Finance and Budget Assistant

The Finance and Budget Assistant provides administrative and operational support in finance and budget functions within the Department of Operational Support at United Nations Headquarters. The role involves budget monitoring, financial data analysis, and supporting budget submissions and reports for various UN entities.

Responsibilities

• Acts as Certifying Officer on behalf of programme managers in Entities supported by the Client Desk.
• Provides support by gathering information and data for the review, analyses and preparation of the medium-term plan and its revisions.
• Prepares supporting documents (narrative and supporting tables) with respect to finalization of cost estimates and budget proposals, in terms of staff and non-staff requirements.
• Assists managers in the elaboration of resource requirements for budget submissions and project cost plans.
• Undertakes research and provides support to higher level Finance and Budget Officers with respect to budget reviews of relevant intergovernmental and expert bodies.
• Monitors expenditures and compares with approved budget; prepares adjustments as necessary.
• Reviews requisitions for goods and services and other commitments to ensure correct objects of expenditure have been charged and availability of funds.
• Assists in preparation of budget performance submissions and finalization of budget performance reports, analysing variances between approved budgets and actual expenditures.
• Supports monitoring of extra-budgetary resources, including review of agreements and cost plans and administration of extrabudgetary positions, ensuring compliance with regulations and rules and established policies and procedures.
• Monitors integrity of various financial databases including data analytics tools such as Umoja Analytics.
• Verifies accuracy of input data, ensuring consistency of data in previous allotments to new allotments issued.
• Co-ordinates with other finance and budget staff on related issues during preparation of budget reports.
• Regularly reviews open commitments and other open items to ensure their timely liquidation and/or resolution.
• Monitors the implementation of voluntary contributions and initiates timely closing activities.
• Keeps up to date on documents/reports/guidelines that have a bearing on matters related to the programme of work, ensuring compliance with intergovernmental recommendations and decisions as well as with United Nations policies and procedures.
• Drafts or prepares correspondence to respond to enquiries with respect to relevant financial and budget matters.
• Maintain and keep up-to-date files.
• May be responsible for providing guidance, training and daily supervision to other general service staff in the area of responsibility.
• Assists with the collection and analysis of data as well as preparation of data presentations and reports for information sharing, responding to queries, knowledge management, planning and decision making.
• Performs other related duties, as assigned.

Requirements

• High school diploma or equivalent is required.
• A minimum of seven years of experience in finance, budget, accounting, administrative services or related area is required.
• The minimum years of relevant experience is reduced to five years for candidates who possess a first-level university degree or higher.
• Experience with Umoja or a similar enterprise resource planning system is required.
• One year or more of experience in data analytics or related area is required.
• Experience in the use of Microsoft Excel, or similar application including the lookup functions, pivot tables and visualizations is required.
• Experience in analyzing financial information and reviewing financial statements is desirable.

Skills

• Finance
• Budgeting
• Accounting
• Administrative Services
• Enterprise Resource Planning
• Umoja
• Data Analytics
• MS Excel
• Lookup Functions
• Pivot Tables
• Data Visualization
• Financial Analysis
• Financial Report Review

Languages

English