Credit Controller

Let us introduce ourselves… 

It is the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams; together we win.  As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!    

We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves from how you dress to how, when and where you work – we focus on outputs. 

To provide truly outstanding client service we work as one team.  Our Business Operations Group is made up of business professionals who work with our legal professionals to provide market leading expertise to our clients.  The groups includes our Finance & Risk, Buildings & Infrastructure, Marketing & People, C-Suite teams.

Our Finance team is made up of over 40 people who work from a variety of our office locations. The work is split into four core areas; Financial Accounting, Financial Operations, Business Partnering and Partner Services.

The team work closely with our other business operations teams to provide a first class service. They are responsible for the sound financial management of the firm, including cash flow, budgeting, internal and external reporting and audit. They have responsibilities for the safe-keeping and operating of our clients’ funds held on account and also deal with payroll, credit control ‘Work In Progress’, partner finances and tax returns. The team also provide bespoke finance business partnering support to all other areas of the business.

Agile working:

We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.

We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.

We have hubs in Birmingham, Leicester, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield. This role will have a blend of homeworking with travel as required to our Birmingham hub.

The role:

Are you passionate to develop a career in Finance? Do you have solid negotiation skills, lots of initiative and a practical approach?  Are you looking to join a busy team in a dynamic and expanding law firm? If so read on....

We have opportunities available for two Credit Controllers to join our Finance team, part of the firm’s Business Operations group initially on a 12-month fixed-term contract.

Your key duties will be:

• managing own portfolio of divisional debts and collecting cash against a monthly personal target as set by the credit manager and head of finance
• recovering the firm’s outstanding debts via telephone, letter and email up to litigation stage in accordance with the firm’s credit control policy
• liaising with the firm’s internal and external clients and other firms of solicitors, banks and insolvency practitioners
• dealing with fee earners and partners to review their outstanding accounts and advising on how to resolve disputes relating to invoice queries and account problems to achieve payment /satisfactory resolution; this will include regular travel to the firm’s other offices
• minimising the firm’s exposure to overdue debt by commencing recovery action at the earliest opportunity in accordance with the firm’s terms and conditions of payment
• undertaking projects and any other tasks, as directed by the line manager

Skills and experience you will have:

• a minimum 2+ years previous experience is ideal, preferably from working within a law firm or within a professional services environment
• attained, or be in the process of attaining, CICM accreditation (or equivalent); this would be desirable however, not essential
• strong Excel skills with the ability to manipulate data and present it well; experience of pivot tables is an advantage

Key competencies you will need:

• excellent communication skills, including a professional and courteous telephone manner
• the ability to handle difficult debtors in a confident and assertive way
• to be able to cope with a high volume workload and work well under pressure and to tight deadlines
• accurate keyboard skills and strong attention to detail
• to enjoy working with figures

About you – you will be:

• highly enthusiastic, willing to go the extra mile and be happy to go beyond the job description
• respectful towards others and have a positive, willing and ‘can do’ attitude
• keen to learn, interested in driving your own career progression and be proactive in taking ownership of this

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.