Senior Finance and Grants Officer

ABOUT THE ROLE:

As the Senior Finance and Grants Officer you will work as part of a small Finance team, directly supporting and reporting to the Head of Finance. You will ensure a smooth flow of financial management, incl. Accounting, payments management, grants management and financial administration. This job is an opportunity for a talented and dedicated individual with experience and interest in financial management to work in a remote position, yet in a close-knit team, contributing to create and maintain the administrative foundation of an organization that aims to make a contribution for a more just and sustainable world.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

Finance 

• Implement process and tools of managing membership contributions;
• Ensure the organizational financial records are always up to date.
• Support in development, monitoring and revision of internal organizational budgets;
• Process reimbursement and payment requests and supports team to ensure all requests are submitted accurately, on time, that the team’s thorough understanding of all requirements is ensured on a continuous basis and works with the team to resolve issues surrounding reimbursement and payment process;
• Enforce financial management including financial reporting and allocation of expenses to funders;
• Actively contribute to various project, organizational and annual accounts auditing processes;
• Implement the financial accounting, monitoring and reporting systems and procedures
• Monitor cash flows and advise accordingly.
• Implement financial management mechanisms that minimize financial risk.
• Keep abreast of changes in relevant financial regulations regarding law and legislation relevant to CAN.

Grants Management

• Implementation of viable regranting models and tools within the finance unit;
• Actively contribute to institutional reporting, including meeting internal and external reporting deadlines, identifying reporting components, compiling required documents, ensuring report completeness, and facilitating final submission;
• Ensure compliance with internal and external reporting requirements, including budgets and financial reports;
• Prepare budgets for grant proposals;
• Work closely with programme teams to build and execute plans and processes, strengthen capacity for grants management, and ensure transparency and accountability;
• Participate in relevant meetings relating to the grants and their respective management;
• Implementation of a robust internal Grants Management System that will have sufficient capabilities for management reports e.g. grant overview allocations, grants reporting schedule, earmarked activities list, burn rate.

Administration

• Maintain both electronic and physical filing systems; including expenses tracking, maintaining financial records, filing and archiving of receipts, invoices, managing accounts receivable etc.;
• Maintains, configures and updates internal CAN databases and online tools as needed;
• Develop and deliver trainings for new and existing team members and consultants; Assists them with finance and administration questions to ensure they are properly informed of all requirements;
• Actively contributes to reporting, knowledge-management and monitoring, evaluation, innovating and learning efforts of CAN;
• Assists the Operations department in the organization of events, on the financial side;
• Other Duties as assigned

JOB REQUIREMENTS:

The job holder must possess the following requirements with or without a reasonable accommodation:

Education and Professional Qualifications:

• University degree in business, finance, accounting or related field is desirable;
• Certified Public accountant or equivalent professional experience in a relevant field.

Job-Related Experience & Knowledge:

• Previous professional experience working with Excel, Quickbooks online (or equivalent accounting system).
• Previous experience in financial management in an international organization or a non-governmental association-previous experience with tax-exempt non-profits a plus;
• Experience managing finances and accounting
• Experience working with European and German donors is an asset;

Job-Related Skills/Abilities:

• Ability to work independently and in a remote office environment;
• Comfortable communicating over email, Slack and using other online management tools;
• Extremely detail-oriented;
• Outstanding organizational and time management skills;
• Ability to meet competing deadlines and work in a fast-paced high-pressure environment;
• Strong interpersonal skills, and trustworthy.
• Proven understanding of the challenges in communication, resource constraints, and other unique circumstances found in NGOs, including a keen sense of contextual and cultural differences of different geographies;
• Strong knowledge of ethics and compliance standards for non-profits;
• Cross-cultural sensitivity and ability to work effectively in different socio-cultural contexts.

IT Skills:

• Ability to coordinate and administer meetings using digital communication platform applications, such as Slack and Zoom and Project Management Softwares
• Highly experienced in Ms Suite, electronic filing, and electronic systems development
• Excellent computer skills, including word-processing, accounting software -preferably experience with Quickbooks Online and/or DATEV.

Language Ability

• Ability to effectively communicate in written and spoken English. Fluency in German and other languages is an asset.

Travel:

• Ability to travel internationally up to 20% of the time, incl. ability and availability to travel for 2-3 weeks at a time.