Finance Officer

About This Role

Muna British Academy, in partnership with Aldar Education, is seeking to appoint an outstanding Finance Officer to join our team for an immediate start this academic year. This is a rare opportunity to play a key role in maintaining robust financial processes, systems, and controls, ensuring the highest standards of financial management and operational efficiency.

Muna British Academy is in the heart of the city of Abu Dhabi and was recently rated ‘Outstanding’ by ADEK - Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge (ADEK) Serving over 900 students from Nursery – Year 7 we follow the National Curriculum of England. The school is a vibrant community.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the highly successful Aldar family of schools and to help shape the future of Abu Dhabi’s leading school group.

The successful candidates will be closely aligned with our core values and ethos and possess a genuine understanding and appreciation of the values of the region.

This position is responsible for timely invoicing, receipting, reconciliation and follow up with parents to collect the school receivables. Responsible to reconcile school Accounts Receivables, month end closing activities.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Finance

Minimum Experience

• At least 2 years of experience in similar role

Job Specific Knowledge & Skills

• Fluent English communication skills, written and oral
• Attention to detail with diligent follow up, and able to execute in a timely manner
• Skilled in multi-tasking and handling pressure
• Ability to be detail focused when required whilst maintaining sight of the big picture
• Deadline oriented and take ownership of work
• Forethought and forward planning
• Capable of influencing people and talented in networking with cultural sensitivity
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Excellent analytical capabilities and hands on experience in MS Office presentations and other reporting tools
• Experience within a school setting advantageous

Main Duties

• Billing, collection, liaising with customers to collect the receivables.
• Ensure timely collection and reduction/avoid bad debt.
• Respond to parents’ requirements and inquiries relating to fees payment.
• Manage the collection process including reminders and warning.
• Follow up late payments and returned cheques.
• Provide student list with fee outstanding with School team for decision making and expedite the collection .

Specific Duties

• Timely and accurate billing, collection and reduction of bad debt.
• Responsible for delivering a high quality customer service for the school.
• Timely billing for all types of receivables (but not limited to) such as tuition fees, exam fees, ECA, trips, etc.
• Issue receipts on a daily basis with accurate information such as bank reference number, date, etc. and ensure the reason is updated against all unidentified transactions and shared with respective school accountants for preparing bank reconciliation statement.
• Ensure reminder and warning letters have been sent with guidance of Credit Control team.
• Preform sales validation and ensure the student number are accurately reconciled with admission team.
• Timely closing of AR module in line with closing calendar.
• Accurate and Timely reporting for AR reports for decision making.
• Reconcile Accounts Receivables between Education and ERP systems, identify the gaps and resolve them in co-ordination with IT team.
• Ensure the enrolment processes are followed in compliance with policies and procedures.
• Validate refund requests from school and initiate payments through AR module and handover the documents to School Accountant for payment.
• Provide finance clearance for leavers and internal transfers after due diligence checks and validation.
• Ensure month end activities are performed in a timely manner.
• Support internal and external audit queries, provide supporting documents and resolve all audit queries within the timeline.
• Initiate process improvement wherever possible to achieve finance excellence.
• Support digitalisation of billing and collection projects where required.
• Improve customer experience by responding to emails and calls in a professional manner.
• Attend weekly AR review meetings with the team and provide insights for decision making.
• Prepare suspension list with appropriate comments and share with school Principal.
• Ensure to send finance fee follow up letters timely manner in compliance with ADEK regulation.