Finance and Systems Associate

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Description

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The MPTF Office’s trustee and fund design and administration service is a standard-setter in the UN System – professionalized, highly transparent and firewalled from all UN implementing entities. The MPTF Office has put in place a number of tools and systems to support its transparent and accessible fund administration services such as its digital platform the MPTF Office Gateway. As a shared UN service provider, the MPTFO operates in a distinct and dedicated business unit. It provides an integrated service platform that, in addition to core trust fund design and administration functions, provides complimentary services to users like data analytics, research administration, and knowledge management.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Under the guidance and supervision of the Finance Specialist, the Finance and Systems Associate forms part of the MPTF Office Finance Team, which collectively supports MPTF Office’s fund initiation and administration services and management of internal finance functions. This role maintains and supports the enhancement of all MPTF Office managed finance related IT platforms (i.e. Gateway, Quantum coding structures, UNEX or alternative etc.); facilitates financial expenditure reporting of Participating Organizations through UNEX. 

UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

Support to Office Finance related systems: 

• Conduct administration and implementation of the unit’s operational strategies in accordance with the Internal Control Framework issued by the Executive Coordinator 
• Under guidance of Chief, Finance and Risk Management, provides support with setting up, maintain and monitor Quantum profiles for MPTF Office personnel; advises on potential conflicts in roles and changes required.
• Participate in systems testing, report feedback on testing and any issues for ITM. 
• Support impacts analysis to current MPTF Office financial systems for new product development designs.
• Prepare first draft of specifications to financial systems; act as the key liaison between the MPTF Office business owner and technical developer and participate in systems testing prior to production.
• Create, modify, or inactivate codes on approval in Quantum for MDTF1 and UNDP1 business units including Fund, department, budget, donor and implementing agency codes based on approved coding formats; liaise with UNDP Peer Support to set up codes within the shared tables. 
• Maintain the MDTF Office donor and fund code trees and tables in relevant systems; complete assigned opening and closing periods in Quantum. Focal person for the Budget Control journals.
• Contribute to business process and systems design to generate on-going gains in efficiency and productivity across the portfolio. 
• Acts as the backup for Finance Associate on routine Fund Administration tasks like fund transfer requests, fund reporting and project/fund closure.

Systems support to Participating Organizations expenditure reporting processes:

• Manage internal and external access user accounts for systems used for quarterly and annual reporting.
• Communicate with, and act as primary focal point for Participating Organizations (UN and NUNO) upload of financial expenditure reporting through the reporting system to MPTF Office.
• Identify, problem solve and respond to Gateway related upload queries from clients.
• Proactively reviews Participating Organizations upload errors and exceptions, including over-expenditures, and propose solutions to clients.
• Liaise with the ITM to coordinate resolution of technical issues.
• Open and close the reporting system, manage systems controls and ensure data can be transferred to Quantum.
• Process UNEX data into journals and transfer to Quantum and submit for posting by the Finance Specialist to the general ledger. 

Support with project and fund closure reporting processes:

• Advises on potential conflicts in roles and changes required.
• Provisions access for Finance staff to the Fund Administration System (FAS)
• Contribute to strategy development for increasing Participating Organizations project closure rates.
• Lead monitoring and analysis of Participating Agencies’ refund and remittance of interest at the Fund level across the portfolio.
• Monitor Project and fund closure KPIs.
• Prepare project closure analysis reports identifying projects for Finance Manager’s review.
• Identify possible solutions for project closure at agency level.
• Other ad-hoc financial reporting on request Fund Closure.
• Prepare fund financial closure analysis reports for Finance Manager’s review.
• Coordinate with Finance Associates on fund closure.
• Identify funds eligibility for financial closure
• Coordinate with portfolio team for donor refund.
• Identify issues for fund financial closure and suggest possible resolutions.
• Manage the architecture of the MPTF Office contacts database in Gateway.

Sharing and facilitation of knowledge building:

• Where included in the office or individual learning plans or on request from clients, develop, organize and provide one-on-one or group training sessions on MPTF Office systems.
• Assists with building capacity and knowledge sharing within MPTF Office by supporting the development of tools and resources capturing best practices/guidance on financial closure.
• Support preparation of policy updates for project and fund financial closure. 
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Required Skills and Experience:

Education:

• Secondary Education with specialized certification in accounting and/or Finance. University degree in Finance or Accounting desirable. Part-qualified accountants from an internationally accredited institute of accountancy will have a distinct advantage.
• Fully Qualified Accountant, from an internationally accredited institute of accountancy or Full Completion of the UNDP Finance Training and Certification Programme (FTCP). No UNDP Accountancy and Finance Test (AFT) is required.
• Candidates with no professional accountancy qualifications, but with degrees that major in accountancy and/or finance must complete UNDP Finance Training and Certification Programme (FTCP), if recruited. However, no UNDP Accountancy and Finance Test (AFT) is required.
• Candidate with no professional accountancy qualifications but with relevant experience must successfully undertake UNDP Accountancy and Finance Test (AFT) before shortlisting and must complete the UNDP Finance Training and Certification Programme (FTCP), if recruited.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years (with Secondary education) or 4 years (with Bachelor’s degree) of experience in the use of computers applications and software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) including data analysis as well as web-based IT applications and working with ERP systems. 
• Experience in financial management/accounting with focus of project life cycle management including project closure is required.
• Experience in preparing data analysis and presenting results for review.
• Extensive experience in preparing financial reports and completing analysis. 
• Experience working with UN pooled funding mechanisms is a distinct advantage.
• Experience of SharePoint and PowerBi platforms will be a distinct advantage.

Language Requirement:

• Fluency in English required. 
• Knowledge of another UN language is an asset. 

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/24302

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