Job Description
Immediate vacancy for Project Finance Associate in Bangkok and future rostering for Copenhagen.
This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the effective financial management of UNOPS projects, ensuring transparency and accountability in resource utilization. The position offers exposure to a variety of projects and donors, providing valuable experience in international development finance.
This posting is primarily looking to fill an immediate need in the Bangkok office for which candidates need to be Thai Nationals. In the interest of agile workforce planning, the Project Finance team is running a concurrent rostering process for positions based in Copenhagen, Denmark which might become vacant in the future. UNOPS Host Country Agreement with Denmark does not limit local positions to Danish Nationals. As such, individuals of all nationalities are encouraged to apply.
The Finance Group (FG) is a critical and strategic business function in UNOPS and serves as an authoritative and integrated partner in the organization on strategic financial planning and budgeting, business strategy and practices, financial analysis and risk assessment, financial management services and long term organisational treasury and investments. As the steward of resources of a self-financing UN entity, FG is accountable for timely cost recovery and reporting to partners, maintaining the integrity and transparency of financial management of resources in accordance with the highest standards of ethics and organisational/international accountability framework and the accurate and transparent financial reporting to governing bodies, clients, partners and stakeholders.
The Project Finance Associate reports to a Project Finance Specialist who provides broad supervision and guidance. The role contributes to the finance vision of being a true business partner to UNOPS projects, by providing advice and governance of project financial reporting and closure.
The role is part of a centre of excellence, providing seamless, appropriate, relevant and proactive project-specific tools, guidance and support. The role includes collaboration on project setup, implementation and closure with UNOPS delivery functions and UNOPS Partnerships Group
1. Management of Project Financial Closure & Verification of Final Financial Report
2. Project Fund Management and Budget Approvals
3. Oversight of Partner Financial Reporting, refinement, and capacity building
4. Client reporting and other project finance-related aspects
5. Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing
1) Management of Project Financial Closure & Verification of Final Financial Report. Which includes the preparation of partner-related Final Financial Reports focusing on the achievement of the following results:
- Ensure that project financial closure activities are initiated in a timely manner to guarantee efficient project budget management.
- Responsible for verifying the Final Financial Reports (FFR) for the accurate and timely closure of client projects, in charge of requesting corrections and/or clarification where needed, and ensuring that the final financial reports are tailored to partner-specific needs and share the certified reports with the related field office after the approval of the report.
- Ensure that the FFR issued are in full compliance with UNOPS’ rules, regulations, policies, procedures, and partner-reporting requirements as agreed in the legal agreement and/or in the global agreement between UNOPS and the partner.
- Support to any project audit/verification to identify transactions, prepare documentation etc.
2) Ensurance of efficient Project Fund Management and Budget release, focusing on the achievement of the following results:
- Review and release internal (project) budgets, including cost estimates and budget revisions in line with the approved budgets at engagement/legal agreement level. This also includes approval of the financial and position setup in UNOPS IT systems (oUP/Projects+, etc) and ensuring compliance with the legal agreement and relevant UNOPS financial rules, regulations, policies, and procedures.
- Verify the completeness and accuracy of the supporting documentation for advance financing requests and ensure the associated financial risks are mitigated as much as possible. Submits received requests transparently with a recommendation for action to senior management where applicable. Applies approved requests in UNOPS GL.
- Ensuring that advance financing is recovered as it becomes due according to the terms of their approval. Escalate cases that can not be recovered as per the original plan, with a recommendation of action to senior management.
- Monitoring and clearance of advance financing GL accounts
- Support the processing of write-offs for over expenditure once approved by senior management.
- Process refunds/transfer of surplus project cash balances once the partner has accepted the Final Financial Reports, as and when needed. The refunds are based on the approved FFRs, and the incumbent is expected to verify the correct banking information for the cash transfer to the partner.
- Process refunds/transfer of surplus project cash balances based on exceptional approvals for ongoing projects.
- Process exceptional financial closure, including application of balances to the unclaimed balance account and oversight of balances on the account.
- Ensure reconciliation and replenishment of accounts are done on a regular basis to avoid any shortfall of funds and reconciliation issues between UNOPS and partners.
3) Ensurance of proper Partner financial oversight, refinement and capacity building, focusing on achievement of the following results for the donor portfolio specified / key accounts:
- Provides oversight through tools and reports on the project financial closure process performance.
- Provides oversight through tools on the project financial reporting performance.
- Provides oversight through tools and reports on the refund/transfer process and the exceptional closure balances pending at corporate level.
- Proposes solutions to resolve issues linked to the financial reporting and closure of partner projects, e.g. delay in partner responses, late submission of reports, etc.
- Ensures oversight on any additional items that are relevant to efficient project financial management.
- Ensures compliance with UNOPS Financial Regulations and Rules on project closure through follow-up with project managers and engagement closure focal points of projects where the FFR has been issued for relevant donors.
- Provides guidance to project managers on UNOPS policies and procedures to overcome obstacles faced during project financial closure and suggests solutions, where required, to ensure timely financial project closure.
- Verification of project documents/legal agreements against oneUNOPS Projects records, e.g., for interest eligibility or reporting schedule setup.
4) Provides support and guidance on client reporting and other project finance-related matters, focusing on the achievement of the following results:
- Provides ad hoc, interim, and annual reports as required.
- Provides advice on the preparation of partner-specific financial project reports.
- Provides support to project-related monthly, quarterly and annual book closure processes as required, e.g. interest account reconciliation and readjustment of cost recovery posting.
- Processes monthly closure activities as required independently for UNOPS accounts. All these tasks are expected to be performed independently and in compliance with the correspondence with the relevant guidance and policies.
- Develops and maintains financial reporting templates in Google Docs and Google Sheets using the UNOPS templating tool, ensuring the templates meet the reporting requirements of partners.
- Designs and updates financial reporting layouts and category groups within the ERP system, ensuring accuracy and consistency across all financial data.
- Oversight of the client’s financial reporting completeness and on-time submission and report to the management .
- Oversight on the data set of client reporting in terms of commitment, data quality.
- Supports the designs and development of necessary data sets and a dashboard that can help project colleagues and senior management with better data visibility.
5) Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing
- Assists in training of colleagues upon requests from portfolio managers, the supervisor and other finance officers on project finance management.
- Synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices in project finance.
- Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice.
- Supports in other administrative functions in FG as necessary
