Head - Accounts Receivable - Finance Domain

Head Accounts Receivable

- The candidate will be responsible for the global AR function within Financial Shared Service, scope includes Invoicing, cash application, collections and dispute resolution.

- Develop strong relationship and facilitate close interaction between the receivables team and key stakeholders in the organization.

- Be directly responsible for the regional AR team performance and ensure collection targets are met.

- Provide guidance and direction to the regional stakeholders to clear bottlenecks and improve collections.

- Train and coach, the collection team, set clear objectives and monitor overall team performance.

- Create a transparent work environment, analyses & publish key performance metrics to the stakeholders periodically. Ensure to build a competent skilled team and improve performance.

- Have through understanding of our business process identify process gaps and recommend best practices.

Job Scope (Key areas of responsibilities and impact) :

Accounts Receivable Management :

- Oversee the overall performance of the accounts receivable team and ensure all SLAs and KPIs are met in accordance to the agreement.

- Monitor and track timely billing, cash application, reconciliation and month end close procedures.

- Supervise the regional collections team in FSS, partner with business and regional finance stakeholders and ensure collection targets are met.

- Prepare the weekly/monthly KPI reports and provide insights on collection trend and progress, proactively highlight challenges/risks and suggest innovative solutions.

- Continuously coach and train the collections team, review performance and provide guidance.

- Develop the monthly performance dashboard and other AR metrics as requested by the stakeholders, actively participate in the monthly reviews with finance heads.

- Ensure adherence to collection policy and initiate appropriate actions to ensure full compliance to the AR policy.

- Continuously evaluate the collections process and recommend best practices & approach including other alternatives.

- Evaluate and recommend proper accounting policies and procedures for O2C.

- Closely engage with business and finance stakeholders to agree on actions required to clear aged receivables.

Process and Governance :

- Ensure high quality process documentations are developed, reviewed, and updated periodically.

- Drive process compliance across the AR function and establish a method to monitor and capture deviations to standard processes.

- Support internal and external audits, be the bridge between auditors and delivery teams. Coordinate action plans and closure of actions.

- Support new migrations, evaluate scope, review process documentations, validate controls and ensure the documents are of high standard.

- Evaluate the current governance structure and establish a strong governance model

- Prepare and review the service level agreements, define services, accountabilities, and performance measurements.

- Periodically conduct refresher training for the associates on policies, procedures, processes, systems, and tools.

- Periodically assess training requirements and ensure adequate trainings are provided to upskill employees.

- Facilitate negotiations of service level agreements and KPIs, document and obtain signoff from relevant parties.

- Continuously challenge business process and deliver measurable improvements

- Bridge any gap between functional departments and maintain strong communications across all aspects of the organization, escalate and get things done.

- Monitor change requests and ensure such change requests are prioritized and implemented

Performance Management :

- Set standards and performance benchmarks that support organization and regional performance objectives, define KPIs.

- Create management reports and presentations and share reports for regional reviews.

- Conduct periodic reviews with the regional/industry finance team and highlight business performance, key issues & risks and provide recommendations to resolve issues timely.

- Obtain periodical inputs/feedback from regional stake holders on overall AR performance. Initiate actions on the feedback and ensure customer satisfaction scores are high.

- Benchmark performance, develop performance metrics and publish performance reports periodically to ensure transparency and visibility in achieving performance levels.

Continuous Improvement :

- Continuously challenge the existing process and strongly recommend efficient ways of performing.

- Automate processes for better efficiency and improve overall quality of our deliverables

- Collaborate with functional teams, business units, finance, IT and leverage cross functional synergies.

- Drive standardization and simplification of processes and ensure the end-to-end process is compliant to global policies and regulations.

- Closely coordinate with the RPA team, identify opportunities for automation and provide solutions.

- Be the brand agent and ensure to periodically publish articles on achievements and value creation

- Develop the continuous improvement framework and drive the CI culture among employees

Relationship Management :

- Be a change agent and proactively communicate to all stakeholders on the impact of change and corrective actions.

- Engage with key personnel in the regions and build a trusting relationship, provide leadership support in coordinating with FSSC team and the regions.

- Effectively collaborate and communicate with the stakeholders and ensure client satisfaction

- Address customer concerns and complaints.

- Understand customer requirements and expectations and be the change agent

- Be a good communicator with excellent communication skills and maintain the core values of the organization.

- Continuously measure customer satisfaction.

Employee Engagement :

- Build a high performing team, coordinate with HR in hiring the right resources and oversee onboarding of resources.

- Provide regular insight to the employees on regional performance, business requirements and set the right performance expectations.

- Actively engage with employees and provide regular performance feedback.

- Periodically assess training requirements and ensure adequate trainings are provided to upskill employees.

- Conduct workshops, ideation sessions to engage employees in the transformation and continuous improvement journey.

- Recognize and reward high performing employees, create succession and career plans.

Major challenges :

- Managing multiple stakeholders and driving change

- Professional guidance to management and business on improving collections, resolving disputes, change management.

Key Decisions :

- Decisions

- Recommendations

- Recruitment of right skills

- Operating Model

- Process change

Key interactions :

- Internal

- External

- Regional CFO

- Consultants

- Head of Finance Shared Service

- Regional Management Team Members

- Finance heads

- Business heads

- Other functional departments eg: IT, HR, etc.

Skills & Knowledge :

Educational qualifications : B.Com/ M.Com/ MBA/ ICWA/CA

Relevant experience :

- 20+ years of experience in the finance domain, in which at-least 5 years in Accounts Receivables

- Should have managed big teams, multiple stakeholders and geographies

- Experience in managing continuous improvement and robotic process automations

- Excellent in communication, should have the ability to write articles and create presentations

- Should have strong analytical and interpersonal skills.