Stewart Rwambazi

Responsibilities Performed

Financial Analysis:

• Analyze financial statements, including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, to assess the company's financial health
• Evaluate the impact of financial decisions and strategies on the organization's bottom line

Budgeting and Planning:

• Assist in the development of annual budgets and long-term financial plans
• Track actual performance against budgeted figures and provide variance analysis and monitoring of budget spending
• Coordinating with specific department head on budget utilization by performing monthly and quarterly analysis
• Make recommendations for adjustments to ensure financial goals are met

Data Analysis and Reporting:

• Collect, clean, and analyze data from various sources to generate actionable insights
• Prepare detailed reports, dashboards, and presentations to communicate findings to stakeholders
• Create ad-hoc reports as requested to support decision-making

Risk Management:

• Identify and assess financial risks and propose strategies to mitigate them
• Ensure compliance with financial regulations and reporting requirements
• Collaboration and Communication during audit supervision:
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including finance, operations, procurement, and senior management when managing audits from regulators such as PURA and TPDC
• Resolving of queries and inquiries from auditors, including providing of additional information requests and managing discussion to resolve issues noted

Monitoring of company internal controls and process:

• Ensure internal controls and business process are operating appropriately as per the distinguished financial manual and business process in place
• Identification of control weakness and high-cost areas and details analysis and proposing better solution for process improvements leading to cost saving and process improvement
• Ensure proper controls on the procurement process are implement and adhered to including review of potential weakness in the procurement process and introduction of better procedures to reduce the control weakness

Control tasks on finance and accounting processes:

• Review of Purchases orders by checking compliance with procurement process, review of appropriateness of the analytical codes used as per the budget
• Review of invoices including checking of the analytical codes for invoice before payment approval, verification of invoice details included in the system before being sent to the finance director/other director for approval
• Verification of general invoice details for compliance with tax regulatory requirement

Key solutions proposed and implemented in the role;

• Proposed and led to implementation of an improved Air ticketing process to cope with increased ticketing charges from one supplier leading to potential saving of up to USD 30,000 annually as result of ticketing prices decrease by a range of 25% – 40%
• Proposed process included including of multiple suppliers in the p Air ticketing process especially high-volume ticketing agents with low costs than the existing supplier
• Proposing the implementation of forex trading discussion/negotiations with banks and one Bureau De change to ensure the company gets best exchange rate when trading its forex currencies. This lead to additional gains ranging from TZS 5 to TSH 10 per one dollar trade, with the company having annual dollar sells of more than USD 40 million
• Collaboration with the accounts department team in determining cause of significant unrealized forex gains from the previous year which required explanation from Finance Director and the group.

Responsibilities performed

• Team leader: Coaching and motivating team members, reviewing work done and audit reports, and other audit deliverables and coordinating specialist teams such as tax team, IT team, data analytics team etc, team member ranging from small to large teams of more than 9 people.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to develop comprehensive audit plans, ensuring accurate financial reporting.
• Preparing and reviewing audit working papers for accuracy and completion, financial statements for suitability of presentation and adequacy of disclosures, tax returns, and documentation of discussions with clients.
• Advising clients on issues involving accounting standards (IFRS) in measurements, recognition and presentation of financial statements which may otherwise seem to be controversial.
• Preparation of Audit proposal to various clients.
• Preparation of Audit reports and financial statements in accordance with required standards by NBAA and IFRSs.
• Keep the client, engagement partner and manager updated of the progress of the engagement, consult with them on problem areas, review with them any significant audit findings, and recognize client service opportunities to follow-up on post fieldwork. Compilation and discussion of value adding management letter for the points raised in audit.
• Performance evaluation of junior associate team members.
• Manage team through couching and guidance in relevant IFSR framework and other advanced accounting areas throughout the audit
• Drive profitability through forecasting audit project management costs and identify areas to cut budgeted costs for the engagement.
• Strengthened internal controls by evaluating the effectiveness of existing policies and recommending improvements where necessary.
• Managed multiple engagements simultaneously, prioritizing tasks effectively to meet client deadlines consistently.
• Developed strong relationships with clients, addressing concerns promptly and providing timely updates on progress throughout the engagement process.
• Assisted in the preparation of audit reports, presenting findings clearly and concisely to senior management for review.

Responsibilities performed

• Preparing and reviewing audit working papers for accuracy and completion, financial statements for suitability of presentation and adequacy of disclosures, tax returns, and documentation of discussions with clients.
• Reviewing and auditing of clients' IFRS 9 (Expected Credit Losses) workings and report findings to management and those charged with governance.
• Team leader: Coaching and motivating team members, reviewing work done and audit reports, and other audit deliverables and coordinating specialist teams such as tax team, IT team, data analytics team etc,

• Managing engagement economics such as ensure timely charging of time sheets, coordinating travel logistics for upcountry audit assignments and timely communications of audit status for effective monitoring and prevention of any audit engagement over runs.
• Liaison: Acting as a liaison between the audit team, audit manager or partner and the client and timely providing audit status updates.
• Performing audit risk assessment planning including assessment of clients' internal control systems (i.e., entity level and transaction level controls) and financial statements in order to design suitable audit procedures to address risks identified.

• Apply professional skills and judgment in understanding of the clients' business operations, implications in audit testing, account balances and linkages to other accounts within the audit and identifying wider business issues/areas.
• Keep the client, engagement partner and manager updated of the progress of the engagement, consult with them on problem areas, review with them any significant audit findings, and recognize client service opportunities to follow-up on post fieldwork. Compilation and discussion of value adding management letter for the points raised in audit.
• Developing working relationships with the clients, ensuring positive feedback is received on all engagements in terms of delivery and value addition.

Responsibilities Performed

• Leading medium sized clients by planning, supervising, and reviewing the work of other junior associates.
• Testing design, implementation, and operating effectiveness of controls for significant business cycles such as loans and advances, provision for loans and advances, interest income, and customer deposits.
• Testing the validity, legitimacy, accuracy and completeness of assets, expenditures, liabilities, and income.

• Prepared management reports/letters
• Reviewed client's internal controls surrounding expenditures, payroll, inventory, fixed assets, treasury, revenue insurance and reinsurance business cycles thereby identifying various risks and areas of weaknesses thereby giving appropriate recommendations for companies of different industries.
• Performed substantive procedures and ensured compliance with Local laws, companies' policies and procedures, International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and International Financial reporting Standards (IFRS), Income Tax act, and other regulations.

Responsibilities Performed

• Carrying out the understanding and walkthrough of key business cycles of the entity and identifying, assessing, and analyzing the risk and the mitigating controls in place.
• Testing design, implementation, and operating effectiveness of controls for significant business cycles such as Operating, Expenditures, Payroll, Cash and Bank and Fixed Assets.
• Testing the validity, legitimacy, accuracy and completeness of assets, expenditures, liabilities, and income.

• Identifying and communicating accounting and audit matters to the team leader/Audit senior.
• Review of Management Team minutes
• Review of Internal Audit Reports and establish status of implementation.