About Us:

UpEnergy delivers high-impact, emission-reducing projects that accelerate decarbonization and create long-term benefits for local communities. We focus on making life-improving clean technologies available across Africa, impacting millions of lives and significantly reducing CO2 emissions. With a growing team spread across multiple countries, we seek motivated and entrepreneurial talent eager to help us deliver even more impact.

About the role:
UpEnergy is at a time of exciting growth, expanding both in terms of product and geographic portfolio. In the context of our Expansion to the Malawi market, we are looking for an experienced Financial Operations Accountant who is passionate about our mission and motivated by the challenge to help UpEnergy run operations in a key market. The Financial Operations Accountant will be responsible for supporting audits, tracking and reconciling the company’s Balance sheet, Profit and loss accounts, support the Finance and Operations manager in making sure that operations and finance functions are running smoothly in Malawi. He/she will also provide support in inventory management and reconciliation.

This role will report to the Finance and Operations Manager Malawi/Zambia.

Key Responsibilities:

Financial Accounting and Reporting
• Support the monthly closing and reporting process for Malawi, to ensure timely month-end reporting.
• Support all accounting operations including but not limited to billing, payroll, A/R, A/P, Inventory, and general ledger.
• Ensure weekly reconciliations of bank accounts, mobile money accounts and petty cash.
• Support the risk of issues in financial reporting across auditors and government entities.
• Update, track and maintain fixed asset register, prepaids and cash advances, internally and externally.
• Meeting of month end close deadlines and accurate/complete posting of all mobile money/bank/petty cash transactions.

Payments & Banking
• Process mobile Bank/mobile money payments and posting in QuickBooks within correct budget line item.
• Ensure timely payment of all payment request types to internal and external vendors.
• Organize, file, and follow up on and maintain payment support, from vendors, field and internal team.
• Proactive teamwork and coordinate with other entire Upenergy Team.
• Help supervise admin stuff as needed.
• Conduct bank runs as and when required
• Maintain fixed assets register by regularly updating it
• Maintain and update prepaid register by regularly updating it.

Tax & Audit
• Coordinate tax filings/audits and external audits, and work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure tax compliance.
• Support external audits of country operations.
• Create and maintain internal review function for tax payments and work with relevant 3rd parties to find solutions to tax-related questions.
• assist risk of tax payments and external audits, and support country finance lead with any government revenue authority audits.

Operations
• Coordinate stock counts, and inventory audits with the supply chain team.
• Work with the supply chain team to track inventory and COGS as products follow across the organization from customer to end customer.
• Participate in projects across manufacturing, supply chain distribution, sales and marketing, retail partnerships, grants.

Does this sound like you?
Must Have
• Relevant Bachelor’s degree and/or CIMA/ACCA
• 3+ years of accounting experience
• Experience working within the accounting or operational finance department of a global entity
• Experience managing financial statements and GL (preferably with QuickBooks)
• Experience with tax filings, working with tax authorities and internal and external audits
• Advanced MS Excel skills
• High work ethic
• Strong leadership and team building abilities
• Excellent communication skills and interpersonal skills
• Strong organizational skills

Nice to Have
• Familiarity with project finance and/or the development of energy or carbon projects. Experience in carbon project development is a huge plus.
• An understanding of customers and business culture in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Compensation:
The Financial Operations Accountant will receive a competitive salary and bonus.

Why Join us?

A Unique Culture

UpEnergy encourages teamwork, creativity, and experimentation. We are not afraid to develop new project types, or to roll up our sleeves and tackle challenging operating environments. We stay close to our market, understand our customers, and have a lot of fun while doing our work!

Opportunity to do things in a new way

As a leader in a fast moving industry, our team is constantly evolving, iterating and learning how to improve our business. This means endless opportunities for a self-starter to initiate new ways of doing things or experimenting ways to help us improve.

Personal and Career Growth

At UpEnergy we value both personal and professional growth. We have built a culture of mutual learning and encourage our team to take on projects that expand their knowledge, expose them to parts of the business where they are most interested.

Create Lasting Impact

Our clean energy products bring positive impact to both our planet and the low-income communities we work in. We pledge to recycle revenue into the communities we serve and we work alongside our customers to make sure they benefit from our products.

To Apply:
Please send a customized cover letter highlighting your relevant experience, and the specific areas of UpEnergy’s work that most interest you, to jobs@upenergygroup.com.

Start date & Location
The preferred location is Malawi, Lilongwe though we can sometimes be flexible for fantastic candidates. The start date for this position is soon as possible.

Love UpEnergy, but looking for a different role?
If you don’t think this role is the right fit for you, but you identify with UpEnergy’s mission and values, why not check out our other openings or reach out to us directly? There are many ways to make clean energy products available to more communities, and if you are the right person to play a role in this mission, let’s stay in touch.