AR Accountant

Purpose of the Role

Key Responsibilities

• Review daily bank statements, identify incoming customer payments, and allocate receipts against outstanding invoices in the ERP system.
• Reconcile unapplied cash, advance payments, and customer account balances and maintain accurate customer ledgers.
• Conduct proactive collection activities via telephone, email, customer portals, and meetings, following up on overdue invoices.
• Negotiate payment plans within delegated authority while maintaining customer relationships.
• Review AR aging reports, identify overdue, disputed, and high-risk accounts, and monitor balances against credit limits.
• Maintain accurate records of collection activities in ERP and collection tracking systems with complete audit trails.
• Issue statements of account and send payment reminders, follow-up notices, and overdue collection letters through dunning stages.
• Coordinate with Operations, Billing, Customer Service, Sales, and Finance teams to resolve invoice disputes.
• Identify customers meeting credit-hold criteria, recommend credit holds, and escalate high-risk accounts to management.
• Prepare weekly and monthly collection forecasts and update expected cash inflows, overdue balances, and collection status reports.
• Support month-end accounts receivable activities and cash-flow reporting.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives to reduce overdue debt and improve collection efficiency and Order-to-Cash processes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Commerce, or a related field.
• 5-8 years of relevant experience in Collections, Accounts Receivable, Credit Control, Customer Service, or Finance Operations.
• Good understanding of customer account follow-up, aging reports, payment commitments, dispute resolution, and collection processes.
• Experience with ERP systems such as Oracle, SUN Systems, SAP, or similar finance platforms is highly desirable.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and familiarity with customer statements, aging schedules, and collection trackers.
• Exposure to Power BI, automated collection tools, and banking platforms is an added advantage.

About SGS