Credit Control Manager
Outsourcery Hosting Limited
Total years of experience :24 years, 3 Months
July 2007 - Present Outsourcery Hosting Limited (Formerly Genesis Communications)
Credit Control Manager
Initially ran a Credit Control / Accounts Receivable Department of 22 people for a predominantly telecommunications based business, successfully implemented new processes and procedures enabling me to streamline the department down to a team of 10.
A key change in my role came with the sale of the telecoms side of the business in 2011 to concentrate on the sale of hosted products, meaning a change in not only internal business systems but also company strategy.
• Managing a successful and efficient credit control team
• Motivating a team of people, identifying training needs and developing / coaching individuals and dealing with all other personnel issues including the recruitment of new staff
• Reduced debtor days from 121+ to an average of 28 days, based on customer payment terms of 14 days and 30 days for strategic customers and business partners
• Consistently collected above 95% of monthly billed revenue of £4M per month, over 4 separate bill runs whilst keeping bad debt below 0.5%
• Developing and monitoring high usage reports and risk accounts with the aid of network reports from O2 and Vodafone and the Experian 360 credit checking and monitoring tool
• Extensive experience in organisation change, numerous acquisitions and disposals incorporating TUPE transfers and transition management arrangements
• Have worked closely on the acquisition of new businesses, ensuring debt ledgers were transferred over successfully and then fully reconciled and more recently assisted with an IPO
• Ultimately responsible for the sign off of all new deals into the business, using Experian to process credit checks but also ensuring correct paperwork / details were attached to the deal and liaising with the commercial team to ensure prices quoted were accurate
• Signing off all additional services and resigns, based on trading history and current debt situation
• Ensuring all new accounts are set up on internal systems to correspond with company paperwork
• Responsible for authorising all customer refunds managing to reduce the number of refunds processed
• Authorising all billing related credit notes, understanding the reasons behind the credits, monitoring trends and working to fix issues and reduce number of credits raised
• Liaising at Board level, reporting directly to the Financial Director re cash forecasting, bad debt projections and agreeing team strategy
• Managed the restructure of the credit control department, following the sale of the mobile side of the business in 2011, worked closely with Finance and IT to split mixed service accounts and responsible for the handover of all credit control processes to the new company
• Cultivating a close relationship with IT departments in order to fully understand systems and ensure current processes are working whilst looking to automate as many of these as possible, understanding system capabilities and limits whilst working to ISO 9001 & 27001
• Identifying system and process weaknesses across the business and working with the Quality Forum to ensure issues are addressed and resolved
• Involved in rollout of next generation billing systems and processes
• Working on the Billing Forum to ensure all products and services can be billed correctly and confirm that there is a reconciliation between sales and billing whilst monitoring business churn
• Building strong relationships internally but also with external credit checking and third party debt collection agencies managing accounts passed for Legal action
Successful restructure of credit control department
Involvement in acquisitions, mergers and disposals
Rolled out two new computer systems: Parallels & Zygo
Assisting organisation to reach ISO 9001 standard
2005 - 2007 Several Contract Assignments, including:
Nimans Ltd (6 month contract)
Credit Control Supervisor
Ran a Credit Control team responsible for cash collection and authorising stock release.
• Worked closely with the Head of Finance to review current chasing procedures and introduce new monitoring tools to ensure performance levels and collection targets were achieved
• Responsible for authorising the release of stock orders against customers credit limits and negotiating these limits where applicable, occasionally holding back orders until advance payments or overdue invoices had been paid
• Ensured customers were trading within their agreed terms and that customer information was kept up to date in order to reassess their credit worthiness
• Worked with IT team to ensure the credit control department was fully utilising their computer package and developed reports in order to monitor and track debt
• Carried out 1-2-1's and identified training issues
Co-Op Funeralcare (12 month contract)
Corporate Client Collections
Chasing overdue funeral invoices and offering advice on debt with a degree of sensitivity.
• Initially chased direct clients and advised them of the best way to settle the funeral payment when they may have been waiting for assistance from social services or awaiting probate
• Produced dunning letters
• Liaised directly with Funeral Homes to resolve outstanding queries
• Dealt with complaints
• Transferred to Corporate Division shortly after joining Co-Op, chased up solicitors, banks and building societies for overdue payments
• Played a large part in instigating a new chasing process for this team as they had the largest debt figures
• Liaised directly with the Credit Control Manager to ensure we had a more effective letter chasing procedure and that accounts were ultimately passed back to the arranging client after an agreed overdue period
• Responsible for running off all weekly reports for the team leader
2004 - 2005 Aspire Credit Recruitment
Credit Recruitment Consultant
Responsible for bringing on new clients and candidates and successfully matching the right person to the relevant role
• Responsible for attracting new business and a larger number of candidates, whilst maintaining existing database, building strong relationships and keeping in regular contact
• Sent out introduction letters and kept computer systems updated
• Ensured candidates were fully prepped for interview either via phone or face to face, making sure they had all the relevant information regarding the company and role in question
• Wrote and placed advertisements on job sites
(2001-2004) Credit Control Supervisor
(1999-2001) Credit Controller
Initially responsible for cash collection of overdue payments and for setting up a process for credit checking all new applications and submitting requests for sufficient insurance cover before being promoted to supervise the corporate credit control team
• Managed team of 5 credit controllers responsible for collecting payments on all accounts billing over £1K per month
• Cash collection targets consistently met and days outstanding reduced from 52 to 38 based on standard trading terms of 30 days
• Provided cash collection and days outstanding reports to the Credit Manager
• Closely monitored risk accounts, high usage and liaised closely with the Customer Service Manager to ensure all open queries were closed down in a timely manner
• Motivated team and ensured all training gaps were identified
• Promoted to manage the Premier ledger and team, another 3 credit controllers and a ledger of all customers billing between £500 - £1K per month
1995 - 1999 Alex Lawrie Factors Limited
Senior Credit Controller
Responsible for administrating a portfolio of twenty five clients, chasing their debtors to their individual requirements
• Organised client payments and reported back to managers with full details of issues or potential security risks
• Applied for and set Credit Limits via an online credit checking service
• Reconciled cash
• Prepared files for litigation
• Met with clients to provide ledger updates
1989 - 1995 Direct Line Insurance
Home & Motor Insurance Clerk
Provided insurance quotations, explained insurance cover and processed policies and relevant documentation
South Trafford College RSA Typing and Pitman qualifications in both Word Processing and Office Practice
Cardinal Vaughan School for Girls 2 O-Levels; 8 CSEs - Including English and Mathematics
