British CouncilHiring for Senior Manager – Financial Accounting, Finance Centre of Excellence, SSC at Noida, Uttar Pradesh Full Time

Location: Noida, South Asia, IN

Company: British Council

The British Council builds connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language. We work in two ways – directly with individuals to transform their lives, and with governments and partners to make a bigger difference for the longer term, creating benefit for millions of people all over the world. We help young people to gain the skills, confidence and connections they are looking for to realise their potential and to participate in strong and inclusive communities. We support them to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications. Our work in arts and culture stimulates creative expression and exchange and nurtures creative enterprise. We connect the best of the UK with the world and the best of the world with the UK. These connections lead to an understanding of each other’s strengths and of the challenges and values that we share. This builds trust between people in the UK and other nations which endures even when official relations may be strained. We work on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2019-20 we connected with 80 million people directly and with 791 million overall, including online and through our broadcasts and publications.

Job Title: Senior Manager – Financial Accounting, Finance Centre of Excellence, SSC

Purpose of job:
A critical element of this role is to provide services to key businesses both in the UK and globally by developing the culture to promote service delivery excellence by incorporating the requirements from internal and external stakeholders

The role holder will act as a Financial Accounting Strand lead within the SSC Centre of Excellence, Finance Delivery and responsible for managing the service delivery which includes preparation of Group Consolidated statement, management of yearly audit (audit samples), Balance sheet reviews, financial closing activities within SAP and Fixed Assets accounting as per defined scope and SLA.

The role holder shall report to Head Centre of Excllence, Finance Delivery and will line manage the respective process leads supporting the delivery of the Financial Accounting strand at SSC. They work with multiple stakeholders globally, particularly supporting Groiup Reporting team in UK.

Role context

This role is responsible for overall delivery of Financial Accounting Strand services from SSC , The deliverables of the role will be aligned to changing requirements from the business as well as Strategic goals of SSC.

Demonstrates agility to align service delivery to changing business requirements and to enhance Customer /User experiences by implementation of continuous improvement and transformational initiatives

Drives continuous performance improvement to achieve parity between internal performance and external benchmarks for Financial accounting services.

Main opportunities/challenges for this role

Accountabilities, responsibilities and main duties:
Manages delivery of Financial Accounting Strand from SSC as per services defined in the Under Pinning Contract ( UPC) and ensures quality through implementation of Quality Assurance Framework within service delivery:

Set up governance of Financial Accounting Strand services for performance monitoring, quality standards/ SLA.

Ensure procedures and effective controls are in place for service delivery and Manages new transitions with support of Transition team

Collaborates with UK Group Reporting team, Global Process Owners to improve effectiveness and compliances with existing and revised financial processes across service delivery

Year end and Audit support

Deliver the year end reporting tasks like preparation of notes to accounts, reconciliation with Consolidation System (Business Process Consolidation (BPC). generating reports from BPC, collation of year end information from regions, balance sheet review etc

B . Audit Planning & Management

Liaison with National Audit Office and ensuring completion of audit task. Act as a point of contact for NAO (Auditors) from SSC for providing correct evidences on samples selected by NAO. Responding to NAO on evidence in timely manner.

Stakeholder management in effective manner with Regions & in UK, Internal & External Auditors

Perform necessary Analysis of Audit Samples to provide inputs as Guidance on key Accounts, Amount threshold, Audit Queries, Findings, Errors & Observations, to relevant departments.

Support internal audit

Ensure completion of Month End/Year End Consolidation Reporting

Monitor / Perform month end closing activities with regard to consolidation of accounts in line with the agreed reporting timetable for producing monthly & yearly reports.

Producing year end consolidated financial accounts along with notes to account.

Producing statutory reports post the finalisation of annual accounts

Ensuring maintenance of BPC administrative activities and work with technical team to resolve the issue. Identify and help resolve issues that arises & are critical to BPC

Identify controls in BPC to reduce manual intervention, improve efficiencies and create consistencies worldwide

SAP Book close (monthly / Yearly)

FICO model of ERP- Monitoring / Managing Month end and Year end tasks in collaboration with GPO and Group reporting team. Monitor SAP Management of FICO model of ERP for maintenance of books of accounts of the organisation and meeting compliances to both internal and external standards for maintaining integrity of the financial books of accounts.

