Finance and Operations Manager

Position Title: Finance and Operations Manager

Location: Kipinä Eco Majestic

Employment: Full-time

Reporting: Operationally to the Country Manager and functionally to the board/directors on financial-control matters

Candidate profile

The preferred candidate should have:

• A bachelor's degree in accounting, finance or a directly relevant discipline.
• ACCA, CIMA, CPA, MICPA or equivalent qualification, either completed or at an advanced stage.
• At least five years of relevant finance and accounting experience.
• At least two years in a position involving responsibility for month-end closing, receivables, bank reconciliation, cash-flow forecasting and management reporting.
• Strong practical Excel skills, including formulas, reconciliations, pivot tables and cash-flow models.
• Practical experience with Xero, QuickBooks or comparable accounting software.
• Experience managing customer billing involving recurring payments, deposits, discounts, credits, refunds and arrears.
• Working knowledge of Malaysian payroll and statutory obligations, including EPF, SOCSO, EIS, PCB and SST where applicable.
• Experience coordinating with auditors, tax advisers and company secretaries.
• Strong written English and the confidence to communicate discrepancies clearly.
• High attention to detail and a willingness to challenge transactions that lack proper supporting documentation.

Experience in education, healthcare, membership businesses or another sector with high-volume recurring customer billing would be advantageous.

Candidates whose experience is principally HR, office administration, data entry or basic bookkeeping should not be shortlisted.

Principal responsibilities

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

1. Maintaining accurate student billing and accounts receivable records.
2. Verifying that each student's commencement date, fee arrangement, discounts and payment schedule are properly documented.
3. Issuing and controlling invoices, receipts, credit notes and refunds.
4. Reconciling student records, invoices, receipts and bank collections every week.
5. Producing aged-debtor reports and coordinating collection follow-up.
6. Preparing rolling cash-flow forecasts and comparing actual results against forecasts.
7. Preparing monthly management accounts and variance reports.
8. Maintaining accurate records of operating expenses, liabilities and supplier payments.
9. Managing payment schedules and ensuring payments are supported by approved documentation.
10. Coordinating payroll information and statutory submissions.
11. Implementing suitable student billing and accounting software.
12. Establishing approval controls for discounts, refunds, credits, purchasing and payments.
13. Ensuring that financial corrections are made through traceable reversals or credit notes rather than overwriting original entries.
14. Maintaining a complete audit trail showing who entered, changed and approved each transaction.
15. Supporting budget preparation, procurement control and general non-academic school operations.
16. Reporting material discrepancies or control failures directly to management.

The academic programme, teaching quality and curriculum management will remain the responsibility of the School Principal.

Required deliverables during the first 90 days

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• Establish a verified master student and fee register.
• Reconcile all active student accounts and opening balances.
• Reconcile invoices and receipts against bank transactions.
• Identify outstanding fees, overpayments, credits and unsupported adjustments.
• Implement a weekly revenue and bank-reconciliation process.
• Introduce a rolling 13-week cash-flow report.
• Establish documented approval limits and segregation of duties.
• Recommend and begin implementing appropriate billing and accounting software.
• Establish a monthly closing timetable of no more than seven working days.
• Produce a finance and operations procedures manual.
• Prepare the financial records for independent external accounting review.