Working Capital Manager

Allen & Overy is a leading global law firm operating in over thirty countries. We work on some of the most challenging and important deals and have built a reputation for delivering exceptional legal solutions that help our clients grow, innovate and thrive. The legal industry is changing, and we're committed to leading that change, putting our people first, embracing new ways of thinking and integrating technology into our everyday work.

**Role purpose
**The role of the Working Capital Manager is a senior position in the Finance Department and has three distinct elements:

- Manage a team of Working Capital Controllers / Assistants - based in ASEAN (Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam) - who focus on managing the financial elements of matter lifecycle. Including matter inception, billing, collections, profitability analysis and other related reporting and activities.
- Partner relationships and acting as a commercial advisor to the business.
- Develop a deep relationship with finance contacts at our top clients, to ensure speedier processing of bills and collection of money
- Build out the finance teams pricing analytics and advisory support to the business throughout the matter life cycle.
- Act as strategic lead / relationship partner to work with Business development / CRM function.

**Role and responsibilities**

Strategy and Finance Leadership
- Be an active member of the Singapore Finance Management team; participate in setting the strategy for the function, operational decision making and influencing discussions.
- Work closely with the Head of Finance in Singapore to monitor working capital service. Seek improvement, set targets, manage risks and generally ensure excellent service is delivered.
- Deliver reporting, analytics and ideas for presentation to the partnerships
- Identify and jointly develop solutions for possible enhancements to reduce lock up days and improve matter / client profitability. Provide commercial advice.
- Ensure the team is meeting and participating in Group objectives, initiatives, upholding best practice and acting as leader in their areas. Instill the Firm’s values in the team.
- Be open to new developments and innovations. Respond quickly and efficiently to ad-hoc work requests. This will often involve new areas of analysis which will require planning and development.

**Working capital management**
- Provide strong leadership, have responsibility for the development and performance of the Working Capital team in ASEAN. Engage staff, seek opportunities for them and create a strong, collaborative and successful cross border team.
- Ownership of the monthly billing and collection forecasts prepared by the team.
- Oversee and monitor the effectiveness of the end to end matter and client financial lifecycle and initiate improvements to enhance the quality of service and seek efficiencies.
- Review billing write offs, unbilled disbursements account balances and disbursements written off on a monthly basis and investigate any significant movements and report to management.
- Advise on billing & collection technical tax related matters - often cross border - seek assistance or advice from others.
- Review bad debt provision and agree next steps.
- Manage the WIP and Debtors positions as part of the annual audit process and anything related that is necessary for local fiscal year end processes.
- Managing rates within 3e and working with partners to ensure the matters are set up correctly and the client finance related requirements are fully understood by reviewing the client contracts
- Involvement in the Client and Matter Inception work flow process, overall ownership of completion Liaising with the lead relationship partners to ensure that rate agreements are reviewed in a timely manner offering assistance and information which may assist in client rate negotiations
- Providing detailed financial information in support of bills, i.e. hourly schedules, disbursements and narrative breakdowns. Preparation of client detailed billing schedules as requested.
- Where required keep partners and clients advised on a weekly basis of the status of fees and debts.
- Provide training to Legal PAs for bill & time narrative completion in 3e and support them going forward
- Liaise with Working Capital Controllers across the network on cross unit matters and billing matters

**Pricing, Client and commercial management**
- Working with BD & Fee earners, to provide financial analysis to support the pitching process, ensuring that pricing decisions are supported to optimise profitability.
- Create financial models/scenarios specific to rate negotiations / pitch scenarios and embed in regional process flow.
- Assist relationship partners with rate negotiations. Assistance includes (i) providing timely, accurate and relevant financial information for decision-making, (ii) profitability forecasting based on multiple levers/potential outcomes, (iii) negotiation strategy, and (iv) influenc