Annual Financial Statements (AFS) Utility Manager at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• To design, implement, maintain and manage a Subsidiary Legal Entity AFS solution/s that supports standardised, consistent and compliant annual financial statement compilation within reporting deadlines for selected legal entities consolidated within the Absa Group. 
• To identify, scope, design, implement, maintain and manage financial reporting solutions that drive efficiency and consistency in financial reporting.

Job Description

Key responsibilities

Accountability: Legal Entities’ Annual Financial Statements (LE AFS) Hierarchies

• Owns and maintains LE AFS hierarchies.
• Reviews and approves hierarchies’ change requests submitted.
• Annually reviews and updates hierarchies to align to LE AFS reporting solution needs and drives hierarchy improvements.
• Responsible for maintaining Absa to DW code mapping structure within hierarchies.
• Manages freezing timelines of hierarchies’ for consumption by SAP BW.
• Provides training on hierarchies as required.
• Performs UAT testing on hierarchies before changes are deployed to production.

Accountability: Legal Entity SAP BW reports design and maintenance

• Owns design and maintenance of LE AFS SAP reports for Draftworx consumption.
• Annually reviews reports for alignment with AFS reporting requirements.
• Logs requests for changes to the reports when required to support LE AFS reporting.
• Provides super-user support to AFS preparers and reviewers on use of reports.
• Provides training on use of reports.
• Performs UAT testing on reports before changes are deployed to production.

Accountability: Report writing tool (Draftworx) template and solution management

• Facilitates annual updates to the standardised Draftworx template to meet business and regulatory requirements. This includes:
• understanding the accounting policy, IFRS and regulatory changes the financial statement template/s require annually through consultation with TAG, the External Auditors and Company Secretarial and the management of periodic accounting and regulatory forums.
• designing with TAG and Technology Enablement the build of the new report writing tool solution components required by the changes for approval at the Draftworx change forum.
• obtaining signoff from TAG and the external auditors on the updated report writing tool template components necessitated by these parties. Timeous engagement with both these parties is essential to ensure no technical item is left unresolved and there are no delays during the AFS preparation cycle.
• Maintaining strong communication and technical skills to ensure unnecessary changes not supported by IFRS,legislation or regulations, but purely due to preference is not entertained regardless of level of stakeholder who requests this.
• Consults and supports users in using the Draftworx template to meet regulatory and audit requirements.
• Ensures the standardised Draftworx template is designed in such a manager that ensures standardisation and consistency as well as IFRS and regulatory compliance.
• Facilitates the definement and implementation of controls and key risk indicators for LE AFS solution
• Seeks and supports opportunities to improve and enhance the standardized Draftworx template and its data automation.
• Facilitates the LE AFS solution change request forum. This includes preparing the forum pack and managing the logistics of the forum.
• Performs impact assesments of proposed template change requests for approval at the LE AFS solution change forum.
• Documents requirements and logs change forum approved change requests for implementation.
• Formulates and project manages the end to end LE AFS solution annual update deployment for all elements of the entire solution’s deployment. This includes creating project plans, obtaining alignment on delivery timelines and scope and tracking stakeholders’ against the agreed timelines and scope.
• Documents test cases for UAT testing of all template changes.
• Performs UAT testing of all template changes before it is pushed to production.
• Provides training on Draftworx report writing tool and maintains governance and training resources to support users on how to utilise Draftworx and complete the template.
• Facilitates the provisioning of exception reporting off the DW database to support governance and drives escalations as necessary off output.
• Completes high level review of LE results monthly as required to support LE AFS reporting
• Reviews sample of annual LE AFS based on risk approach as agreed
• Reviews journals/adjustments passed by the preparers of LE AFS in preparation of AFS to determine whether better alignment between entities could be achieved through changes to data structures, the annual financial statement template or restatement of previous reported numbers.
• Reviews through certification and annual pre-production process that viewer users in system is appropriate.

Accountability: LE AFS Solution Stakeholder Management

• Builds a strong working relationship with the Accounting Control-Accounting Functions Process Owner to 
• support the end-to-end legal entity financial statement process and 
• to receive support in the form of managing data requirements and preparer/user communication
• Provide timeous support and build strong, trusted relationships with all areas responsible for completing legal entity annual financial statements such as Financial Control, Product Control Group and ARO teams so they understand the objectives, scope, workings and limitations of the solution.
• Build a strong working relationship with the technology teams and vendors (e.g. Draftworx) that support the report writing tool solution components and agree formal turnaround times for resolving support issues.
• Build strong working relationships with TAG and the external auditors so they assist in the signoff of the approved reporting writing tool template elements and any relating data management structures annually and facilitate technical queries thereon post signoff.
• Build a strong working relationship with Company Secretarial so they keep you abreast of relevant legal entity changes as well as relevant CIPC, legislation and regulatory requirements that impact annual financial statement compilation.

Accountability: iXBRL reporting

• Engages with Company Secretarial and staying up to date with the iXBRL taxonomy and any other CIPC filing changes or requirements. This includes attendance at relevant industry and CIPCs forums as required and ensuring appropriate representation by Absa on all CIPC iXBRL and BASA forums and key stakeholders on internal forums.
• Leads any taxonomy change requests from CIPC, by understanding the impact on all areas in Absa.
• Responsible for iXBRL tagging and reporting provision in the standardised Draftworx template and facilitates annual updates to meet business and regulatory requirements.
• Reviews PI score calculated by LE in Draftworx upon request.
• Consults and supports users in using the iXBRL reporting components to meet regulatory and audit requirements.
• Reviews iXBRL validation report of LEs that require iXBRL reporting to ensure all validations have been cleared.
• Performs impact assessment of proposed iXBRL template change requests for approval at the Draftworx change forum.
• Documents requirements and test cases for all iXBRL change requests and logs approved change requests.
• Performs UAT testing of all template changes before it is pushed to production.

Accountability: Financial Reporting Solutions Improvements

• Identifies opportunities for improvement in financial reporting with a specific focus on driving efficiency and consistency as well as sustainable solutions that serve multiple use cases with a single sustainable design
• Evaluates, analyses and documents the scope and the detailed requirements of improvement solutions
• Defines and documents improvement solution designs
• Project manages the implementation build, testing and deployment of solutions.
• Facilitates solutions’ user embedment and support models
• Performs post implementation reviews
• Maintains the implemented solution

Accountability: Process Risk Management

• Ensure that the process design, execution, monitoring, improvement and documentation is completed in accordance with the FC process methodology requirements. This includes ensuring that up to date process maps are created and maintained for the processes executed within the ambit of this role and function.

Education & Experience

• NQF Level 6: B Degree
• B Com Accounting degree
• Honours in Accounting
• Chartered Accountant CA(SA)
• 3 years Accounting articles (this includes supervision and review, passing the Board exams and completing recommended hours for the training contact)

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Financial Sciences (Required)

End Date: October 27, 2025