Associate, Grants Accountant, AKU Finance

Associate, Grants Accountant (Fixed Term)

Department

Finance, East Africa

Location

Aga Khan University, Nairobi

Introduction 

Founded in 1983 as Pakistan’s first private university and fully chartered in Kenya in 2021, The Aga Khan University (AKU) is a private, autonomous, and self-governing international university, with 13 teaching sites in 6 countries over three continents. An integral part of the Aga Khan Development Network, AKU provides higher education in multiple health science and social science disciplines, carries out research pertinent primarily to low- and middle-income countries.

The University is both a model of academic excellence and an agent of social change. As a leading international institution dedicated to excellence and change, AKU operates on the core principles of quality, relevance, impact, and access.

Job Purpose/Summary 

The Grants Accountant will be responsible for monitoring the financial progress of research and programmatic grants by preparing grant budgets and developing grant financial reports according to the guidelines of the granting agency. The successful candidate will work closely with the Grants Manager and the research team to ensure financial compliance during grant implementation, as well as to support audits and financial accounting for grants.

Key Roles and Responsibilities 

• Work Closely with the Grants Manager and program staff, to ensure transactions are properly recorded and agree to the grant/contract agreement, while also ensuring sub-recipients/subcontracts costs are correctly captured.

• Preparation of internal grants reports to be shared with the Principal Investigators.

• Prepare donor reports as per their specifications and on a timely and accurate basis.

• Prepare invoices and requests for payments to funding agencies and reconcile grant expenses to funder reports.

• Ensure donors' compliance requirements are met with perfection.

• Monitor sub-recipients. Review budgets and reimbursement requests for appropriateness, and ensure sub-recipients follow established administrative and financial policies, procedures, and sound business practices.

• Working closely with the Grants Manager and Principal investigators to ensure that all project activities are allocated accurate costs and are reflected on the project budget.

• Ensure that the budgets are prepared, taking into consideration the AKU policies and granting agencies' terms and conditions.

• Exercise judgement to ensure that all decisions relating to research grant management are made in accordance with relevant rules, legislation, and policies and to check that the university’s best interests are served by the decisions.

• Building Effective communication strategies with a variety of stakeholders and colleagues to ensure that information exchanges are timely, accurate and useful.

• Facilitate Internal and external grant financial audit.

• Provide support documentation and explanations required by Internal and external auditors for grants.

• Review requisitions raised by the different departments to ensure spending is within the approved budgets.

• Ensure all requisitions are adequately supported and approved by the department heads.

• Ensure requisitions are done in a timely manner and charged correctly.

• Pass Journal Entries in Ledger related to grants.

• Review Trial Balance of Grants and prepare reports accordingly.

• Maintain efficient electronic and paper filing systems for financial records and submit required documents to relevant donors.

• Any other task assigned by management.

Relevant Experience and Qualifications 

• Undergraduate degree in Business Administration /Accounting or Finance

• CPAK/ ACCA qualifications

• 2-3 years of professional experience in finance and accounting.

• Prior experience in a granting agency will be an added advantage.

• Excellent command of MS Excel and MS PowerPoint will be an added advantage.