Limpopo: Call for Expression of Interest for Bookkeeping Support Services

CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST BOOKKEEPING SUPPORT SERVICES FOR WOMEN VOICE AND LEADERSHIP SOUTH AFRICA PROJECT GRANTEES IN LIMPOPO

BACKGROUND

Gender Links (GL) is a Southern African Women’s Rights Organisation established in March 2001 with a head office in Johannesburg, South Africa, ten offices in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, Madagascar (Francophone base) and Mozambique (Lusophone base). The vision of GL is a region in which women and men are free to realise their full potential in both their private and public lives. GL is committed to gender equality and seeks to achieve this through three programme areas Policy and Movement Building, Communication for Social Change and Local Action for Gender Justice.

Since 28 May 2019 GL manages the Women’s Voice and Leadership South Africa Fund an initiative funded by the Government of Canada. The initiative arises from Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) addressing six main elements: i) promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; ii) human dignity; iii) growth that works for everyone; iv) environment and climate action; v) inclusive governance; vi) peace and security. The main goal of the Women’s Voice and Leadership South Africa (WVL – SA) is to see the increased enjoyment of human rights by women, girls and the advancement of gender equality in South Africa. WVL- SA key objectives are to help local women’s rights organisations (WROs) and platforms to become a powerful voice for change in South Africa; strengthen WROs in their programming, advocacy, networking and coalition building; build strong and sustained women’s movements that can advance and protect the rights of women and girls.

The WVL- SA Fund has three grant types to support local WROs namely multi – year core grant that covers four provinces Gauteng, Limpopo, Western Cape and Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN); rapid response grant, alliance and networking grant which are disbursed at national level. In 2020 alone the WVL- SA fund granted 60 WROs over R22 million. These grants where made up of 20 multi – year core grants; 3 networking grants, 17 rapid response grants. The British High Commission in support of the protection of women’s rights under COVID-19 provided an additional R1 million for 20 COVID – 19 rapid response grants. In 2021 countries globally are hoping vaccines will reduce the deadly scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic hence to support the vaccine roll out initiative the WVL-SA fund has granted 17 new rapid response grants to well deserving grassroots WROs.

WVL-SA not only does sub – granting but also, provides capacity building to implementing partners or grantees in the areas of finance and governance; communications for social change, leadership, diversity and results for change. The multi – year core and networking grantees who are contracted for a period of 2,5 years have been set up by the WVL-SA project team on Sage pastel evolution and SharePoint document storage to facilitate online monitoring of financial management and to build their finance management skills. These grantees also receive virtual ongoing support, on site job support and have access to help desk with all necessary finance guidelines and finance template forms. On a monthly basis they submit financial reports to be reviewed by the WVL SA finance team. Nonetheless, we have seen that some of our partners require additional training on basic bookkeeping concepts and fundamentals. This is the gap we seek the selected bookkeeping support services organisation to address.

SERVICES REQUIRED:

Basic bookkeeping concepts and fundamentals training;
Bookkeeping to trial balance support;
Training on financial record keeping of proper supporting document for payments and financial reports;
Support processing of payments and recording of entries in Sage Pastel Evolution
Strengthen capacity of grantees to ensure compliance with general accepted accounting practices and statutory requirements;
Support grantees to prepare accurate accounting reports, manage all aspects of accounting and procurement in preparation for an external audit.

OUTPUTS

Training of grantee personnel in three organisations.
Training reference manual for grantees to use for troubleshooting;
Monthly progress feedback reports;
Report at the end of the training.

OUTCOMES

Grantees to have basic understanding of bookkeeping concepts and fundamentals;
Increased ability in grantees submitting accurate monthly finance reports and managing all aspects of accounting and procurement in preparation for and external audit;
Improved compliance by grantees to the funding agreement, general accepted accounting practices and statutory requirements;
Correct financial record keeping and support documents uploaded on SharePoint.

EVALUATION OF PROPOSAL

Service providers will be assessed on the following criteria:

Experience and skills:

Experience in finance management training, and demonstrated knowledge of NGO operations;
Experience in capacity building of small to medium size organisations to have up-to-date financial data;
Hands on experience of Sage Pastel evolution accounting software and Microsoft office programmes;
Ability to administer and execute financial processes and transactions;
Ability to train partners in financial systems;

SPECIAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The services, will be required for an initial period of 3 months;
Service provider should be able to travel to grantees for training;
Late applications will not be considered;
Only short listed service providers will be contacted for interview;
GL reserves the right not to appoint anyone if a suitable service provider is not found;
Applicants must provide a detailed proposal, including at least three contactable referees.
No person shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, religious, physical disability, sex, ethnicity or any other basis prohibited by law.