Accounts Receivable Specialist

About the role

The Accounts Receivable Specialist will be part of the Order to Cash (O2C) team within Finance at Rakuten Rewards. This role involves managing a portfolio of customer, advertiser, and agency accounts, driving the entire collections lifecycle, and ensuring partners comply with their contractual terms.

Responsibilities

• Administers the accounts receivable process, ensuring timely and accurate billing, collections, and reporting activities to support overall financial health.
• Captures and analyzes accounts receivable data, identifying trends, discrepancies, and areas for improvement in the collections process.
• Communicates with customers and internal teams to address outstanding balances, resolve disputes, and maintain positive relationships.
• Develops reports and analyses on receivables, providing insights to management for strategic decision-making.
• Completes monthly reconciliations of accounts receivable balances, ensuring accuracy and identifying discrepancies for corrective action.
• Documents all receivable activities, maintaining clear and organized records to support audits and internal controls.
• Implements process improvements and best practices within the accounts receivable function, enhancing efficiency and accuracy.
• Applies a working understanding of credit risk and payment terms to help prioritize outreach and flag higher-risk accounts to management.
• Partners with Finance Systems and O2C leadership on testing, rollout, and adoption of new collections tools and workflow enhancements.
• Maintains accurate, detailed notes of all customer/agency interactions, commitments, and dispute status across systems including Oracle, Salesforce, and Kolleno (or similar tooling such as Tesorio or HighRadius).
• Supports cash application research, payment discrepancy resolution, and account reconciliations, with particular attention to the complexities of agency-managed and affiliate billing relationships.
• Contributes to month end close activities, including aging analysis and collection forecasts.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in accounts receivable, collections, or a related Order to Cash function.
• Experience working with or within agencies, advertisers, or the affiliate marketing industry, and understanding how agency-of-record and affiliate payout structures affect billing and collections.
• Hands-on experience with systems such as Oracle, Salesforce, Tesorio, Kolleno, or HighRadius, or comparable AR/collections tooling.
• A track record of managing a high-volume portfolio and meeting collections KPIs such as cash targets, DSO, and aging.
• Excellent written communication skills and comfort owning a high-volume inbox, engaging partners professionally and persistently via email.
• Comfortable navigating cross-functional stakeholders to drive dispute resolution with appropriate urgency.
• Proficiency in Excel, including pivot tables and lookups, and strong attention to detail managing a high-volume, varied portfolio.
• Prior experience in the affiliate marketing, performance marketing, or agency ecosystem.