View Vacancy – MNL – Regional Finance Senior Officer, AO

The British Embassy Manila is a large diplomatic mission delivering a dynamic and rapidly expanding programme of activity in support of the UK’s objectives on prosperity, security and consular matters. The Embassy is a modern, diverse and inclusive employer where everyone contributes to the Embassy’s WORC Values of Wellbeing, Opportunity, Respect and Collaboration.

Main Purpose of Job:

To support the operational delivery of the Global Transaction Processing Centre (GTPC) to Missions in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East & North Africa (MENAD), Eastern Europe & Central Asia (EECAD), South Asia & Afghanistan (SAAD) providing reconciliation services to 150 posts, overseeing the accurate and timely processing of Network Post Accounts and receipts.

Provide a quality check function for the team, supporting a culture of continuous improvement to not only meet, but exceed the service standards set by the Service Level Agreement while working to improve financial compliance across the FCDO.

Note:

The incumbent will hold the position for one of the functional P2P teams.  If the business need arises, the incumbent may be moved to cover another P2P requirement as outlined in the job specification with the same grade.

Roles and responsibilities/what will the jobholder be expected to achieve:

1. Purchase Order Supplier Maintenance

• Process all SM, PO, DS transactions in your areas within Service levels agreements focusing on delivering 97% and above KPIs throughout the year.
• Complete workload as identified in daily workload plan including Supplier & Staff set ups, Distribution Set(DS) ups, Bank Amendments, clean ups and Purchase Order creation and PO other requests.
• Investigate any rejected payment reasons that may be related to supplier/staff set-up.

2. Accounts Payable – Invoice Processing

• Process all supplier invoices, staff reimbursement in the system within service level agreements focusing on delivering 99% and above KPIs throughout the year.
• Complete workload as identified in Workload management including recording of supplier invoices, staff reimbursements, debit memos, Network Post Accounts (NPAs), cash-in-transit forms, approved Non Discretionary payment Requests and payroll-related.

3. Accounts Payable – Payments

• Process all assigned payment transactions including Payroll, Debit Memos, NPAs and urgent payment requests within Service level agreements and in compliance to Standard processes and P2P guidelines. Any deviations from processes are appropriately escalated and monitored to reduce risk.
• Identify any rejected payments promptly. Liaise with banking providers as well as internal teams to investigate and resolve payment rejections and refunds.
• Comply with Banking Regulations and FCDO financial policies in particular P2P handbook, Challenge and Escalation procedures and Audit recommendations.
• For manual banking payments perform 1st level bank approval.  Ensure accuracy checks are completed, that details entered in the system to match details on the banking platform.
• For Electronic/cheque/Wire payments, perform quality check of batches before payment processing by reviewing validity and completeness of supporting documentations as well as checking accuracy of invoice entry details including matching of bank account information setup in Oracle and Banking platforms.
• Ensure strict adherence to management and usage of banking tokens and access information.

4. Accounts Receivable & Reconciliation

• Process all accounts receivable and reconciliation transactions in your areas within Service levels agreements.
• Complete workload as identified in daily workload plan including receipts, NPAs, reconciliation, cash & bank balances and adjustments in the system.
• Investigate and pursue the reconciliation of any aging items.
• Investigate any rejected payment promptly registering it in the Bank Amendment Tracker.

5. Operational Delivery

• Comply with financial guidance in particular P2P handbook, Challenge and Escalation procedures and audit recommendations.
• Support Manager to assist with daily workload of team addressing bottlenecks and ensuring payments and requests are processed within SLAs while still maintaining acceptable accuracy level.
• Provide assistance in resolving issues related to their respective area and process.
• Monitor and ensure compliance to standard processes ensuring that any deviations from process are appropriately escalated and monitored to reduce risk.
• Manage all data according to Information Management / GDPR guidance ensuring it is stored correctly, weeded regularly and shared according to personal data management controls.
• Review all relevant monitoring tools to take action as necessary.
• Timely ensure that all requests and queries in shared mailbox, and sharepoint are managed and resolved.
• Timely escalation of unresolved aging items to line manager.

6. Customer Service

• Identify issues and work to resolve.  Escalate to line managers issues that need may affect current operations.
• Work with Mission staff to ensure proper delivery of services by answering queries and providing guidance / instructions to avoid errors in the future.
• Act as first point of contact for the Customer Engagement Team ensuring responses are actioned within SLA.

7. Continuous Improvement

• Timely report to line manager any incidents, identify corrective measures and suggest practical and repeatable solutions to prevent similar incidents occurring in the future.
• Proactively identify and suggest improvements in payments processes to enhance efficiencies and quality of delivered results, paying particular attention to any failing KPIs.
• Support a culture of continuous improvement by actively participating in internal and external cross-team process improvements projects as necessary.
• Coordinate with other function teams on changes/issues to ensure seamless flow of data/information.

• 3-year experience of working in the FCDO Global Transaction Processing Centre or fast-paced BPO/shared service
• Data entry experience – with high attention to detail
• Proficient in MS Excel and other Microsoft applications
• Understanding of Purchase to Pay (P2P)
• Strong oral and written English language ability