Specialist: Change Finance at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Description

Financial Management Accountabilities

1. Budget, Planning and Cost Management

• Serve as a subject matter expert on financial data integrity, accounting processes, reconciliations, analysis, and reporting for end-to-end Financial Management for FM COO PMO project portfolio.
• Develop and sustain knowledge and experience on the end-to-end processes, including relevant systems within scope of work.
• Identify and innovate operating practices to optimize the function. Embrace digital solutions.
• Drive continuous process efficiency, financial rigor and controls.
• Adopt what‘s ‘Best for Absa’ approach in finance practices.
• Build and manage portfolio finance budget in line with appetite and business requirements, in collaboration with PM’s, Risk Exco, CHANGE FINANCE MANAGEMENT (Change Finance Management (CFM)  guidelines and Group/EE directives
• Prepare TP view of project CTA (cost to achieve) during BOW and budget build
• Establish clear cost visibility related to FM COO PMO Risk Portfolio SI projects. Actively track cost impact due to project execution changes.
• Management of function costs (BAU and SI) within cost appetite and budgets; identification of opportunities and risks.
• Forecast process refinement and embed controls to execute on forecast process effectively.
• Prepare and review monthly project forecasts, align and finalise with project teams and change leads
• Prepare Revised annual forecasts (RAF) prepared upon request of Change Finance Management (Change Finance Management (CFM) , per yearly cycles in a concise, detailed manner with the use of projected spend and budget fluctuations.
• Oversight of purchase order closure for Risk projects with CRC Finance and project teams.
• Drive alignment and realise efficiencies across processes for FM COO PMO risk portfolio
• Maintain stewardship and excellence which drives performance and sustainable growth through preservation of financial integrity.

2. Capitalisation and Balance Sheet Management

• Perform monthly review and attestation of capitalisation across Risk SI BOW, with the exclusion of project expenses not contributing to AUC per recognition criteria in IAS 38 and IFRS9.
• Prepare amortisation schedules submissions on PlanEx.
• Determine useful life and align with TAG (Technical Accounting Group) on new assets.
• Confirm zero value-based assets scrapping.
• BAU and SI Balance Sheet and Amortisation review process embedment.
• Maintain a monthly balance sheet, amortisation and scrapped asset view for reporting purposes and inclusion in FM COO PMO Finance reporting.

3. Project Business Case Management

• Manage communication of end-to-end timelines for BC submission and governance forum review for full book of work.
• Build strong relationships with key stakeholders to ensure BC reviews are seamless and sufficient information provided to support decision-making.
• Support PM’s and Business Owners with BC completion in line with FM/Risk standards.
• Review and challenge business cases submissions from PM’s for Risk projects.
• Submit approved business cases on PlanEx and manage funds release with Change Finance Management (Change Finance Management (CFM)  and project stakeholders

4. Benefits (Financial and Non-Financial):

• SI and BAU benefits realisation process embedment (Benefit reviews, deep dives, reporting transparency)
• Provide support on partnership with Functions Tech to reduce Tech Spend as and when required.
• Interlock benefits with Business and ensure benefits owners are assigned and aligned.
• Provide extensive guidance and review of benefits profile, defined objectives with PM and benefits owners.
• Capture and submit benefit detail (OKRs, financial benefits) on PlanEx and raise CCNs, where required, for approval
• Query realisation of planned benefits and engage Tech and business when needed.
• Perform deep dive benefits reviews across portfolio.

5.  Reporting

• Prepare and review monthly deck detailing performance views for governance forums, Steerco and senior stakeholders.
• Preparation and analysis of finance report submissions into various internal documents pertaining to Finance performance
• Actuals and commitments vs. budget variance analysis and commentary
• Build trust in the finance function through the creation of a single source of financial information which is corroborated by related management information sources and alignment to the agreed accounting principles, methodologies, and underlying data are correctly applied.
• Generate innovative easy to comprehend progress reports on financials and benefits.
• Interact with the stakeholders to agree minimum quality standards, as well as an agreed method of communicating and resolving any identified quality deficiencies in the reporting process.
• Own the process of delivery of high-quality information for regular and ad-hoc enhanced
• reporting to agreed requirements, timelines, and standards.
• Act in line with the correct governance and control frameworks across the Finance team, as
• well as for proactively addressing any deficiencies and exceptions.
• Develop and implement control procedures as deficiencies or exceptions are identified which support the production of error-free reports. Assess and drive improvement of business accounting practices and policies.
• Generate finance narratives and insights driving business; and build pioneering new propositions.
• Provide thought-leadership, insight, influence and challenge on evolving stakeholder information requirements and reporting processes to deliver analytics.
• Maintain overall FM COO PMO Finances including benefits and CTR (cost to run).
• Build and maintain total cost and benefit view for functions and business (Opex, SI, Amort, benefits, run/incremental cost)
• Compile Risk Exco deck for all business case approvals and discussions to be held within Risk Exco forum.
• Prepare inputs into other Governance forums such as Efficiency Exco (EE), Optimisation Review (ORF) and Group Change forums.
• Prepare Finance figures and commentary as part of the monthly forecast process for Steerco reporting, ensuring one version of the truth being reported

Education and experience Requirements

• Minimum B-degree (NQF level no.7) Desired Post Graduate Degree (NQF level no.8+), CA
• (SA) or CIMA
• 4+ years professional financial management experience
• Experience at a management level

Key Tasks and Accountabilities

• Quality Assurance: Maintain a desired level of quality.
• Maintain level of service delivery within the portfolio especially by means of attention to every stage of the process of delivery.
• Meeting deadlines: Complete tasks timeously and escalate where necessary to manage expectations.
• Giving assistance to the Portfolio Manager in all instances required to ensure the efficient running of the Risk portfolio.Experience in executing finance processes