Review and critically evaluate the SAP process to automate, achieve standardisation and consistency in the process.

Set up governance associated to system accounting on ERP SAP – FICO for performance and quality monitoring, is accountable for compliances of minimum standards of Finance Control & Compliance

Managing Balance Sheet Review & Substantiation.

Monitor the review of financial statements (primarily Balance Sheet) of British Council. Ensure steps are taken to correct accounting errors and omission.

Developing an understanding of each balance sheet account to ensure substantiation of balances. Liaise with stakeholders to seek clarifications/ required inputs on unsubstantiated balances

Governance on ensuring that the review action points are being actioned and closed.

Knowledge Management and Retention

Implements Knowledge management framework as per British Council standards.

Service delivery processes are documented and reviewed regularly to ensure its appropriateness

Create environment for cross skilling the team members for critical transactional services delivered by SSC

Staff management and development

Teams are managed in accordance with relevant HR practices at SSC /British Council.

Adapts and implements resource management procedures and standards across service delivery

Sets up an efficient and effective service delivery model to cater to diverse service requests from the regional network within global time zones.

Implements initiatives in collaboration with HR to have an engaged and motivated workforce at SSC.

Apply agreed Retention policies in consultation with HR to ensure that staff turnover is managed at or below local averages.

Coaches and Mentors teams on a regular basis for empowerment and accountability.

Develops succession planning within the teams for un-interrupted delivery of service

Stakeholder engagement

Effectively manages relationships with internal and external stakeholders including suppliers of services etc for predictable service delivery.

Leverages available platforms for keeping stakeholders engaged with areas of finance service delivery aligned to their business goals.

Creates collaborations with GPO, regional teams, UK Group reporting teams to improve effectiveness and compliances to financial processes

Provides regular performance updates to appropriate stakeholders.

Transformation and Change Management

Lead and support business process owners including identification, proposal development and other pursuit activities for transformation of finance processes.

Collaboration with GPO/ GIS and internal stakeholders to achieve the agreed transformational change objectives

Identification and management of risks. challenges associated to implementation of transformational changes through change management.

Key Relationship

Internal

Director Finance Operations, Finance Corporate team in UK, Finance Group Reporting team in UK, Regional Finance Controllers , Internal Auditors , SSC Leadership Team , Finance staff, Function heads in SSC, Other Finance Hub Manager.

External-

National Audit office

Qualifications

Qualified Accountant with experience in leading finance consolidation and Controllership process

Operating in international and multi-cultural organisations and Managing stakeholders

Worked on IRFS, UK GAAP

Role specific knowledge and experience

Financial Accounting, Consolidation, Auditing, Knowledge of SAP, Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) tool.

Audit Management (Preferable Big 4 Audit Firms experience). Experience in handling audits (internal, Statutory etc.)

Preparation of Group Consolidated Financial Statement (Balance sheet, Cashflow)

BPC – advanced level of knowledge to how to import data into BPC, prepare journal entries and work through control failures to complete and close the month end consolidation

Balance-sheet review and Fixed Assets Process

Role specific skills

Relevant experience of leading Financial Accounting and Consolidation activities for Global entities.

Knowledge of data visualisation tools including Power BI, SAP BI etc.)

SAP ERP processes, Knowledge of Financial closing activities in SAP

Shared Services Operations

People skills to implement change programmes

Flexibility, independence and initiative to perform successfully in a rapidly changing environment

Further Information

Pay Band – 8

Contract Type – Indefinite

Department/Country- Finance/ India – Noida

Closing Date (Time) – 5 Jan 22 (IST -23:59)

A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.

Equality , Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Statement

The British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment. We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.

The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.

We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.

Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.

If you have any problems with your application please email askhr@britishcouncil.org

Please note: Applications to this role can only be considered when made through the Apply section of our careers website. Our ‘ASK HR’ email is only to be used in case of a technical issue encountered when applying through the careers website. Emails with supporting statements and CV/Resumes sent to this email address will not be reviewed and will be deleted.