Finance Assistant at British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with - changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Finance Assistant

Location: Abuja, Sub Saharan Africa, NG
Pay band: 4
Contract type: One-year fixed term contract
Alternative locations the role could be based: Nigeria
Department: Finance

Role Purpose

The post holder will be responsible for managing and ensuring financial processes of all FCR programmes within the justice, security and conflict sector are implemented as per the British Council and EU driven policies and providing support to the Finance Manager and assistance to programme teams to specifically support the payment and invoicing process as required.

Main Accountabilities
The appointed candidate will have the following accountabilities, responsibilities and main duties:

To support timely processing of invoices to designated workshops, meetings and events according to stated requirements.
Support processing of payments and reconciling records according to agreed time standards for same.
Support maintenance of Abuja office cash imprest and support in parking and posting of Petty cash transactions on to SAP.
To assist in taking on responsibilities to support the Programme finance team where necessary and practical.
Ensure professionalism is demonstrated in own work area and that customer / client needs and perspectives are reflected in own behaviours and focus.
To support the embedding of continuous learning and improvement into the team.
To proactively share best practice and learning across the wider EU programmes team.
To seek to understand the interdependencies and connections that programme office has with other organisations and manage such relationships within own work area.
To ensure personal development on IT skills for wider administrative assistance.
Audit travel, procurement and workshop expenses as may be directed by the Finance Manager, keeping and recording items in Finance Safe.
Support printing, filing, scanning and updating of finance related documents.
Support all payment and processing functions of the finance team.
Other administrative work
As with any business that experiences peaks and troughs of activity, there is likely to be a need to work outside office hours from time to time.

Role Specific Knowledge and Experience
The successful candidate will need to possess the following requirements:

Bachelor's Degree
Minimum of 1-year experience in a project finance environment.
Experience of working on SAP
Ability to maintain and update accounting spreadsheets, journal logs to ensure that it is compliant with organizations rules and regulations, and any other relevant legislation.
Ability to handle high volumes of financial data and information and should be well acquainted with ways of storing and retrieving it whenever there is any need.
Experience of positive contribution to change
Experience of working as part of a successful team/function.
High levels of personal effectiveness and the ability to focus on achieving deadlines.
In-depth knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting procedures is a must along with high degree of concentration and an ability to identify accounting discrepancies.

Desirable:

Evidence of continuous professional development in ACA/ACCA/CPA Professional Accounting qualifications
Experience of working in a Full Cost Recovery (FCR) project
Experience of operating in a complex, multi-cultural context
Computer skills - A good knowledge of Microsoft Office suite

Essential Requirements: