Credit Controller SO1

Job Category: Finance – Unqualified
Location: 2 Hillman Street, Hackney Council
Hours Per Week: 36.00
Start Date: Immediate Start
Start Time: 09:00
End Time: 17:00
Salary: £18.76

Job Summary:
A position exists for a full time credit controller, working 36 Hours per week. Candidates must have two years credit control experience to be considered.

PURPOSE OF THE JOB:
• To ensure the council’s sundry debts are collected on time and to contribute to achieving maximum income collection.
• To ensure that Hackney’s sales ledgers are maintained to a high standard of accuracy.

Service Specific Accountabilities:
• Making contact with customers by telephone, letter and email to ensure invoice payments are received within credit terms.
• Establishing contact with both small and large regular customers and maintaining a relationship to ensure invoices are paid on time.
• Regularly reporting the status of top debtor’s accounts to Senior Managers, to ensure high value debts are continually reviewed, and escalated to management where intervention is required throughout the financial year.
• Contacting customers whose invoices are overdue, stressing the Council’s credit terms and identifying any query that may be preventing payment.
• Escalating queries to senior levels within the organisation where necessary until satisfactory responses are received.
• Taking payments by debit or credit card over the telephone, ensuring compliance with the council’s data protection policy.

Experience and Working Knowledge:
• Sound relevant credit control experience in a large organisation.
• Experience of investigating and resolving customer queries and advising service managers.
• Basic knowledge of local government functions.
• Thorough knowledge of computerised debt collection systems.
• Experience of taking payments over the telephone.
• Experience of using Microsoft Office software (Excel/Word/Outlook).
• Knowledge of legal and enforcement processes in respect of debt recovery.
• Experience of setting up direct debits over the telephone and trained in direct debit rules and regulations.
• Experience of achieving performance targets in order to continuously improve services.
• Understanding of how income collection and allocation processes work.
• Experience of working in teams that takes into account the needs of diverse customer groups.
• Experience of reconciling customer accounts.

Skills:
• Excellent customer care skills.
• Able to keep calm and remain professional in the face of irate customers.
• Excellent telephone and writing skills when contacting customers.
• The customer base is diverse and the ability to communicate fully and effectively is paramount.
• Able to plan, prioritise and organise workloads in order to meet corporate objectives and customer needs.
• Ability to reconcile both simple and complex accounts.
• Able to apply direct debit rules and regulations.
• Ability to assist in the implementation of new initiatives to support corporate objectives and customer needs.
• Ability to understand and resolve customer queries from a diverse customer base.
• Good numeracy skills.
• Ability to understand the services being invoiced so as to communicate clearly with both service areas and customers.
• Ability to focus on what is important and make decisions based on available information.
• Good problem solving skills.
• Ability to build effective working relationships with both large and small customers.