Finance Officer - Budget and Analysis

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a CGIAR Research Center, is on the lookout for a talented individual to join our team in headquarters in Battaramulla, Sri Lanka, as a Finance Officer – Budget and Analysis*.

The Finance Officer is part of the IWMI Finance Department, which is responsible for financial management and reporting of IWMI’s portfolio of research for development projects. The Finance officer works across the project management lifecycle and is responsible for managing financial aspects from project implementation to project closure. To ensure full integration of the budget development process within IWMI’s overall project management lifecycle, the Finance officer will work in close coordination with several departments and teams at IWMI including the Business Development unit, Project Management Office, and the Research Groups.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

Budgeting & Analysis,

• Work with the Manager – Budget and Analysis, project management unit, project leaders, and country representatives to successfully forecast the project budget for the current and upcoming year, using the SAP budget.
• Facilitate the process of contract amendments which involves reforecasting of donor budgets.
• Ensure all documentation related to budget revisions/variations are organized, searchable, and easily accessible.
• Coordinate the conversion of budget revisions from the internal IWMI format to the required donor format and develop strategies to directly allocate cost items to ensure full cost recovery.
• Provide comprehensive budget information of forecast, revision, carryover budgets in SAP on a timely basis in a user-friendly manner for SAP update.
• For costed contract variations develop updated internal budgets for revision into the donor budget (in donor format) as per Project leaders’ requirement, liaising with the reporting team and other teams as needed.
• For actual costed budgets, engage with the Finance office to collect actual salary costs based on salary and benefits.
• Check or review draft contract variation budgets prior to contract variation approval & ensure the full cost recovery model is implemented appropriately.
• Provide necessary support to capture carryover budget update for donor approved budgets in SAP.
• Support implementation process of the One CGIAR funded budgets along with Program Management unit & Projects leaders to ensure effective utilization of budget.
• Work with the Portfolio Managers and Project Leaders to decide on the balances to be spent and allocate final spend on balances.
• Develop solutions for day-to-day budget issues in consultation with Project Leaders, check for overspending, underspending, recoveries and liaise with relevant teams to act needed.
• Check and request the clearance of staff time & recoveries working with required teams (HQ and County office)

Other Responsibilities,

• Develop user friendly financial dashboards at project level.
• Update monthly and make available IWMI’s internal budget template to ensure accuracy and appropriate version control.
• Monitor the use of accurate cost codes in the ERP.
• Ensure recoveries are captured accurately and done so at each month end.
• Provide support and advice as required to improve IWMI’s approach to project costings and budget development processes, contribute to revisions of IWMI’s Cost Allocation Guidelines).
• Provide support and training as required to researchers focused internal budgeting for proposals/amendments.  

Requirements

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

Essential,

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, finance or a closely related discipline.
• Minimum of 04 years of relevant experience.
• Experience with the development of budgets.
• Experience working with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems preferably in SAP or Microsoft Navision.
• Experience with dashboard reporting preferably using Power BI.

Desirable,

• Experience with the development of budgets for multilateral and bilateral donors such as: World Bank, USAID, European Union, and Asian Development Bank.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

Essential,

• Advanced knowledge of financial accounting and budgeting, as well as financial planning and analysis.
• Ability to act independently within broad program goals to prioritize tasks in the absence of specific instructions and exercise independent judgment to identify and solve problems.
• Strong financial management / budgeting & analytics skills.
• Excellent conceptual thinking capacity to understand donor financial budgeting/ reporting requirements and implications for proposal budget development.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities and new procedures quickly.
• Excellent interpersonal and teamwork skills.
• Ability to operate spreadsheets, databases, and word processing programs at a highly proficient level.
• Ability to deal with sensitive and confidential information in a professional manner.
• Personal attributes such as high standards of conduct, respect, flexibility, and sound work ethics.
• Ability to work effectively in a multi-disciplinary and multicultural setting.
• Excellent attention to detail and precision.
• Excellent oral and written language skills in English, including effective listening and strong verbal and written communication abilities.

Benefits

This is a nationally recruited position and only Sri Lankan nationals will be considered. IWMI offers a competitive salary and benefits package, inclusive of health insurance, life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance, and long-term disability coverage. The duration of the contract will initially be for a period of three years with the possibility of extension.

*Please note that the position is advertised under the title Finance Officer – Budget and Analysis; however, the successful candidate's job title will be Finance Officer, in accordance with IWMI's job title guidelines.

HOW TO APPLY: Apply for the position by following the application instructions at www.iwmi.org/jobs. We will be accepting applications through 24:00 (IST) on November 19, 2024 (applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis). Your application must include a CV, cover letter, and three (3) references, which may be contacted if you are shortlisted. Receipt of all applications will be acknowledged, but only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

IWMI believes that diversity powers our innovation, contributes to our excellence, and is critical for our mission. We offer a multi-cultural, multi-color, multi-generational and multi-disciplinary working environment. We are consciously creating an inclusive organization that reflects our global character and our commitment to gender equity. We, therefore, encourage applicants from all cultures, races, ethnicities, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientations, and gender identities.