Job description
Seeking an ambitious and high performing individual in the Finance department
The role
The individual will be a key liaison between the finance department, the lawyers and Partners in ensuring effective, efficient and profitable billing and revenue recognition and realisation. This role will also support the CFO in monitoring productivity metrics and will involve three main responsibilities:
MAIN ACCOUNTABILITIES & APPROXIMATE TIME SPLITS %
ACCOUNTABILITY
OUTPUT
Credit Management (60%)
Working together with the CFO to formulate, implement and review credit control policies
Ensuring that invoices are sent out to the clients after approval by Partners.
Coordinate with Partners and Lawyers to ensure prompt follow ups on collections, including withholding VAT, VAT exemption certificates and withholding tax certificates from clients.
Lead efforts to collect all old debtors. Advise the CFO on bad debts write offs.
Driving effective billing and revenue capture.
Identifying changes in payment patterns and propose relevant action to ensure efficient collections.
Handling disputed invoices and negotiating to bring payment within agreed terms and appropriately renegotiate payment plans.
Ensuring that statement of accounts are circulated to debtors on a monthly basis and resolving all disputes & reconciling all items arising from the statements
Undertaking AR account reconciliation and preparing all AR relevant reports.
Maintain AR contacts database in the ERP.
Ensure matter owners are asking for mobilisation fees and deposits against fees.
WIP management: Working with partners and matter lawyers in analysing their WIP balances and ensuring that billings are done as per the provisions of LOEs.
Ensuring that unrecoverable WIP is written off and current WIP is maintained.
Matter management (20%)
Matter management: Working with lawyers in ensuring that matter budgets or estimated fees are captured in the ERP; ensuring that invoicing is as per the provisions of Letters of Engagement (LOE).
Monitoring billable time recorded on matters against estimated fees or matter budgets and highlighting adverse variances in advance to the lawyers and partners in charge.
Data integrity: Working with lawyers and Partner’s Personal Assistants to ensure that requisite and accurate data is captured at the point of opening and closing new clients and matters. Carrying out quality assurance checks and liaising with the concerned to ensure completeness of data captured in the ERP.
Productivity and Performance management (20%)
Capacity management: preparing capacity utilization reports for Practice Area heads on a weekly basis, highlighting cases of non or poor recording of time by lawyers, sub-optimal and inefficient resource utilization and following up with Practice Area Heads for immediate remediation.
Reporting and Analysis: On a matter and Practice Area level, analyse productivity metrics such as capacity utilization, matter and departmental leverage, realisation and matter margins, delivery efficiency, WIP days and so on. Ensure that such reports and analyses provide valuable insights and actionable points. Following up with the concerned to ensure quick turn-around in improving or reversing undesirable metrics. Carry out pricing analysis and make recommendations to Partners, COO and CFO on quotes.
Experience and personal qualities
Business Driver: This role is not a support function; it is a growth engine in that an improvement in any of the growth levers being monitored results to revenue and profitability growth.
Analytics Expert: With big data being generated through thousands of entries into the ERP, the productivity officer will need to have the critical ability to analyse this data and get insights that can be turned into business-building ideas.
Effective interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to build long standing relationships with a range of people (both internally and externally).
Proficient in the use of IT Systems including SAP Business Objects and high proficiency in MS Excel data analytics tools.
Experience in improving debtor days to levels in the range of 45 days.
A minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills and an ability to communicate clearly and persuasively with a range of people from diverse backgrounds.
A commitment to ALN’s mission and strong ethical integrity.
The role will be based in Nairobi, Kenya, with potential travel within East Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
