Collections Manager

Position Summary

This is a senior individual-contributor role for someone who drives cash in, reduces days sales outstanding, and builds the collections infrastructure to scale with the business.

The ideal candidate is an operator who works independently, maintains audit-ready processes, and acts as the go-to expert and escalation point for collections across Finance, Sales, Legal, and DealOps. You will partner closely with the billing team to keep invoicing accurate, but your focus is the full collections lifecycle: from credit review through cash application, dispute resolution, and reporting.

Collections & AR Lifecycle Management

• End-to-end ownership: Own the AR aging cycle across the customer base; monitor outstanding balances, prioritize outreach, and drive timely collection of past-due accounts.
• Strategic collections: Develop tailored collection strategies for key and high-risk accounts, including executive-level escalations and payment plan negotiations.
• Forecasting: Partner with Finance to forecast cash receipts and flag collection risk, reserves, and write-off candidates ahead of period close.
• Escalation and mentorship: Serve as the escalation point and subject matter expert for collections; coach team members on best practices and set outreach cadences and standards.

Cash Application & Reconciliation

• Manage the end-to-end cash application process, ensuring timely and accurate posting of bank deposits, wire transfers, ACH, and credit card payments to the subledger.
• Reconcile unapplied cash and clear exceptions, working with Treasury and Accounting to keep the AR subledger tied to the general ledger.

Credit Risk Assessment

• Perform credit reviews for new customers and establish and monitor credit limits to mitigate financial risk.
• Identify accounts with deteriorating payment behavior and recommend holds, terms changes, or other risk actions.

Dispute & Deduction Management

• Resolve payment disputes, credit memos, and refund requests within defined SLAs.
• Partner with Legal and DealOps on complex contract interpretations, and with Sales on customer relationship strategy for sensitive accounts.
• Track root causes of disputes and feed them back to billing and sales operations to prevent repeat issues.

Metrics & Reporting

• Develop and maintain AR dashboards that track KPIs including DSO, collection effectiveness index, past-due percentage, aging trends, and unapplied cash.
• Provide regular reporting and insights on collections performance to Revenue Accounting and Finance leadership.

Billing Partnership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with the billing team to resolve invoice errors, contract mismatches, and amendments that delay payment; escalate systemic billing issues with the right context and urgency.
• Build strong partnerships with DealOps, Sales, Legal, IT, and Finance, and communicate clearly with leadership on collections risk and cash performance.
• Maintain working knowledge of NetSuite and Salesforce-to-NetSuite data flows as they relate to invoicing, payment terms, and customer records.

Process Optimization & Continuous Improvement

• Analyze collections and cash application workflows to find bottlenecks, and implement scalable, automated solutions that reduce manual effort.
• Lead initiatives with IT and Sales Operations to streamline the quote-to-cash process, including dunning, payment reminders, and customer self-service payment options.
• Create and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all collections, cash application, and credit tasks, and keep them current as processes evolve.

Month-End Close & Compliance

• Complete all collections and AR tasks on schedule, including journal entries for adjustments, reserves, and write-offs, and support flux analysis on AR balances.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation and support external audit requests, including PBC samples and process walkthroughs.
• Ensure collections practices comply with ASC 606, SOX controls, and internal credit and revenue recognition policies.