The Financial Specialist provides specialized finance services to the Global Strategy teams that include colleagues and partners around the world. The Finance Specialist will provide support on all financial operations for geographically dispersed teams with specific focus on day-to-day transactional support, monitoring and reporting multiple budget to actuals, and other support for our private grant management and annual budgets position will work closely with project managers as well as Legal and Finance colleagues at the Conservancy. This position is part of a central Global Strategy Operations, Finance & People team.
There is a strong preference for this position to be based in Arlington, VA. Other locations may be negotiable.
The Finance Specialist provides specialized services to support financial management and reporting; accounting; grants administration, or similar financial activities for the Global Strategy teams. They expeditiously, accurately, and courteously respond to or route various inquiries from internal and external customers. They have a high level of expertise in day-to-day transaction review, coding accuracy, generating custom reports, often with pivot tables, as well as serving as an integral point of contact with global strategies’ team members and internal partners worldwide. This person will provide financial support and assistance to Conservation Managers related to proposals, grants, reporting, forecasting and budget management. S/He will prepare and monitor budgets, prepare timely and accurate forecasts and reports, and support contracts and invoice payments ensuring adherence to all Standard Operating Procedures.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND SCOPE
- Works in multiple financial systems and relational databases
- Works to ensure accurate processing of income, expenses, and transfers, as well as to pull monthly financial reports from the general ledger and other ad hoc reports financial reporting.
- Coordinates and tracks project-level deadlines for financial reporting to include coordination with various operating units, including incoming grant reporting deadlines
- Supports in preparing/processing various transactional accounting forms and reports such as journal entries, expense reclasses, and cash receipts.
- Prepares donor and management financial reports and materials including budget/spend analysis, budgeting, and forecasting
- May coordinate data gathering, submission and review for audit
- Designs user friendly templates to enhance data consistency and facilitate analysis for decision making.
- Performs detailed review and analysis of invoices, expense reports, and transaction data for conservation teams
- May support contract specialist in review and processing of contract payment schedule and reporting. Acts independently on assigned tasks and exercises sound judgement based on analysis and experience.
- May manage special projects and/or requests that address key contract or financial issues.
- May support the management of multi-year, high value private grants including proposal budgets, monitoring, cost assignment, forecasting and reporting.
- Strong organizational skills, accuracy, and attention to detail.
- Ensures programmatic commitments, TNC policies and procedures, financial standards and legal requirements are met and managed for compliance.
- Learns and applies TNC corporate policies and procedures, reinforcing consistency while providing support to relevant field.
- Discretion and sensitivity handling confidential information
- Excellent “customer service” skills and focus.
- Strong interpersonal skills to develop productive working relationships with a wide range of people in an unstructured environment
- Experience with accounting/financial issues and analysis.
- Experience using accounting and financial reporting systems.
- Technical experience with spreadsheet programs, general ledger reports and financial management tools.
- Experience with GAAP and fund accounting principles, practices and regulations.
- Experience, coursework or other training with standard contract clauses.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Multi-lingual skills and/or multi-cultural experience highly valued.
- Ability to manipulate, analyze and interpret data. Advanced expertise in Microsoft Excel.
- Strong organizational skills.
- Accuracy, attention to detail and the ability to multi-task.
- Non-profit accounting experience.
- May require technical expertise on complex accounting/financial issues.
- US government grants accounting experience may be preferred
The Nature Conservancy offers competitive compensation, 401k or savings-plan matching for eligible employees, excellent benefits, flexible work policies and a collaborative work environment. We also provide professional development opportunities and promote from within. As a result, you will find a culture that supports and inspires conservation achievement and personal development, both within the workplace and beyond.