Accountant at British Council

Role Purpose

At an unprecedented time of global change, the British Council seeks an experienced accountant to support financial control specialism within the Kenya Finance Function.

This role is responsible for supporting the end-to-end accounting process in Kenya and the Regional office (in Kenya), including month and year-end close, and ensures consistent, accurate, and robust financial accounting processes in line with accounting practices and corporate policies.

This is a supporting role in the Financial Controlling and Accounting process, which is a key function in the new organisational structure emerging from the Financial Transparency recommendations.

Main accountabilities but not limited to the following:

Income

• Receive and check over-the-counter income from Customer Services colleagues.
• Cash Management: Park entries for Direct Credits received / Bank Transfers by checking the list of open items sent by the Hub - Provide details of Direct Credits received in Kenya Shillings Bank account to the Regional Hub for posting.
• Reconcile daily takings and post Cash Journal.
• Cash / Cheques / Credit Card income banked.
• Manage local systems for cheque / cash security.
• Collection of staff repayments (Includes phone bill reimbursements or returned advances). Ensure that the Sales and Distribution process is being followed according to corporate standards. This includes checking of sales orders, billing documents as well as reviewing aged debt for Exams and Programmes and escalating any issues.

Payroll

• Ensure that the payroll exercise satisfies legal obligations and internal audit requirements.
• Ensure salaries are paid accurately and on time every month.
• Raise FI journal to record payroll related payments and breakdown of entries appropriately (using consistent conventions, and as they would appear on bank statement to enable the Hub to complete reconciliation).
• Ensure separation of duties between parking and posting journals.
• Monitor and report on cost centre budgets for FCCF.
• Produce up-to-date spreadsheets of salary cost actuals, averages and forecasts for all operational team heads as required.
• Deal with staff queries regarding health insurance, social security insurance and other social contributions.

Purchase to Pay

• Manage and monitor down payments.
• Be the second line of support (GSD is the first) for blocked vendor payments.
• Manage Open Purchase Orders (Goods Receipting and Invoicing Receipting).
• Manage the scanning of invoices to a common drive. Vendor management standards are met (monthly tasks).

Payment run

• Manage the payment run, including cheque and bank transfer payments to vendors, according to the periodic payment schedule and in accordance with payment terms
• Provide details of manual cheques issued to the HUB for updating into SAP
• Follow-up with procurement or operations for information relating to payment issues
• Prepare /post staff and customer refunds.
• Prepare cheques for payment. Provide cheque lot numbers to the Regional Hub as and when a new cheque lot is assigned by the Bank.

Bank Reconciliation

• Bank reconciliation - daily routine (Receipts)   

Role-specific knowledge and experience:

Essential requirements:

• Highly organized and deadline oriented.
• High level of accuracy and attention to detail.
• At least two years working experience in financial administration.
• Experience in working with a diverse team.
• Experience of an ERP system

Desirable:

• Experience working with SAP.
• Project management experience.
• Payroll preparation