NAKAWEESI ANNET

Budgeting and Budget Management.

• Led the budgeting processes, including developing, reviewing, and overseeing budgets by class, departments, and locations.
• Developed and guided non-financial teams to use the necessary annual budgeting and tracking tools, ensuring that the project's annual budgets are in line with available budget caps and donor spending requirements.
• Monitored budget spending against donor-approved and annual budgets and ensured that variances were within approved limits.
• Updated and presented the monthly budget monitoring reports for all projects (donors) and ensured they were shared with the Executive Director every 5th of the subsequent month, the reasons for variances explained and understood, and all queries from program teams promptly acted upon.
• Supported the Executive Director, Program Manager, and program team in developing accurate and detailed budgets for funding proposals and translating them into donor templates as required.
• Developed and produced reporting protocols to provide weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports that monitor budget-to-actual activities.
• Prepared annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly cash flow reports and forecasts for the executive director's review.
• Advised management on relevant budgetary control measures to address any identified weaknesses in policy and/or practice.

Financial processes and management.

• Introduced and supported the procurement process to ensure the organization is working with approved vendors and receiving value for money.
• Prepared monthly bank reconciliations of all bank accounts and periodic counts of cash accounts.
• Oversaw month-end closing and year-end duties such as reconciliations, reimbursements, and inventory lists, and ensured all variances were explained and understood.
• Coordinated and managed payroll processing, ensuring that statutory deductions (PAYE, NSSF, and Local Service Tax) are reported and paid on a timely basis and in accordance with statutory regulations.
• Responded to informational requests from the Executive Director and was the main point of contact for all financial information.
• Developed checklists to conduct monthly reviews and ensure that balances in QuickBooks are correct and properly supported and that accounting practice complies with the organization's policies and procedures.
• Prepared, managed and ensured that all donor reports were submitted on a timely basis.
• I oversaw the external audit process, providing detailed working papers and support to the auditors and reviewing the draft audited statements to ensure all details were correct.
• I regularly coordinated with the Programs team and provided timely updates on financial and administrative matters, including new grants, staff time allocations, and budget management and new organizational reforms.
• Oversaw preparation of financial records related to the general ledger, payroll, budget, expenses, and journals, including maintaining updated asset registers, etc.
• Ensured maintenance of accurate bank records of cash withdrawals and deposits.

Risk Management

• Lead the development of an organizational wide risk management framework and, on a quarterly basis, updated the risk register and prepared a risk management report for management and board review.
• Recommended policy reviews based on the periodically assessed risks.
• Developed management and donor financial reports review checklists to ensure that financial reports are in line with donor requirements and that narrative and financial reports speak to each other.

During my tenure at RSM as an outsourcing senior consultant, I led a team that managed a portfolio of over 37 grantees on behalf of donors for whom RSM Eastern Africa acted as a fiscal agent from time to time, which included the provision of financial management services, capacity building, and review of financial and narrative reports before they were submitted to donors, as detailed in my prior assignments at RSM.

On a secondment basis, I also provided internal audit and accounting services to clients in manufacturing, insurance, non-profit, and private and public sectors, which included.

Internal audit secondments.

• Developed annual and quarterly audit programs, plans, and working papers to address risks and evaluate regulatory requirements for various clients.
• Reviewed and identified risks, analyzed controls, and tested compliance.
• Performed internal audits of financial and departmental operations, developing risk assessments and conducting process walkthrough for compliance with documented processes.
• Guided clients in developing remediation plans to address deficiencies uncovered during walkthrough.
• Evaluated company's policies to determine how well standards adhered to best practices.
• Produced and reviewed audit reports which comprised evaluation of internal control systems and recommendations of new methods to improve internal controls and operating efficiency.
• Created and delivered risk management presentations for the client's risk committee and board.

Accounting services.

This involved detailed financial reviews which included performing receivables, payable, fixed assets, tax and payroll reconciliations, and proposing accounting adjustments.

Other tasks included; book keeping and accounting using various systems like Tally ERP, Quick books and Xero to manage payroll processing, taxes and administration, processing of payments and monitoring of tax compliance such as Pay as you earn, Value added tax, withholding tax, Local Service Tax and income taxes and production of monthly management accounts for various clients.

During my tenure at RSM Eastern Africa as an outsourced semi-senior consultant, I managed a portfolio of over 37 grantees on behalf of donors for which RSM Eastern Africa acted as a fiscal agent from time to time. The role included

• Made partial disbursements to grantees upon submission of fund requests and fully accounting for previously disbursed funds.
• Reviewed accountabilities and ensuring that expenditure is in line with donor approved budgets,
• Made site visits to grantees' field offices as per the grantee service plan in a bid to verify activities that have been carried out by grantees,
• Ensured proper management of funds disbursed to grantees by reviewing financial and narrative reports, accountabilities, and other documentation submitted by grantees including supplier contracts, videos, photos, etc.
• Based on the identified gaps in the grantees' internal controls, I provided training and capacity building to grantees.

In a team of 2-3, I implemented internal audits and financial investigations and also provided accounting and book keeping services to various clients including, payroll management, financial reporting and tax administrations.

During my time as an outsourcing associate at RSM Eastern Africa, I was part of a team of three to four people who implemented various grant management consultancies for international donors such as OSIEA and IDLO through SIDA. These assignments included;

• Review of management structures, grant management processes, procurement, finance set up, organization structure and other administration functions.
• Assessment of financial and organizational capacity potential Implementing Partners (IPs)
• Reviewed of IPs proposed budgets and Assessment of risks related to sub-granting to Ugandan civil society organizations (CSOs)
• Reviewed Sub grants management templates, monitoring and evaluation systems and process of forwarding funds to IPs.
• Proposed management structure and accounting systems
• Reviewed of donor existing policies that include the Field Operations Manual, Human Resource policies, Employee rules and regulations, Finance policies, Procurement policies, Travel Policy, Anti-Corruption and Anti-Fraud Policy, Code of Conduct, Risk Management Framework, Guidelines on working with Implementing Partners, Evaluation Guidelines, Petty cash guidelines, Payment Processing Guidelines, and Cash Management guidelines.
• I also tested and provided recommendations on the existing policies for design and operating effectiveness for an IP in Uganda and benchmarked existing practices with best practices considering the legal requirements in Uganda.

Partook in a 3-month voluntary project with Balloon Ventures, a non- profit organization aiding micro entrepreneurs in East Africa and Philippines under a project funded by UKAID.

• Supported 5 Jinja- based entrepreneurs from diverse sectors in a cross-cultural working team.
• Specific responsibilities included; conducting market research and overseeing testing for new business ventures, conducting financial analyses of profit, breakeven, and cash flow projections, and drafting pitch documents based on attained evidence.
• 5/5 entrepreneurs successfully received funding at the end of the program, the best performance of all volunteers.
• Led the Balloon Ventures events committee and managed budgeting, logistics, scheduling guest speakers as well as coordinating meeting for 3 key events (networking event, entrepreneur recruitment drive and farewell ceremony) attended by over 150 people.
• Elected onto pitch panel by peers: led interviews with entrepreneurs and made specific grant recommendations via ascertaining the feasibility of business ideas.

• Auditing and stock taking
• Vouchering
• Reconciling of bank statements and cashbook
• Drafting management letters and Audit reports
• Data entry
• Public relations
• Minutes preparations.