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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Collections Manager

💰 $ - $

CollectionsFinanceCredit ManagementAccounts Receivable

🎯 Role Definition

The Collections Manager leads the collections and receivables function to maximize cash recovery, reduce delinquency and write-offs, ensure regulatory compliance, and continuously improve collections processes. This role combines operational leadership, portfolio segmentation and strategy, vendor/agency oversight, system optimization, stakeholder communication, and coaching of collections teams to meet and exceed KPIs (collections rate, DSO, cure rate, roll rates). The ideal candidate brings a strong blend of analytical ability, negotiation skill, and a deep understanding of collections law, payment systems, and collections technology.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Collections Analyst / Collections Specialist
  • Accounts Receivable Associate
  • Credit Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Collections Manager
  • Director of Receivables / Head of Collections
  • Credit Risk Manager / VP of Credit & Collections

Lateral Moves:

  • Recovery Portfolio Manager
  • Credit Risk Analyst
  • Customer Experience or Dispute Resolution Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own end-to-end collections strategy for assigned portfolio segments, designing and executing playbooks that prioritize accounts by risk, balance, and return on effort to maximize recovery while maintaining customer experience.
  • Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing collections team (in-house collectors and first-party agents), setting targets, conducting regular 1:1s, delivering training on negotiation techniques and regulatory requirements, and driving continuous performance improvement.
  • Establish and monitor key collections KPIs (DSO, cure rate, days past due buckets, roll rates, contact rate, promise-to-pay conversion), produce weekly/monthly dashboards, and present actionable insights to finance and executive stakeholders to inform credit and cash forecasting.
  • Manage third-party collection agencies and legal counsel: negotiate SLAs, commission structures, scopes of work, conduct RFPs, evaluate performance by agency scorecards, and enforce compliance with company standards and regulations.
  • Design and implement customer segmentation and prioritization logic using analytics to determine the optimal contact strategy (call, email, SMS, letter, IVR) and cadence for different delinquency stages and customer risk profiles.
  • Oversee placement decisions and timing for charge-offs, settlements, and forward flow arrangements; work with accounting to reconcile recoveries, charge-offs, and provisioning to ensure accurate financial reporting.
  • Negotiate payment arrangements, settlements, and lump-sum recoveries with delinquent customers using a consultative, compliant approach to maximize cash recovery and reduce churn.
  • Ensure full compliance with all applicable regulations (e.g., FDCPA, TCPA, GDPR, local consumer protection laws) and internal policies by designing compliant call scripts, monitoring interactions, and implementing remediation where necessary.
  • Partner with Legal and Compliance teams to manage litigation-related collections, document preservation, dispute resolution, and escalation processes while minimizing legal spend and reputational risk.
  • Drive automation and tooling improvements by evaluating collections platforms, dialer systems, CRM integrations, and workflow automation (including IVR and SMS automation) to increase collector productivity and contact effectiveness.
  • Conduct root cause analysis on delinquency trends and collaborate with Credit, Sales, Product, and Customer Success teams to close upstream gaps (billing errors, product disputes, customer onboarding issues) that drive receivables deterioration.
  • Create and maintain detailed operational policies and procedures for collections operations, ensuring consistency across teams and readiness for audits and regulatory exams.
  • Manage the collections budget including agency spend, litigation costs, and technology investments; deliver cost-benefit analyses for new initiatives and track ROI on campaigns and programs.
  • Execute outbound contact campaigns and inbound dispute resolution processes while ensuring calls, emails, and messages are tracked, documented, and routed appropriately within the collections CRM.
  • Lead continuous improvement initiatives (Lean/Six Sigma-style) to reduce cycle times, improve contact rates, and increase recovery percentage, including running A/B tests on messaging, cadence, and payment options.
  • Maintain accurate account documentation, control of sensitive customer data, and audit-ready records for all collections activities and settlement agreements.
  • Oversee charge-off remediation programs and manage post-charge-off recovery strategies, including selling portfolios, forward flow arrangements with buyers, or in-house post-charge-off collections.
  • Coordinate with Billing and Payments teams to create alternative payment solutions (payment plans, autopay, ACH, card on file) that balance customer retention and recovery goals.
  • Provide subject-matter expertise to system implementations and upgrades (collections CRM, ERP, billing platforms), translating business needs into system requirements and acceptance criteria.
  • Monitor and respond to customer complaints and regulatory inquiries related to collections activity, working with Customer Service and Compliance to implement corrective actions and prevent recurrence.
  • Prepare and deliver executive-level reporting and month-end reconciliations for senior leadership and auditors, including analysis of write-offs, recoveries, allowance for doubtful accounts, and aging trends.
  • Conduct employee performance reviews, enforce disciplinary actions when necessary, and create career development plans that build bench strength for future leadership roles.

