Accounts Receivable - Debtors Manager at ADvTECH

Job Purpose: 

• ADvTECH Group Shared Services is an exciting and dynamic team making a difference across the respective ADvTECH divisions. We are looking for a passionate individual to be part of our growth journey. The debtor’s manager will be responsible for strategic planning and managing the debtor’s team, which provide services across the group.

Responsibilities: 
Key Performance Area 1 - Debtors Management:

• Define the debt collection strategy for each education brand within the group.
• Obtain approval from each brand finance manager and execute on approved strategy.
• Manage, document, verify, and enforce all internal and external policies and regulations as they apply to accounts receivable.
• Oversee the processing of bad debt journals, refunds, and working through on-hold/not on-hold accounts with credit controllers.
• Oversee all other projects and ad hoc initiatives as required from inception to completion.
• Establish and manage key customer relationships.
• Acts as a liaison between GSS, education brands and external stakeholders to meet information needs and to ensure that relevant data is maintained.
• Participate in meetings and provides reports of debtor’s management issues and resolutions.
• Weekly reporting to management.
• Compile and dispatch collection letters and SMS’s.
• Assisting with account queries, including key customer visits.
• Follow procedure on accounts prepared for handover to pre-legal and monitoring progress.
• Understand specific business needs and proactively propose solutions.
• Monitor ageing of the debtor’s book and evaluate for accuracy and collectability.
• Support annual financial audit.
• Lead, as an SME, in business process improvement and system enhancement projects.
• Call monitoring on credit controllers for quality.

Key Performance Area 2 - Systems development and administration:

• Develop, implement, and maintain systems, procedures and policies relating to the debt collection function to ensure adherence to company guidelines.
• Enter and manage status changes to various debt collection software.
• Provide functional support to the implementation of new enterprise-wide collections system.
• Provide functional support to the implementation of new enterprise-wide finance management system.

Key Performance Area 3 - Financial Management: 

• Prepare and recommends operating and personnel budgets for approval.
• Monitor spending for adherence to budget - recommend variances as necessary.

Key Performance Area 4 - People Management: 

• Actively manage the collections team performance by defining deliverables, key performance areas and indicators.
• Assists in building the capabilities, tools, and skills within the team, driving high levels of individual accountability, engagement, empowerment, and development.
• Manage the recruitment process within GSS AR division.
• Manage the talent and career paths of the team, including conducting performance and development reviews and succession planning with all direct reports.
• Train and evaluate employees to enhance their performance, development, and work productivity.
• Addresses performance issues and make recommendations for remedial actions.
• Motivate and reward employees encompassing the fair recognition and within allocated budgets and company guidelines.

Key Performance Are 5 - Stakeholder Engagement: 

• Proactively manage feedback and issue resolution with the respective Brand financial managers.
• Provide regular debtors collection reports.
• Define and communicate process enhancements to the respective GSS teams and customers.

Qualification Requirements: 

• BCom Degree in finance or related field.
• Industry specific certification (NQF equivalent).

Experience Requirements: 

• Management of a finance or debtors team (3-5 years).
• Debtors Manager role (advantageous 3-5 years, working as an accounts receivable manager in consumer facing environment.
• Exposure to billing and debit orders (3-5 years).
• Exposure to education sector and specific collections for schools and tertiary institutions (advantageous 3 years).
• Attempted or completed SAICA articles (advantageous).

Skills and Competencies: 

• Demonstrate strong leadership and managerial competencies, including integrity, accountability, communication skills and commitment to teamwork and excellence in responsibilities such as selecting, mentoring, coaching, supervising, motivating, and training procurement staff.
• Exhibit a strong sense of urgency to maintain high personal performance while making decisions and allocating resources in a cost-efficient manner.
• Experience of working in finance transformation and driving significant change through business process.
• Utilise excellent verbal, written and inter-personal communication skills to establish and maintain a good rapport with co-workers, supervisors, and Business Units.
• Strong people management skills.
• Experience working in Finance Shared Services or Outsourcing environments.
• Ability to motivate others, negotiate appropriately, and coordinate efforts across multiple departments.
• A driven, outcome-oriented business operator who is comfortable with measurement and reporting.
• Ability to thrive in a fast paced, dynamic environment and comfortable dealing with ambiguity and differing levels of business maturity.