Financial Analyst – FP&A

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Rwanda, +1 more state.

📋 Description

• Take charge of the monthly COGS reporting cycle: extract, reconcile, and analyze all direct program costs against the budget, while tracking variances by cost category, program, and campus.

• Maintain the COGS master schedule, ensuring that all direct costs, faculty fees, program delivery costs, student-facing expenses, and contracted services are accurately coded, allocated, and reconciled with the NetSuite ledger.

• Prepare monthly COGS variance commentary for review by the Associate Director, emphasizing key drivers, timing differences, and cost risks.

• Monitor cost per student and cost per program metrics, highlighting anomalies and trends for management's attention.

• Lead the identification of cost optimization opportunities across programs.

• Oversee the overhead tracker for all departments: HR, Technology, Finance, Facilities, Marketing, and Administration.

• Generate monthly departmental overhead reports including budget vs actuals, variance analysis, and narrative summaries for departmental leads and senior management.

• Reconcile overhead expenditures with NetSuite ledger entries on a monthly basis; identify and investigate mispostings, timing differences, and unbudgeted spending.

• Track committed spending and accruals to ensure a comprehensive monthly overhead overview; maintain the accruals schedule.

• Challenge departmental spending against approved budgets and enforce cost discipline through proactive engagement with budget owners.

• Prepare and maintain all core supporting schedules for the monthly and year-end close: prepayments, accruals, fixed assets, depreciation, and capitalized costs.

• Ensure that all schedules are fully reconciled with the NetSuite trial balance and delivered to the Finance Operations Director within the agreed closing timeline (by close +5).

• Maintain the fixed asset register, including additions, disposals, depreciation runs, and year-end reconciliation.

• Assist the Finance Operations Director in providing audit-ready schedules for statutory and donor audits.

• Proactively identify schedule discrepancies and reconcile items; investigate and resolve issues with the Finance Operations team.

• Support the annual budgeting cycle by consolidating departmental cost submissions, validating assumptions, flagging outliers, and preparing the cost budget for review by the Associate Director.

• Maintain rolling overhead and COGS forecasts, updating for actuals, known changes, and management decisions each month.

• Develop and maintain cost scenario models: sensitivity analysis on key cost drivers (headcount, program volumes, exchange rates) to support institutional planning.

• Provide cost-side inputs to the Senior Financial Analyst for integration into the consolidated financial model and Board reporting.

• Assist in business case preparation: model cost implications of new programs, operational changes, and investment proposals.

• Prepare the cost performance section of the monthly management accounts: a structured, clearly narrated view of COGS, overheads, and total expenditure versus budget.

• Deliver cost variance analysis for consolidation by the Senior Financial Analyst into the monthly Board pack and management reporting cycle.

• Create the monthly expenditure dashboard: overhead burn rate, COGS efficiency, headcount cost trends, and key cost ratios.

• Contribute supporting data and cost schedules to donor reports prepared by the Senior Financial Analyst, ensuring budget vs actuals reconciliation for grant-funded programs.

• Translate cost performance into actionable insights for management decision-making.

• Monitor capital expenditure against approved budgets: maintain the CAPEX schedule, oversee spending against authorizations, and flag potential overspend risks.

• Reconcile CAPEX actuals in NetSuite to the project register; collaborate with the Finance Operations Director on capitalization, depreciation, and disposal treatments.

• Prepare CAPEX progress reports for senior management, highlighting spending status, pending commitments, and forecasts to completion.

• Extract AR ledger, grant-coded transactions, and deferred income data; conduct saved searches and exports (NetSuite ERP).

• Serve as the primary working environment for all trackers, reconciliations, dashboards, and reporting files (Google Sheets / Google Suite).

• Possess working knowledge in query writing for data extraction and reconciliation (advantage) (SQL).

• Extract billing, opportunity, and payment data; validate against NetSuite; support donor register (Salesforce).

• Format dashboards and reports for leadership and donor audiences (Google Suite - Slides / Docs).

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.

• 3–5 years of experience with proven expertise in overhead tracking, cost variance analysis, and supporting schedule preparation.

• Strong proficiency in Google Sheets and/or Excel: advanced formulas, pivot tables, and structured financial models.

• Experience with ERP systems (NetSuite experience is a significant advantage).

• Solid understanding of management accounting principles: accruals, prepayments, fixed assets, and cost allocation.

• Detail-oriented with a disciplined approach to reconciliation and schedule accuracy.

• Clear written communication skills: able to present cost findings in straightforward language for management.

• Part-qualified or fully qualified accountant (ACCA, CPA, CIMA, CA, or equivalent) preferred.

• Experience in educational, non-profit, or international development financial environments.

• Familiarity with CAPEX management, project cost tracking, or fixed asset accounting.

• Understanding of grant budget tracking and donor fund allocation (supporting role).

🏝️ Benefits

• Health insurance

• Professional development opportunities