Working Capital Manager

The company

Brewster Pratap are working exclusively on a project to relocate a finance function to central Leeds. This is a rare opportunity to join a successful business and a fabulous employer at an exciting stage of their growth.

Capsticks work for over 250 healthcare clients and over 150 social housing clients nationally and have over 230 fee earners across 4 UK offices. They have a very strong people strategy, creating a positive team culture and treating every employee as an individual. They benefit from a very low level of staff turnover, a large number of long servers and can offer a strong employer proposition that has been summarised below.

This relocation is a critical and exciting challenge for our client. They are committed to recruiting and developing a "best in class" finance team, to benefit the whole firm and provide long term opportunities for all of the successful candidates

The job

The Head of Working Capital will take full responsibility for all aspects of the services provided by the Finance team to support revenue generation, from file opening to cash collection and will work closely with the reporting function to deliver client reporting and analysis.

The individual will lead a small focused team and will need to build relations internally with the Practice, externally with clients as well as with their immediate team and the wider Finance function.

It is expected that this role will require some travelling to other offices of the firm.

This is a critical role that will have a lot of responsibility in the function. The role offers great potential to a candidate wishing to have wider exposure in the whole area of revenue control and to have experience in working with the practice to support their and their clients' needs.

The successful candidate will work closely with the Finance Director, Financial Controller as well as Partners to ensure working capital is minimised, billings and collections efficiently managed, SAR and other regulatory requirements and processes are efficient and controlled. The successful candidate will be encouraged and expected to deliver continuous improvement and to support other team members and the wider firm with their technical and systems knowledge.

This role will report directly to the Finance Director. Key areas of responsibility will be:

• Oversee all aspects of revenue control in the firm including billing (and related credit notes), write offs, WIP and debtor management and cash collections;
• Manage the fixed fee contracts and be proactive in keeping partners and fee earners informed on status at all times;
• Manage the maintenance of rates (both individual rates on Elite and the client related/deal rates);
• Manage the finance team's elements of client and file opening and closing, liaising with other functions and the practice as necessary;
• Manage the administrative aspects of time recording, giving guidance when requested and making amendments as requested;
• Client revenue and working capital reporting including the compilation and review of client revenue, WIP and debtor information to support tendering and client reporting requests as well as other ad hoc requests for information;
• Continually assess policies and processes to ensure controls are in place and being adhered to at all times and that opportunities to maximize efficiency are identified and capitalised. Drive continuous improvement and work within the Finance teams and with other functions and the practice in this area;
• Ensure familiarity with and adherence to SAR at all times among team members;
• Manage and lead the team in both a professional and administrative capacity;
• Manage team performance through feedback and training. Ensure there is adequate sharing of knowledge and a body of technical expertise to be able to deliver high quality client service at all times;
• Manage all systems in relation to Revenue Control (in particular Elite, Whitehill, Visual Files and ARCs). Ensure use of systems functionality is maximised and system controls are active and monitored;
• Ensure processes and procedures are adequately documented, recognising the needs of the Finance team and the need to make relevant information easily accessible to fee earners;
• Build strong relations with your team, the wider Finance team, with other functions to increase your understanding of firm needs and processes to collectively work toward better more efficient and effective service delivery.

The person

You are likely to be a Finance professional with significant experience of billing and/or other aspects of revenue control within a professional services environment. You are looking for your next move i., to manager level and eager to lead the full range of services delivered by working capital management. Candidates should ideally have/be:

• Strong technical skills in aspects of revenue control. Experience of billing and reporting would be particularly relevant;
• Experience of Elite (or a similar financial system) with demonstrable skills in understanding the system, its structure and capabilities;
• Advanced IT skills, particularly in relation to Excel, Elite/Elite Enterprise and Word;
• A team player with proven experience of leading a team and managing workload
• Proven achievements in process improvements in the area of working capital management;
• Good verbal and written skills, with the ability to communicate effectively at all levels
• A thorough understanding of the full range of standard accounting practices within a progressive firm in the legal sector, to include advanced knowledge of regulatory requirements in respect of VAT guidelines, Solicitors' Accounts Rules and Money Laundering Regulations

The benefits

• salary that has been bench marked to attract the best
• competitive benefits package

Brewster Pratap Recruitment Group focuses on the recruitment of talent in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. If you are interested in discussing this job in more detail or any other aspect of recruitment and talent identification we would really like to hear from you. Please visit our website at for more information on Jobs or Recruitment.