Role Overview
This position leads the collections function with a focus on sustainable cash performance and reduced financial risk. The manager ensures strong accountability across the receivables lifecycle, driving improvements in Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), aging trends, and forecast reliability. With oversight of a diverse portfolio exceeding $300 million, this role shapes strategy, team development, and process discipline to deliver consistent results.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead a team of collectors, setting clear performance standards and fostering a culture of ownership tied directly to cash outcomes
- Own critical KPIs including current and past due percentages, aging performance, and forecast accuracy
- Develop and execute collection strategies across enterprise, strategic, international, and SMB customer segments
- Conduct regular performance reviews and lead monthly deep dives to identify trends and improvement areas
- Produce and manage weekly cash forecasts, proactively identifying and mitigating risks to projections
- Lead weekly reviews of past-due accounts, prioritize actions, and remove obstacles to resolution
- Analyze customer payment behaviors and adjust outreach strategies to improve recovery rates
- Resolve complex escalations and drive timely closure of disputed or delinquent accounts
- Monitor portfolio aging and implement corrective actions to reduce delinquency and improve DSO
- Ensure accurate commentary, coding, and tracking of all collection activities
- Approve balance adjustments and support month-end closing processes
- Enhance scalability by refining policies, governance routines, and process consistency
- Identify root causes of delayed payments and implement long-term remediation plans
- Lead process improvement initiatives to reduce cycle time and eliminate rework
- Standardize practices for collection notes, coding, and performance measurement
- Establish preventative controls to minimize recurring disputes and avoidable delays
- Collaborate with Sales, Billing, Finance, Operations, and Customer Success to improve invoice accuracy and reduce collection friction
- Support audit requirements and maintain documentation aligned with internal control standards
- Generate performance reports and deliver insights on trends and improvement opportunities
- Oversee credit memo research, resolution, and proper application
- Manage unapplied cash balances, ensuring prompt reconciliation and application
- Partner with Credit Management on risk assessments, exposure limits, and escalation planning
- Support bankruptcy tracking, including coordination, documentation, and status updates
- Ensure collectors enforce Sales Order holds and manage resolution plans for overdue accounts
- Work across functions to resolve upstream issues impacting collections effectiveness
- Maintain compliance with internal controls, audit readiness, and governance standards
Qualifications
- Minimum of 3 years managing an Accounts Receivable or Collections team
- Experience supervising teams of three or more direct reports
- Progressive career path in Finance or Accounts Receivable functions
- Strong grasp of B2B collections and the end-to-end order-to-cash cycle
- Proven ability to work across departments to solve complex customer and process challenges
- Track record of managing multiple initiatives successfully in a fast-moving environment
- Strong analytical skills with experience identifying root causes and designing lasting solutions
- Commitment to improving cash flow, reducing inefficiencies, and enhancing internal and external customer experience
- Advanced skills in Microsoft Excel and proficiency with MS Office suite
- Hands-on experience managing credit memos, unapplied cash, and customer disputes
- Excellent written and verbal communication abilities
- Ability to question existing practices and propose constructive, professional improvements
- Capable of making independent, well-reasoned decisions
- Skilled at managing multiple priorities under minimal supervision
- Self-motivated with a proactive approach to problem solving
