Revenue Controller

Firm Summary
White & Case is an elite global law firm serving leading companies, financial institutions and governments worldwide. Our long history as an international firm means we are perfectly placed to help our clients resolve their most complex legal challenges wherever they may be.
With lawyers and staff operating from more than 47 locations, working in virtually every country of the world, we have invested heavily in building a high-quality full-service practice competing at the top of the market. We are distinguished by our on-the-ground presence in the world's key financial markets and our strengths in handling complex cross-border work.
It's not just about our global network of offices and shared services centers; it's the global interconnectedness of the Firm that our people, and our clients, value most. We work well together across geographic and practice boundaries. It's one of the reasons we attract and retain cross-border work. And why we attract a diverse group of people.
Our lawyers are globally minded, enterprising, collaborative and committed to excellence. Diversity is a core value of our Firm and it has been recognized with numerous awards and top rankings around the world. Our people represent 90 nationalities and speak 80 languages.

Position Summary
Responsible for revenue and credit control for a specified group of partners in the Milan office. The role will also involve liaison with Finance teams in other offices to support the firm in achieving its global targets and will report to the Milan Finance manager and the EMEA Revenue Manager.

Our Functional Area
The Global Finance team is led by the Firm's CFO, Steve Wrede, and is made up of approximately 280 team members around the world. Committed to our 2020 strategy for profitable growth, our core functions include billing and collecting Firm invoices, statutory accounting for the Firm and for individual offices, creating and distributing management reports, processing payments to vendors or reimbursements to employees and managing payroll for our people. Together, we work seamlessly across our network of offices and countries where we operate. Ours is a multicultural, diverse and supportive team, where everyone's contribution is welcome and where we share a mutual ambition to achieve our goals and take the Firm from strength to strength.

Duties and Accountabilities

1. Responsible for meeting with partners and matter managers on a regular basis to review and discuss all WIP and AR balances, documenting outcomes and following up on agreed actions.
2. Drafting and engrossing invoices ensuring that they are compliant with firm policy and regulatory requirements. Ensuring signed copies are filed against the matter on 3e.
3. Regularly reviewing all WIP balances to ensure that all appropriate actions are undertaken to ensure it can be billed on a timely basis, including regular fee updates.
4. Regular review of all aged A/R balances, preparing and agreeing action plans to aid in timely collection. Updating billing and collections tools with discussions and actions taken.
5. Assisting with collections of all accounts receivable for designated partners. Utilizing central credit control where necessary.
6. Preparation of monthly and quarterly cash collection and billing forecasts for agreed partners in discussion with Finance management and Regional Section Heads.
7. Supporting the firm's key client program for a designated number of clients by: acting as a central point of contact for billing and collection matters; providing regular reporting on financials to Client Accounts Managers and Lead relationship partners; working with Client Accounts Managers to ensure that global fee arrangements are correctly implemented and followed.
8. Working with PAs, Revenue Assistants and operations team in Manila to ensure that billing matters are dealt with on a timely basis.
9. Liaising with other EMEA office finance teams to support revenue and credit control across the region.
10. Maintaining a continuous open dialog with the partners and clients.
11. Consulting with managers / billing partner regarding variations to standard terms, agreement of discounts and rate amendments.
12. Performing regular and ad-hoc reporting and projects for clients, partners and management.
13. Assisting with compliance with the Solicitors' Accounts Rules, in particular the rules surrounding earmarking of funds and residual balances.
14. Ensuring VAT and other local taxes are correctly reflected and accounted for.
15. Monitor matters to ensure that:
    1. Correct task codes maintained on matters;
    2. Rates remain consistent with the estimate/engagement letter agreed with the client;
    3. An immediate flag is raised when estimates are close to being exceeded and have been exceeded;
    4. WIP updates for specific time periods are available upon request by the relevant fee earner;
    5. All discrepancies are identified as soon as possible (e.g. whether abrupt changes in WIP are caused by fee earners recording time late vs. a discrepancy in the system);
    6. Fee earners are recording their time to correct task codes and in a timely manner;
    7. Any errors and discrepancies which are identified are corrected in a timely manner; and
    8. Interim or final invoices can be raised in a timely manner, based on specific instructions from the fee earner, without affecting the remaining WIP and existing task codes.
16. Ensuring any write offs of time or AR, time transfers and rate adjustments are actioned promptly.
17. Assist with the review of aged WIP preparing summary reports at client/matter/partner level for review and processing write offs in line with firm policy.
18. Ensuring internal systems are kept up to date with latest WIP and AR information and that required tasks are diarized and followed up.
19. Reviewing unallocated cash and BOAs and ensuring correctly allocated in a timely fashion.
20. Working on any other matters or projects raised from time to time.
21. From time to time when needing additional support, delegating to and supervising the work of billing specialists both in London and Manila, to make sure bills are completed to the highest possible standards.

Qualifications

1. Experience in using Elite, 3E, Aderant or similar PMS system.
2. Minimum of A Levels or equivalent education essential.
3. Relevant and in-depth revenue control and collections experience (a minimum of 3 years').
4. Law Firm experience is desired but not essential, ideally in a top 20 firm with experience liaising with overseas offices/international clients.
5. Have the ability to inspire trust and confidence from internal and external clients, in particular Partners.
6. Excellent interpersonal and team working skills, ability to work effectively at all levels within an organization.
7. Strong oral and written communication skills.
8. Demonstrate the ability to deal with difficult situations.
9. Must be self-motivated, highly organized, accurate, with an attention to detail and be able to work with minimal supervision.
10. Flexible and enthusiastic with the ability to manage own workload and priorities to meet deadlines.
11. Knowledge of the Solicitors Accounts Rules and VAT.
12. Computer literate including at least an intermediate knowledge of Word and Excel.
13. Strong numerical skills including the ability to compute rates, ratios and percentages.
14. Additional languages helpful but not required.

Location & Reporting
This is a role based in Milan.
This role reports to the Finance Manager and the EMEA Revenue Manager.

The above is only a general description of the essential duties associated with this position and does not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all duties.