Senior Manager, Collections

About the Role

The Senior Manager, Collections owns cash collection and cash application end-to-end across all U.S. entities and branches—from credit decisioning and customer onboarding through collection strategy, dispute resolution, cash application, and bad-debt management. This leadership role oversees all collections activities for roughly 8–12 staff across collections and cash application. The position is a build-and-standardize mandate, as current practices vary by branch and are inconsistently documented. A key responsibility is influencing upstream functions such as contracts, billing, service, and branch operations, despite lacking direct authority. Strong project management skills are essential due to the cross-functional nature of the work. The role also drives the AI and automation agenda for collections and cash application, including governance of human verification requirements, and demands a high tolerance for ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Leadership of the Function
  • Lead and develop the Manager, Collections and the supervisory layer beneath; set objectives and hold them to outcomes.
  • Plan capacity and portfolio coverage across roughly 8–12 collections and cash application staff.
  • Own succession and bench strength for the collections and cash application organization.
• Collections & Cash Application Ownership
  • Own key metrics: DSO, aging distribution, percent current, bad-debt expense, write-off rate, unapplied cash, and cash application timeliness as an interconnected set.
  • Develop collection strategy: segment the portfolio, set contact cadence and escalation paths by risk and balance, and prioritize by value at risk.
  • Standardize the collections and cash application operating model enterprise-wide, eliminating location-by-location variation.
  • Drive same-day cash application, reduce unapplied and misapplied cash, and resolve remittance and short-pay exceptions at the root.
  • Manage third parties: govern collection agency and legal referral criteria, placement timing, and recovery performance.
• Credit, Disputes & Escalation
  • Own dispute resolution end-to-end: route disputes to the owning function, drive closure against deadlines, and report root causes upstream.
  • Escalate systemic upstream failures (e.g., defective contract terms, late billing, unresolved service issues) with evidence rather than anecdote.
  • Arbitrate customer-level decisions: payment plans, settlements, write-offs, and service-stop recommendations within delegated authority.
• Project & Transformation Management
  • Own the collections improvement portfolio: charter, sequence, and resource concurrent initiatives based on capacity and business impact.
  • Deliver cross-functionally: coordinate with sales, service, branch operations, IT, legal, and accounting to meet committed dates without direct authority.
  • Serve as collections and cash application lead for ERP transition and integration (e.g., Sage-to-NetSuite migration).
  • Lead M&A integration: onboard acquired entities and their receivable portfolios onto the enterprise collections operating model.
  • Maintain executive-level status reporting; surface risks and slippage early with mitigation options.
• Data, Analytics & AI
  • Set the AI and automation roadmap for collections and cash application; build the business case and partner with IT for deployment and scaling.
  • Govern AI use: define standards for human review of AI output, preserve audit trails, and ensure unverified AI output never reaches customers or the ledger.
  • Design the collections reporting suite (aging, roll-rate, promise-to-pay performance, dispute aging, cash forecast inputs) to explain performance trends.
  • Quantify the return on automation and AI investments against DSO, recovery rate, cost to collect, and bad-debt expense.
• Controls & Stakeholders
  • Ensure collections, cash application, and write-off controls are audit-ready and compliant with internal control requirements.
  • Support the allowance for credit losses with defensible portfolio analysis.
  • Present collections performance, portfolio risk, and cash forecast inputs to Finance leadership.
  • Serve as the senior collections point of contact for branch and sales leadership across the U.S.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in collections, credit, accounts receivable, or finance operations, including 4+ years managing people and experience managing managers or team leads.
• Demonstrated record of standardizing collections or AR practices across multiple sites, entities, or business units.
• Depth in commercial collections and cash application, including credit decisioning, dispute resolution, and third-party placement.
• Strong project management skills; ability to run multiple concurrent cross-functional initiatives with formal planning, tracking, and stakeholder reporting.
• Hands-on experience with at least one major ERP (Sage, NetSuite, or comparable); strong Excel and reporting skills.
• Strong data and analytical skills; ability to design portfolio metrics and defend conclusions to executive leadership.
• Working fluency with AI and automation in a finance context, including governance, verification, and control judgment.
• High tolerance for ambiguity; ability to establish structure, sequence, and priority in an undefined environment.
• Strong influence and change-management skills; credibility with executive, branch, and sales leadership.

Requirements

• PMP, Lean/Six Sigma Black Belt, NACM CCE, or equivalent formal credential.
• ERP implementation or migration leadership experience.
• M&A integration leadership; shared-services or center-of-excellence build experience.
• Experience deploying AI or automation across a collections or finance function at scale.
• Multi-entity, multi-branch field service, equipment, or construction environment; familiarity with mechanics liens and bond claims.