Billing Assistant

Schillings handles high stakes situations for our international clientele; high profile and successful people, companies and other organisations across the world. The high stakes situations they face affect their reputations, their privacy and their security, both digital and physical. That is why we apply a particular focus to protecting these three assets. The high stakes situations present both threats that need to be mitigated, and opportunities to be taken.

We believe everyone has a right to fair treatment of their reputation, to a reasonable expectation of privacy and to feel safe. Uniquely, Schillings combines five capabilities under one roof to handle these high stakes situations: intelligence, law, communications, security and diplomacy. Our experts contribute to this multidisciplinary mix.

We have the largest team of specialist lawyers in the world, an expanding Intelligence & Investigations team, a growing Critical Risks unit, an evolving Digital Resilience practice, and a new communications agency – Schillings Communications – that will grow significantly in the next three years.

Schillings is a collaborative, fun and welcoming place to work, with a positive culture, strong values and a developed service ethic. We require commitment, diligence, agility and professionalism, and in return provide competitive packages and incredibly stimulating and interesting work. We are committed to sharing learning and creating development opportunities so you can progress your career with us. Our people’s career trajectory and longevity at Schillings is a good example of this: a third of our people have been at the business for over five years. Join us and become part of our story.

Job Purpose

To provide a professional and timely accounting service in respect to controlling revenue and working capital within the firm. This encompasses assisting with WIP management, raising invoices accurately and efficiently, allocating receipts received, and chasing for overdue bills. There will at times also be an overlap with the purchase ledger team, which means you will also need to assist with coding invoices and expenses to matters. Overall, this role is supporting the finance team to provide a high quality service to our clients with the ability to work quickly and efficiently as a team.

Knowledge/Experience

• Minimum 1 year of finance or credit control experience, ideally in a professional services environment
• History of working with international clients and VAT
• Have a logical, and organised mind-set and are good with numbers
• Great interpersonal and communications skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Self-disciplined time management
• Good team working skills, ability to collaborate with others easily
• The ability to work to strict deadlines
• An aptitude for IT (especially Excel and other accounting software)

Specific Accountabilities of the Role

• WIP management – Assist Project Leads on managing their WIP throughout the life of their respective matters, providing ad hoc reports and reviewing regularly. This may involve reallocating WIP between files or processing write offs after approval with the CFO
• Invoicing – raising periodic bills at the request of Project Leads and ensuring all bills that are required to be raised are completed before we close the sales ledger on working day two post month end. Ensure invoices are raised in accordance with our internal billing requirements, on time, and accurately that meet the needs of our clients, allowing them to swiftly pay them
• Approval and Sending of invoices – Chase for bill approvals and deal with any required amendments whilst working with fee earners. Ensure bills are sent out to clients within two days of posting
• VAT compliance – ensuring we remain compliant with HMRC regulations
• Disbursement ledger – Where overlap is required, ensure that the Purchase Ledger is accurately maintained and disbursements and expenses are coded promptly and correctly to matters to allow them to be billed to clients promptly. Assist the expense management team in coding and posting disbursements to matters so they can be included on bills.
• Purchase orders – allocating supplier POs to our invoices to ensure payment is not delayed. This can be on external systems.
• Responsible for posting client/office receipts daily and notifying relevant people
• Client to office transfers (CTOs) – collating information and processing client to office transfers regularly, including payments in line with the SRA guidelines.
• Responsible for the monthly closure of the sales ledger and assist with WIP valuation
• File closure – closing down files after clearing all balances to ensure we remain compliant. Work alongside the Compliance team to achieve this.

Life at Schillings

Given our audacious (and successful) business strategy, it is not surprising that Schillings has a very strong culture. The atmosphere is highly collaborative and focused on excellence. We have worked hard over the years to develop a coaching culture and are remarkably non-hierarchical, especially given our roots as a law firm. Schillings has adopted a set of values to put at the heart of this change and they reflect the intention and tenor of our ambitious plans. They are: ‘Innovative; Bold; United; and Excellent’. Our client list speaks for the outstanding results that have been delivered over many years and the task now is to grow without losing any of the commitment to delivering for clients or the service ethos. Finding people who share our values and can thrive in this environment is key to our success.

It takes a unique mix of people to create something truly great. We appreciate that diversity of thought, background and culture creates the best environment to truly innovate, solve problems and achieve our goals. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds – if you are driven and want to achieve your best then we will give you the platform and support to succeed.

Please let us know if there are any extenuating circumstances we should consider, or any adjustments we may need to make to our selection process, when making your application.