Job Title: Manager - Accounts Receivable
Business Unit: Group Finance
Based: India (Gurugram)
Direct Reports: 7
Reporting to:Head of Shared Services
Date prepared: Dec 2022
Who we are:
The Economist Group is a global media and information-services company that exists to champion progress with customers currently spread across 159 countries and an active subscriber base of 1.2 million. We provide individuals and organisations with the expertise, insights and perspective to press forward.
The Finance team’s vision is to partner with the Group in driving profitable growth, through finance excellence. We support our businesses to make effective commercial and operational decisions; provide information and analysis to management and the Board to support strategic decisions; manage working capital to quickly convert profit into cash; develop and maintain a strong control environment to comply with legal, statutory and tax legislation in all territories we operate in.
With over 100 Finance professionals operating from offices in London, New York, Hong Kong & Gurugram, we are rapidly building a substantial presence in Gurugram to become our largest finance hub. You will be joining our global organisation at a pivotal moment, working with finance and business colleagues from around the globe to deliver the Finance vision.
The Business:
- an iconic brand with a history dating back 179 years
- a truly global business with customers in over 150 countries
- a unique combination of B2B and B2C Businesses
The Finance Team:
- be part of our Finance Transformation programme, reshaping our processes and the technology we use
- work closely with finance and business colleagues from around the globe
- ability to influence in an organisation of 1,600 people
The role:
The role of Group finance is to support the business in making commercial and operational decisions to maximise profitability; provide information and analysis to management and the Board to support strategic decisions; manage working capital to quickly convert profit into cash; develop and maintain a strong control environment to detect and prevent financial loss; and to comply with legal, statutory and tax legislation on a worldwide basis.
We are seeking a Manager - Accounts Receivable to manage the following:
- Day to day management of the Billing team.
- Manage the billing process of all non-advertising products
- Manage the order entry of advertising bookings and invoicing
- Manage the order verification process in Salesforce
- Ensure timely handling of queries arising from invoicing
- Prepare commissions for external agents
- Support Sales, Credit Control teams and senior management by ensuring that revenue and invoices are accurate and update while procedures and controls are adhered to
The role will cover requirements from the group globally, particularly requests from London. As such, while the role is based on local hours (9:00-5:30pm in Gurugram) some flexibility will be required to cover day-to-day contact with London and occasional meetings with other global offices.
Key Accountabilities:
- Manage the team members on a day to day basis, carrying out regular performance appraisals and staff development, recruitment and training.
- Maintain cover for different tasks and roles within the team by cross-training.
- Manage team members’ holidays to ensure the desk has sufficient cover at all times.
- Manage billing for EIU Subscriptions, EIU Consultancy, EIU Data feeds, Events, Corporate Network, Group Subscriptions, Economist Impact, EuroFinance and Rights and Syndication
- Set up and maintain customer accounts in Peoplesoft as required
- Ensure that all invoice details are correct before invoices are sent to the customers
- Ensure that invoices are uploaded to the Salesforce opportunities and the opportunity status updated
- Manage invoices for data suppliers
- Manage invoices for external agents’ commissions relating to EIU Subscriptions
- Oversee invoicing through third parties (Brazil)
- Ensure that all invoices are raised and processed to agreed timelines
- Ensure that invoices are uploaded to clients’ portals as required
- Ensure that all intercompany invoices are raised on a monthly basis as required
- Ensure that controls and procedures for invoicing are followed at all times
- Sales Admin, advertising order entry
- Oversee accurate and timely order entry of advertising bookings from all platforms into Naviga
- Ensure that Special positions are updated as bookings are entered for print and digital app products
- Ensure timely campaign approval in OperativeOne
- Ensure that weekly and monthly invoice schedules are adhered to
- Reconcile revenue between OperativeOne and Naviga and investigate discrepancies
- Responsible for month-end close procedure in Naviga
- Facilitate the resolving of invoice queries in a timely manner by liaising with Sales, Credit Control and Finance teams
- Ensure all processes are followed for refunds as well as credit and rebills
- Salesforce order verification process
- Oversee the Salesforce order verification is performed to timelines
- Ensure checks are performed as per company guidelines
- Ensure that rejected opportunities are followed up with sales
- Prepare monthly commission payments file for external agent
- Ensure approval process is followed prior to submitting files for payment
- Produce monthly commission statements and send to individual agents
- Act as point of contact for external agents for queries relating to commission payments
- If necessary, work with the Finance Team to reconcile commission statements
- Participate in reviewing processes, team structure and systems to deliver the best possible service to our customers and sales teams
- Assist providing documentation for auditors as required
- Facilitate the billing process and assist in resolving system issues as they arise
- Provide accurate and timely reporting as required by directors, Sales and Finance teams
- Support the Head of Shared Service on ad hoc projects as and when required
- Point of contact for for the Global Process Owner based in London
Experience, skills and professional attributes
The ideal skills for this role are:
- Education and training:
- Relevant college degree and/or professional qualification
- Previous work experience:
- Experience as a people manager
- Experience of managing a multi-currency billing function.
- Experience with foreign taxes
- Experience from an AR or Credit Control role a strong advantage
- Good understanding of the media industry and advantage
- Knowledge:
- Numerate
- Attention to detail
- Knowledge of foreign tax rules an advantage
- Good understanding of controls and processes
- IT:
- PeopleSoft experience an advantage
- Strong Excel skills.
- Good working knowledge of Salesforce and Google applications an advantage
- Languages:
- Personal attributes:
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills to deal effectively with colleagues at all levels in the organisation.
- Strong people management skills
- Ability to work to a high level of accuracy under the pressure of deadlines, and ability to prioritise workload effectively delegate to meet the demands of sales and customers around the world.
- Flexible, conscientious, hands-on approach.
- Proactive and responsive.
Performance Measures:
- Stable service levels, internal stakeholder satisfaction
- Improve the operational processes for accuracy and timing (e.g. quality of data in Sales process, reduce re-processing due to errors, etc)
- Strong team ethic and structure, cross training and ability to cover for staffing gaps
- Help to define and implement SLAs and KPIs as appropriate
- Customer service satisfaction, zero customer complaints
The Economist Group values diversity. We are committed to equal opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all our employees. We welcome applicants regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, gender, gender identity, race, colour, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation , age or marital status.
