SHOFCO (Shining Hope for Communities) is hiring a Finance Manager to oversee financial management and resource management to support effective delivery of NGO programmes. The role is based in Nairobi and knowledge of Kenyan statutory payroll is required.
The Finance Manager owns the day-to-day machinery of school finance — budgeting support, bookkeeping, banking, tuition collection, procurement reconciliation, and, eventually, payroll and HR administration — in close partnership with the Operations Manager, the School Director, and SHOFCO’s central finance office. Because Sankoré is founding-stage, this person will build several of these systems working in tandem with the SankoréOS platform now in development for school-wide operations.
This
role sits at the center of two of the school’s non-negotiables: financial
integrity (SHOFCO requires multi-person, “multi-eyes” review on procurement and
spend) and trust with families (tuition, financial aid, and financial
assistance touch every household at Sankoré). Success here is measured in clean
books, on-time reporting, and families who feel fairly and respectfully treated
around money.
Key Responsibilities
1. Budgeting
and Financial Planning
- Coordinate and manage Sankoré’s annual budgeting cycle, working with
the School Director and department leads to build a complete, defensible
budget.
- Prepare the annual budget in a timely, well-documented manner for
presentation to the Director and the Board.
- Present and defend the budget at Board meetings, answering questions
on assumptions, variances, and risk.
- Monitor actual expenditure against budget throughout the year and
flag variances early, not at period-end.
2. Bookkeeping,
Banking, and Expenditure Tracking
- Maintain day-to-day bookkeeping for all Sankoré transactions,
tracking expenditure against the approved budget.
- Manage the Sankoré bank account once it is operational (pending KRA
PIN clearance), including reconciliations and cash flow tracking.
- Partner with SankoréOS as it comes online so financial data flows
cleanly between the bookkeeping system and the school’s broader operating
platform, rather than living in parallel spreadsheets.
- Maintain an accurate, audit-ready paper and digital trail for every
transaction.
3. Tuition
and Family Financial Support
- Own tuition payment processing end-to-end: invoicing, collection,
reconciliation, and receipt — beyond the stopgap receipting the Operations
Manager currently handles.
- Proactively follow up on late and non-payments with clear,
family-respectful communication and escalation paths.
- Build and manage, in partnership with the School Director, a system
for processing requests for financial assistance outside of the formal
scholarship program — with clear, consistent criteria families can trust.
- Coordinate with Admissions on sliding-scale tuition cases so
financial and enrollment data stay aligned.
4. Procurement
Compliance and Reconciliation
- Serve as the second set of eyes with the Operations Manager on
procurement sign-off, satisfying SHOFCO’s audit standard for multi-person
review.
- Prepare the month- and period-end reconciliation package for
SHOFCO’s central finance office (statements of source and justification,
three-vendor procurement documentation, and related audit artifacts) on
schedule.
- In partnership with Operations, maintain procurement documentation
to a standard that would hold up under an external audit at any time, not
just at period-end.
5. Payroll
and HR Systems Administration (as Sankoré grows)
- Create and manage Sankoré’s payroll system, ensuring accurate and
on-time pay for every staff member, every cycle.
- Build and administer HR-adjacent financial systems and
communications, including pension entitlements and medical insurance
enrollment and changes.
- Manage employee leave requests in coordination with the leadership
team, outside of standard vacation tracking.
- Ensure Sankoré’s payroll and HR-finance practices meet Kenyan
statutory obligations (PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, and the Affordable Housing Levy),
remitting on time and keeping documentation audit-ready.
6. Statutory,
Legal, and Audit Compliance
- Keep Sankoré’s financial operations compliant with Kenyan tax and
statutory obligations, and flag any point where the school may need a
dedicated compliance review (for example, confirming whether a designated
finance role is required under specific licensing, NGO, or
education-sector conditions).
- Support the School Director and SHOFCO finance leadership in
preparing for internal and external audits.
- Maintain confidentiality and integrity as the steward of the
school’s most sensitive financial and HR-adjacent information.
7. Systems,
Data, and Continuous Improvement
- Identify where manual, spreadsheet-based processes should be
replaced by SankoréOS or other tools as the school scales.
- Bring a founding-stage mindset: build the system now so it can be
handed off cleanly as Sankoré grows past current capacity.
- Flag, rather than absorb silently, any financial responsibility that
has no clear owner (for example, capital budgeting, capital investment
tracking, or risk management) so the School Director and Board can make an
explicit ownership decision.
Qualifications
Required
Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, business administration,
or a related field.
- 2–4 years of relevant bookkeeping or accounting experience, ideally
within a school, NGO, or small-to-mid-size organization.
- Working knowledge of Kenyan statutory payroll and tax compliance
(PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, Affordable Housing Levy) and experience remitting these
on schedule.
- Proficiency with accounting software and strong Microsoft Excel
skills.
- Demonstrated integrity and discretion in handling sensitive
financial and personnel data.
- Fluent written and spoken English and Kiswahili.
Preferred
- Progress toward, or completion of, a professional accounting
qualification (CPA-K or ACCA).
- Prior experience in a school or educational institution finance
office, including tuition or fee management systems.
- Experience working within multi-signatory or “multi-eyes” internal
control environments.
- Experience administering payroll, pension schemes, or medical
insurance benefits.
- Familiarity with NGO or nonprofit financial reporting and
donor/board reporting standards.
How to Apply
Interested
applicants should send their applications together with a detailed CV to recruitment@shofco.org email
address. The Subject should clearly indicate the position being applied for.
Applications without this information will not be considered. Only shortlisted
candidates will be contacted.
