Cash Collector

The business generates between 150 and 200 million Rand annually and covers the territories of South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho, ranging from small, medium businesses to our largest and most strategic accounts that are among the most reputable brands in South Africa and around the world. In the last year, bad debts have grown by between 30 and 50 million Rand and this trend needs to be corrected and the past cleaned up. This role will focus primarily on the latter.
Audit:

• Work with the 2020 Audit Readiness team to assure that financial information and supporting documentation and explanations are provided to the auditors on time and to the level of quality necessary to avoid qualifications on our statutory accounts
• Work with the team to provide info based on past experience as to why systems and accounts do not reconcile
• Work with the team to resolve this unreconciled issues
• Perform the necessary work to safeguard the 2021 statutory audit success
• Apply the relevant A2C operational and debt policies in full

Prevention Projects:

• Work with the Continuous Improvement team (and others as necessary) to assure processes and procedures are clearly documented to a high level of quality permitting clear execution of standard processes
• Lead efforts with the Operations team to simplify the account setup of key accounts
• Document lessons learned from the clean-up in order that the A2C team can implement the necessary preventive controls to avoid recurrence

Clean-Up:

• Lead the clean-up of key customer accounts
• Complete the application of credit memos which have increased significantly in value during the current financial year as well as those existing from previous years
• Work with the Cash Application team from previous years to make significant reductions in the value of unapplied cash
• Lead efforts internally to deliver a clearance of intercompany activities from the Trade AR accounts

Debt Recovery:

• Lead efforts to recover the maximum value of debt from the top 10% of customer accounts
• Lead definition of strategies

• Work on devising feasible and well thought-out scenarios of different negotiating positions
• Deliver significant value of recovery of overdue debt (pre-July 2021 and pre-2021 in particular)

Key Accountabilities:
Strategic Direction

• Driving debt recovery among the top 10% of customers (top 80% of debt) for debt prior to July 2021 and in particular pre-2021
• Assure consistent application of the relevant A2C policies in the clean-up of the overdue accounts in order that the A2C team can present correct statements to customers

Operational Management

• Enforcing compliance with A2C policy, identifying and addressing any deviations with those concerned, e.g. bad debt reserving, credit memo application
• An exemplary level of process control and metric-based productivity
• Managing the resolution of billing-related disputes with our top overdue customers
• Leading cross-functional (Sales, Operations, Finance) sessions to drive the eradication of the root causes of the most frequently occurring root causes, ensuring that action plans are documented and executed on time.
• Providing guidance and advice on how to resolve major customer payment issues, e.g. reviewing accounts with significant aged backlogs of unpaid invoices, unresolved disputes and unallocated cash. This will include leading meetings with major customers to discuss issues and agree resolution plans.
• Facilitating decision making with local A2C stakeholders, including effective communication on status, issues, risks and opportunities.
• Overseeing and assisting with all A2C internal and external audit requirements and queries. Co-responsible for operationalising global internal audit recommendations
• Excellent written and oral updates on project status, progress, risks and opportunities

People Management

• The person will have 1-2 temporary direct reports as required during the audit period
• Ensuring that key stakeholder relationships are maintained and there is strong collaboration with the Audit Readiness team and other members of the task force