Finance and Sub Grants Monitoring Officer

Functional Title: Finance and Sub Grants Monitoring Officer

Responsibility Level: Officer
Department/ Project/ PN: USAID Adolescent Reproductive Health
Workstation: Janakpur, Madhesh Province
Incumbent’s Name: VACANT
Supervisor/ Principal Evaluator: Finance, Operation and Monitoring Specialist

JOB SUMMARY
USAID Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) is a youth co-led initiative to empower girls and boys, 10-19 years, including the most marginalized, to attain their reproductive health and rights. The goal of the program is to support adolescents to reach their full potential by ensuring they receive correct and appropriate reproductive health (RH) information, guidance, and decision- making skills, creating an environment conducive to making healthy reproductive health decisions and facilitating translation of these decisions into healthy behaviors.

The incumbent is responsible for preparing the annual plan for monitoring partners under her/his portfolio and implementing the plan in close coordination with the supervisor and province coordinator. Rigorous follow up must be done to ensure that the areas of improvement/gaps identified during monitoring visits have been addressed in a timely manner by the management of the sub grantee. The incumbent will assist in the capacity building of partners and ensure/certify that the expenditures incurred and charged to the project are in line with the approved budget and meet all compliance regulations.

The incumbent is responsible for supporting partner staff on the preparation of budgets at the time of renewing the partner funding agreement or for any modifications. In addition, the position will make sure that all liquidation of the sub grantees expenditure under the portfolio are entered into the system before the closing deadline and make sure that funds are transferred to the partner in a timely manner to ensure smooth program implementation.

This position will also be responsible for managing Accounts Payable (AP) module transactions, including expense verification, record keeping, payments to staff, vendors, and partners, as well as cash flow management and the incumbent function is essential for maintaining financial efficiency, compliance, and the effective management of the organization.

The incumbent shall fully comply with the safety and security procedures of CARE and should be accountable for them.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS:
R1. Enhance the financial management efficiency and capacity of Partner Organizations through Financial Monitoring and DDA

• Provide support to enhance the financial management capacity of partners’ organizations including budgeting, advance management, auditing, and cash management.
• Perform site visits to partners’ organizations for mentoring, guidance, and coaching in the area of financial management to ensure efficiency.
• Conduct periodic financial reviews of partner organizations as per approved plans and submit findings and observations in a timely fashion to supervisor & the province coordinator.
• Prepare action plans in coordination with partners’ management committees and ensure that partners implement the recommended actions.
• Flag critical issues of partners to the supervisor/ Province Coordinator for senior management attention.
• Provide regular training and capacity building, as relevant, to the staff of sub grantees and if required mobilize team members for on-the-job training.
• Liquidate financial reports submitted by partner and ensure timely disbursement of payment to partners.
• Work closely with the project team in the preparation of annual budget and modification of partner organizations’ partner funding agreement and budget.
• Support in establishing a system of realistic forecasting and expending in partner organizations.
• Maintain regular communication with partner organizations, providing guidance, answering questions, and resolving issues as they arise.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of partner organizations relating to communications, financial settlements and reports, monitoring visits.
• Support in DDA of the sub grantee and preparation of the sub grant dashboard.
• Ensure that close-out monitoring visits are completed before the grants close out and all questioned/disallowed costs, if any, are adjusted.
• Make aware all partner staff, program participants and other stakeholders to report any incident related to fraud, corruption, and/or violation of financial policies immediately.
• Take part in investigation of fraud cases as assigned.

R2. Role in PeopleSoft

• Ensure timely collection of invoices and monthly routine bills from vendors and processing of payments after review with support from Finance, Operations and Monitoring Specialist.
• Prepare vouchers and process payments in accordance with standard practice including ensuring and monitoring proper authorization and approvals of each document generated.
• Assist in maintaining hard copies of documents as well as uploading them to the electronic filing system.
• Support Finance, Operations and Monitoring Specialist during internal audit, monitoring visits, external auditors, and stakeholders’ visits in the program.
• Ensure that all the entries related to sub grantee’s monthly/quarterly liquidation within the portfolio are entered in a timely manner into the system considering the closing deadline.
• Ensure that all the information mentioned in the financial reports are properly reviewed in line with the programmatic achievements in consultation with the field program staff/budget holder.
• Plan for funds to be disbursed to the partner and make request to CO accordingly.
• Make entries related to fund requests/disbursements to the partner after proper scrutiny of planned activities so that a significant amount of funds will not be kept for a long period in the partner’s account.
• Ensure partner advance settlement within the portfolio and do necessarily follow up to collect the amount if exceeds the 90 days limit.
• Extract a report for unpaid vouchers every month and check if any vouchers remain unpaid for more than 30 days . And do regular follow up for the settlement.

R3. Periodic follow up.

• All action points identified during monitoring visits from finance and program should be followed up in a timely fashion.
• All action points identified during the DDA should be followed up and ensure that the identified action plan is implemented and reported.

R4. Coordinate and maintain liaison with partners, FO-AP, Budget Holders, Program and Program Support Team

• Strengthen good working relationships with partners’ executive boards, management teams, and staff,
• Work closely with Finance and Operation team in CO of USAID ARH.
• Maintain working relationship with program and program support team.

R5. Upholding CARE’s Core values and ensuring its principles.

• Link and demonstrate CARE Nepal’s core values, programming principles, strategic objectives, gender equity and equality in programming and behaviors.
• Comply and exercise organizational Code of Conduct, values, and culture.
• Help to promote rights and good governance.
• Responsible for gender responsive behavior in all actions and decisions.
• Abide by CARE’s International Safeguarding policy, and reporting of incidents found during any monitoring visits with partners.
• Demonstrate positive behaviors following CARE code of conduct and uphold implementation of CARE Safeguarding policy at all levels.
• Conduct awareness raising on CARE Safeguarding policy, feedback and accountability channels and code of conduct .

R6. Other

• Maintain confidentiality of administrative and financial information as per CARE policy.
• Provide support for audits as and when required.
• Any other task assigned as deemed necessary for the attainment of project objectives.

SPENDING AUTHORITY:
None

SUPERVISION:
None

WORKING CONDITIONS
Based in Province Office at Janakpur with estimated 70% travel to project implementing districts.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE
Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, or a related field with minimum three years of experience in finance and sub grant/partnership management.

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

• Knowledge of budgetary analysis i.e., Budget Vs Actual.
• Knowledge of development programs.
• Knowledge of USAID financial policies, guidelines, rules, regulations, and reporting requirements.
• Knowledge of audit, review, and verification techniques.
• Report writing skills along with basic formatting skills.
• Communication skills including strong verbal and written language skills in both English and Nepali. Understanding of the local language will be value added.
• Interpersonal and facilitation skills.
• Strong coordination, networking, and advocacy skills.
• Computer skills, including knowledge of relevant software e.g., Microsoft office, excel and others.

COMPETENCIES:

• Analytical thinking – Able to analyze and draw conclusions on the budget and actual data of project.
• Initiative – Deals with situations and issues proactively, persistently, and thoroughly.
• Teamwork and People Management – Able to work effectively with other people within a work group.
• Writing – Able to communicate ideas and information in writing to ensure that information and messages are understood and have the desired impact.
• Communicating and sharing ideas and information – Able to present findings/recommendations and express opinions confidently.
• Planning and organizing – Able to define work goals and objectives; develop and execute work plans; and contribute to the achievement of work group objectives.