Finance Associate

The Finance Associate provides accounting, budget administration, cash management and financial reporting support to ensure efficient and compliant financial operations. The incumbent performs a wide range of financial transactions with a high degree of accuracy, ensuring compliance with UNOPS financial rules and regulations (FRRs), policies and donor requirements.

Responsibilities

• Support the annual budget setting process, as well as the preparation, monitoring and revision of project and office budgets, ensuring accuracy and alignment with UNOPS financial policies and donor/ partner agreements.
• Assist in the development, maintenance, and testing of financial and budget models for programme proposals, supporting scenario analysis, cost projections, and payout structures for outcomes-based financing contracts.
• Prepare and maintain financial data and analysis on budget utilization, expenditure trends, and funding gaps for long-term sustainability and management decision-making.
• Assist in developing cost-recovery models and maintaining an efficient cost allocation system in compliance with UNOPS guidelines.
• Contribute to the preparation of cost-sharing and trust fund agreements, follow up on partner contributions, and ensure proper recording in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
• Provide inputs on the financial implications of operational plans and support the implementation of cost-saving and efficiency measures.
• Assist in project financial closure processes, ensuring accuracy and completeness of records in accordance with UNOPS project closure protocol.
• Review and verify payment requests and supporting documents for completeness, accuracy and compliance with approved budgets and UNOPS FRRs.
• Prepare and process vouchers (purchase orders, accounts payable, payroll and journal vouchers) and execute pay cycles in the ERP system.
• Monitor foreign exchange (FX) rate fluctuations and cross-currency exposure across multi-currency project portfolios, tracking FX gains/losses and providing data to support FX risk mitigation strategies.
• Ensure timely and proper recording of goods receipt, service delivery and accruals.
• Maintain an internal expenditure control system, ensuring transactions are properly matched, posted, and supported by adequate documentation.
• Conduct expense verifications and financial reviews of EOF grantees, ensuring compliance with grant agreements and established procedures.
• Process and reconcile accounts receivable and accounts payable, including follow-up with partners and projects on pending items.
• Perform monthly and quarterly account reconciliation, identifying and resolving discrepancies in coordination with HQ and project teams.
• Support payroll processing, ensuring accurate and timely disbursement and resolution of queries.
• Ensure timely month-end and year-end closure of accounts and submission of required financial reports.
• Respond promptly to HQ queries to resolve financial data or audit issues.
• Review and monitor cash positions for local accounts to ensure sufficient funds for operational disbursements.
• Oversee the daily review of zero-balance accounts, imprest management, and proper recording of receipts and contributions.
• Prepare monthly cash flow forecasts and liaise with operations and project teams to gather cash requirement estimates.
• Conduct bank reconciliations, ensuring accuracy and prompt resolution of variances.
• Initiate and record bank transfers, replenishments, and foreign exchange transactions in the ERP system.
• Manage petty cash and operational advances, ensuring compliance with policy and timely settlement.
• Prepare and review financial reports, including interim financial reports (IFRs), donor expenditure statements, and management dashboards.
• Support preparation of variance analyses, cost distribution summaries, and project-level expenditure reconciliations.
• Participate in quarterly and annual financial closure activities, ensuring completeness and consistency of data.
• Support internal and external audit exercises, ensuring timely submission of documentation and clearance of audit findings.
• Maintain accurate records of Value Added Tax (VAT), prepayments, operational advances and other balance sheet accounts, ensuring reconciliations are performed regularly.
• Analyze and prepare adjusting entries (GLJEs) and ensure accuracy of financial postings across projects.
• Support the organization, facilitation and delivery of training and learning sessions on finance topics.
• Participate in knowledge-sharing initiatives and Communities of Practice (CoPs), contributing insights and lessons learned.
• Conduct research on finance-related topics and contribute to the drafting of reports, summaries and briefing notes.

Requirements

• Secondary school (or equivalent) with 6 years of relevant experience is required OR Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration or other disciplines with 2 years of relevant experience is required.
• Professional certification (e.g. CPA, ACCA, CA, CIMA) is desired.
• Relevant experience is work in project financial management, budgeting, cash management and financial reporting, or related areas.
• Demonstrable proficiency in the use of collaboration and productivity tools (e.g. G-Suite, etc) and web-based management systems.
• Experience of working in multicultural environments or UN system organizations in a developing country is desired.
• Experience working with outcome based financing models and/or FX/cross-currency experience is considered an asset.
• Experience in development or humanitarian contexts is desired.
• Experience with financial systems or ERP software is desired.

Skills

• Project Financial Management
• Budgeting
• Cash management
• Financial Reporting
• Collaboration Tools
• Productivity Tools
• Web-based Management Systems
• Foreign Exchange Risk Management
• Cross-currency Experience
• Financial Systems
• ERP Software
• Accounting
• Compliance with Financial Regulations
• Outcomes-Based Financing

Languages

English