communication skills and personable approach is required.
• Strong analytical skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced (Masters) university degree in finance/accounting, or professionally qualified accountants from an internationally recognized institute of accountancy is required.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of extensive and progressively responsible experience in accounting, financial management.
• At least 2 years of team management experience in a large international and/or corporate organization preferably in the UN system and its organizations.
• Experience of IPSAS or IFRS is required.
• Experience in the usage of office software packages (MS Word, Excel, Cloud, etc).
• Experience in web-based management systems and ERP financial systems such as PeopleSoft (Atlas).
• Previous experience in Peoplesoft and Oracle Cloud ERP environment would be an advantage, including implementation of new systems.
• Completion of UN Women Accounting Test required.

Languages:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Knowledge of another UN official language an asset.

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558. Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.