Secondary Functions

  • Support cross-functional projects such as new product launches, billing changes, and system integrations to ensure collections and receivables impacts are considered up front.
  • Assist Finance and FP&A with cash flow forecasting and scenario planning related to collections performance and behavior changes.
  • Participate in vendor selection processes and pilot new collection technologies or partners to validate effectiveness before scale.
  • Contribute to fraud detection and prevention activities by flagging suspicious account behavior and coordinating with security teams.
  • Provide ad hoc reporting requests and analysis for special projects (mergers & acquisitions, portfolio sales, regulatory responses).
  • Represent the collections organization in business continuity and disaster recovery planning to ensure uninterrupted collections operations.
  • Foster collaboration with Customer Experience to design dispute-handling workflows that balance timely resolution and recovery rates.
  • Serve as backup for escalation handling during high-volume billing disputes or system outages impacting receivables.
  • Facilitate training sessions for cross-functional partners on collections policies, compliance boundaries, and customer negotiation best practices.
  • Drive internal communications on collections outcomes, policy changes, and performance updates to ensure alignment across Finance and Operations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep knowledge of collections platforms and CRMs (experience with systems such as FICO Debt Manager, ACA, TietoEVRY, CollectOne, Experian collections modules, or comparable enterprise collections/ARS systems).
  • Proficient with MS Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, advanced formulas), Power BI or Tableau for KPI dashboards and trend analysis.
  • Familiarity with outbound dialer/IVR systems, SMS/omnichannel messaging platforms, and contact center tooling.
  • Understanding of accounting principles related to receivables, write-offs, charge-offs, provisioning, and reconciliations.
  • Practical experience with third-party agency management, vendor SLAs, and performance scorecards.
  • Strong data analysis capabilities, including segmentation, cohort analysis, aging analysis, and basic SQL to pull ad hoc data for insight generation.
  • Knowledge of regulatory requirements and compliance frameworks relevant to collections (e.g., FDCPA, TCPA, GDPR, local consumer protection laws and industry-specific rules).
  • Experience implementing workflow automation, API integrations between billing/ERP and collections systems, and CRM data hygiene practices.
  • Ability to design and evaluate A/B tests and campaign performance metrics to optimize contact strategies and messaging.
  • Familiarity with credit risk scoring, scoring models, and segmentation techniques used to prioritize collection activity.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent negotiation and conflict-resolution skills with a customer-focused approach that balances recovery and retention.
  • Strong leadership and people-management capabilities: coaching, developing, and motivating high-performing teams.
  • Exceptional communication skills — able to present complex analytics and recommendations to senior leadership and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Analytical mindset with attention to detail and the ability to translate data into actionable operational improvements.
  • Problem-solving orientation: ability to identify root causes and lead cross-functional remediation efforts.
  • High ethical standards, sound judgment, and the ability to maintain confidentiality when handling sensitive financial data.
  • Resilience and adaptability in a fast-paced, metrics-driven environment with frequent regulatory and system changes.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to manage competing operational and strategic priorities.
  • Stakeholder management and collaboration skills across Finance, Legal, Product, Customer Service, and IT.
  • Coaching and mentoring aptitude to grow talent and build institutional capability in collections best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree plus a relevant professional certificate (e.g., Certified Credit and Collections Professional, CCMS) or Master's degree in Business Administration, Finance, or related discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Business Administration
  • Economics
  • Law
  • Risk Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7 years of progressive experience in collections, accounts receivable, credit, or recovery operations; typically 2+ years in a supervisory role.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years managing collections teams and end-to-end receivables operations, with demonstrable success in improving recovery rates, reducing DSO, managing third-party agencies, and implementing collections technology. Experience in regulated environments (financial services, telecom, utilities, healthcare) and familiarity with applicable consumer protection laws is highly desirable.
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