Job Title: Accounting Officer 

Industry : FMCG

Location: Kano

Employment Type: Full Time

Level: Mid-Level

Reports To: Finance Controller / Finance Manager / Chief Accountant

Client Overview
The organization requires a dedicated Accounting Officer to ensure the integrity, completeness, and accuracy of its daily financial records. As transactional activity grows, there is an imperative business need for disciplined general ledger control and rigorous account reconciliation to support period-end financial reporting. This position provides critical operational support to the finance function by maintaining reliable accounting entries, resolving discrepancies, and upholding robust internal financial controls.

Role Overview
The Accounting Officer exists to maintain accurate financial ledgers, execute core balance sheet reconciliations, and safeguard accounting integrity at the transactional level. Rather than operating as a routine data-entry clerk, you will apply fundamental accounting logic to interrogate postings, identify irregularities, and ensure every entry reflects its true economic substance.

Key Responsibilities
Financial Accounting & Ledger Integrity

• Record daily financial transactions—including sales, purchases, expenses, receipts, payments, and standard journal entries—ensuring correct period cut-off and supporting documentation.
• Maintain the general ledger and subsidiary ledgers, verifying that transactions are accurately classified by account code, entity, customer, supplier, cost center, project, and currency.
• Interrogate ledger activity to identify misclassified postings, duplicate entries, improper accounting logic, incorrect signs, or unsupported journal entries.
• Investigate identified accounting errors and propose corrective reclassification entries to senior management for approval.

Reconciliation & Dispute Investigation

• Execute regular bank reconciliations, investigating unidentified receipts, payments, and stale reconciling items to ensure timely resolution.
• Reconcile assigned balance sheet accounts, including customer, supplier, intercompany, cash, advances, inventory, and expense accounts.
• Cross-check general ledger entries against underlying invoices, contracts, purchase orders, bank statements, and shipping records to verify complete audit trails.
• Monitor subledger-to-general-ledger balances, differentiating genuine timing differences from underlying accounting errors and driving open items to resolution.

Month-End Closing & Compliance Support

• Execute period-end closing tasks for assigned accounts to ensure all balances are fully reconciled and supported ahead of monthly financial reporting schedules.
• Prepare clear supporting schedules, account analyses, and audit files requested by internal leadership, external auditors, or statutory authorities.
• Enforce adherence to the organization's chart of accounts, internal approval matrices, accounting policies, and internal control frameworks.
• Escalate material discrepancies, recurring posting mistakes, unsupported balances, or unexplained accounting anomalies to supervisors with clear supporting evidence.

Qualifications & Experience

•  Bachelor's degree or diploma in Accounting, Finance (with an accounting concentration), or a closely related field with formal coursework in financial accounting principles.
• Certification in ACCA, CPA, or an equivalent professional body is an added advantage.
• Minimum of 3–4 years of relevant accounting, financial control, or audit experience.
• Relevant practical experience in bookkeeping, general accounting operations, financial reconciliation, or audit support suited to a junior-to-mid-level professional.
• Exposure to transaction-heavy or multi-entity business environments—such as trading, manufacturing, distribution, or retail—is an advantage.
• Hands-on experience operating within an ERP or enterprise accounting software environment.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for data verification, lookup functions, basic formulas, and reconciliation schedules.
• Practical understanding of double-entry accounting mechanics, debit/credit logic, cut-off rules, and financial statement interrelationships.

Core Competencies

• Strong accounting judgement and attention to detail.
• Financial control and reconciliation expertise.
• Analytical and investigative thinking.
• Ability to identify unusual patterns and challenge unsupported balances or transactions.
• Strong follow-up and issue-resolution discipline.
• Ability to distinguish genuine business movements from accounting errors.
• Clear written and verbal communication.
• High level of integrity, confidentiality and ownership.