Role Description
The Sales Ledger / Credit Control Clerk is responsible for the accurate and timely maintenance of the sales ledger, ensuring invoices are raised correctly and promptly, debt is collected within agreed terms, and pricing and debit note queries are resolved efficiently. The role plays a key part in protecting cash flow and maintaining strong, professional relationships with Aykroyd & Sons' retail customers, working closely with the commercial, customer service, and finance teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Raise and issue accurate sales invoices and credit notes in line with customer purchase orders, delivery documentation, and agreed pricing.
- Ensure invoices are processed within required timescales to support timely cash collection.
- Check invoices for accuracy prior to despatch, resolving discrepancies with sales, warehouse, or customer teams before issue.
- Support the journey to automation, liaising with IT and other departments to build a clear path to EDI success.
- Maintain accurate sales ledger records, ensuring all transactions are correctly coded and allocated.
Credit Control & Aged Debt Review
- Proactively manage a ledger of customer accounts, chasing outstanding debt by phone, email, and customer portal in line with agreed credit terms.
- Produce and review the aged debt report on a regular (weekly/monthly) basis, identifying overdue balances and escalating risk accounts promptly.
- Build and maintain effective working relationships with customer accounts payable teams to resolve payment delays and queries.
- Monitor customer credit limits, flagging accounts approaching or exceeding agreed limits, and liaise with management on credit risk decisions.
- Allocate incoming customer remittances against invoices accurately and in a timely manner.
- Prepare regular debtor reporting and commentary for the Finance Manager, highlighting trends, risks, and cash collection forecasts.
- Support month‑end close by ensuring the sales ledger is accurately stated and reconciled.
- Check invoiced prices against agreed customer price files, purchase orders, and contractual terms to identify and correct discrepancies.
- Investigate and resolve pricing queries raised by customers or internal commercial teams in a timely manner.
- Maintain and update price files/systems to reflect agreed customer pricing, promotions, and any negotiated changes.
- Provide analysis to the commercial team on pricing trends, disputes, and recurring discrepancies to support pricing accuracy going forward.
Debit Note Control
- Log, validate, and process customer debit notes (e.g. for pricing shortfalls, shortages, damages, or promotional claims) in a controlled and timely manner.
- Investigate the root cause of debit notes, liaising with commercial, warehouse, and logistics teams to validate or dispute claims.
- Maintain a clear tracker of open, agreed, and disputed debit notes, ensuring nothing is left unresolved for extended periods.
- Escalate unresolved or high-value disputed debit notes to the Finance Manager, providing supporting evidence and recommendations.
- Report on debit note trends and value to support commercial negotiations and reduce future occurrences.
General & Administrative
- Maintain accurate, well‑organised records and documentation to support audit and query resolution.
- Ensure all sales ledger processes comply with internal controls and company policy.
- Support the wider finance team with ad hoc reporting, month‑end tasks, and process improvement initiatives.
- Assist with the setup and maintenance of new customer accounts, including credit checks and account documentation.
Person Specification
Experience & Knowledge
- Proven experience in a sales ledger, credit control, or accounts receivable role, ideally within a B2B/wholesale or manufacturing environment.
- Experience dealing with large retail customers and their associated processes (portals, EDI, retailer‑specific documentation) is highly desirable.
- Working knowledge of credit control best practice and aged debt management.
- Confident using accounting/ERP systems and Excel (e.g. VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables) for reconciliation and reporting.
Skills & Attributes
- Strong numerical accuracy and attention to detail.
- Confident, professional communicator, comfortable chasing payment and challenging queries with customers.
- Well organised, able to manage a high volume of transactions and multiple open queries at once.
- Proactive and persistent, with a solutions‑focused approach to resolving disputes.
- Team player, willing to collaborate across commercial, warehouse, and finance functions.
Qualifications
- GCSE (or equivalent) in Maths and English, minimum grade C/4.
- AAT qualification or part‑qualified/studying towards a relevant accounting qualification is desirable but not essential.
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