Working Capital Controller

Lewis Silkin is a UK top-100 commercial law firm with offices in London, Oxford, Cardiff and Hong Kong. The firm is recognised by clients and industries alike as being distinct: for its deep understanding, insight and advice to creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses; for its market-leading international practice in employment, immigration and reward; and for delivering pragmatic, commercial advice in a refreshingly human way.

With 59 partners and more than 300 staff, the firm is structured around two key divisions.

In employment, immigration and reward, it is consistently top-ranked, and was named HR Law Firm of the Year 2015 by the Legal 500. With over 100 lawyers, Lewis Silkin’s employment and immigration team offers an unrivalled service supporting clients, including many of the world’s leading businesses, on their HR, employment and immigration law needs domestically and internationally. 

The creators, makers and innovators team is made up of leading advisers for creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses, offering a deep understanding of the industry sectors in which clients operate combined with real expertise across a wide range of legal services. From start-ups to multinationals, the firm’s comprehensive and commercially focused advice helps clients succeed in an increasingly complex and converged international marketplace.

The Finance Operations Team works closely with the fee-earning departments to ensure client bills are issued in a timely manner and debts are collected. The team actively manage work in progress (WIP) to maximise billing and cash receipts on a monthly basis.  In addition the team liaises closely with the Cashiers team on billing and debt collection issues.

Reporting to the Working Capital Manager, the individual will be based in the firms London office and will be required to hold debtor meetings with Partners and to provide updates to the CFO and the WCM.

Key responsibilities include overseeing and tracking progress on debt collection across the firm and alerting the CFO to potential problem debtors, holding regular meetings with those fee earners who have significant levels of debt > 90 days.  In addition, this role will be required to deal with more complex queries from fee earners and clients referred by Working Capital Controllers and support the CFO/FC on funding, cashflow and treasury management issues.

The Credit Controller will have specific responsibility for:

• Meeting & liaising with Partners from CMI division on a timely basis to agree strategy to maximise debt collection and escalating to CFO where required;

• Reporting on progress of collection of > 90 day debt to Finance Committee Group on fortnightly basis;

• Supporting the WCM on determination of Monthly debt collection targets;

• Proactive chasing of slow paying external clients;

• Proactive contact with clients by telephone, email and via automated letters and statements from software regarding all credit control issues;

• Keeping full account of every action taken to collect debts on the firm’s practice management system;

• Dealing with complex credit control related queries (including credit note issues) from internal and external clients;

• Overseeing use of collection workflow and recommending improvements and enhancements;

• Liaising with the firm’s Litigation Dept on debt recovery issues;

• Assisting with pro-forma and bill production at month ends;

• Complete the Cashflow and weekly receipts report;

• Assist with the completion of a weekly Client Exposure Report;

• Release Barclays Bank payments using Barclays.net on a rota basis;

• Passing bad debt to external debt recovery agency.

Experience and Skills Required

Successful candidates should have extensive credit control experience within a professional services environment and will have experience of practice management systems such as Elite 3e and specialist credit control workflow tools (e.g. Creditforce).

The Credit Controller will be able to demonstrate:

• excellent organisational skills to ensure deadlines are met;

• strong communication skills, with an ability to communicate and build relationships at all levels from senior partners to junior staff;

• strong technical knowledge of credit control applications in Elite 3E;

• strong technical knowledge of VAT issues applicable to billing of legal services and 3rd party costs;

• proactive approach and readiness to recommend and implement process improvements;

• ability to switch from client facing to processing activities as workload requires;

• ability to manage own workload and prioritise accordingly;

• Experience of billing function and/or AP/cashiers function in a professional services firm is desirable but not essential.

Lewis Silkin is an equal opportunities employer.