
This post highlights important skills and qualities you need to have to be effective in your career as an accounts receivable manager and to include in your resume or CV.
Before we dive into it, let’s get to know who an accounts receivable manager is:
Who is an Accounts Receivable Manager?
An accounts receivable manager is one who oversees an organization’s financial department which handles the organization’s generated income.
They are responsible for overseeing the affairs of the financial department of the organization and the income inflow of the organization.
Top 15 Accounts Receivable Manager Skills
- IT Proficiency
Proficiency in information technology is a must-have skill for you as an accounts receivable manager.
It is one skill you should consider having all the time you are to be in this position.
There is the need for you to enhance your chances of excelling in this job through the use of technology.
This involves learning and working with some software applications available for the job you are doing.
There are software applications and gadgets you should know how to use as they are specially designed for use by some accounting and related professions.
When you are able to do this, then you will be able to meet up with the demands of producing an excellent job.
Not only executing an excellent job but also meeting up with deadlines and other timeframes given for you to execute the job.
2. Basic Mathematical Skills
As simple as this might look, yet it is very important that you pay attention to it.
The job you are to do as an accounts receivable manager is practically more of accounting and mathematics.
So, it is not going to be something you underrate.
Mathematics and accounting are the foundational knowledge of this job.
Therefore, having mathematical skills are important for the everyday execution of this job.
If your mathematical skills are poor, then there is every tendency that you will keep making some avoidable mistakes emanating from misplacement of figures and miscalculations.
3. Problem Solving Skills
Providing solutions to problems remains the essence of your employment in relation to the capacity you are asked to operate.
If you are not bringing solutions to the table when needed, then it means you are not really doing well in your job.
As a manager in the accounts receivable department, you are expected to handle issues with a level of professionalism.
You are expected to be one of the brightest and sharpest minds in the department.
Anything short of this expectation is not acceptable.
One thing is to know that you are under pressure to perform.
Another thing is to know how to get around the problems that you face in your job.
Basically speaking, you cannot be a good problem solver in the department if you are still caught up in old pattern of doing things.
4. Confidentiality
If you cannot handle discrete information in the department or organization, then you are not worthy to be the manager of the department.
This is a critical skill you must consider and work with all the days you remain the manager of the accounts receivable department.
As a manager, you are always in possession of some sensitive financial documents which need not be seen in the possession of some people, usually people who should not have access to those documents.
This means that in all your dealings in the department, be sure not to leak sensitive documents to people you should not.
This is because discrete information in the possession of the wrong persons could wreck a lot of havoc, which may not be easy to reverse.
5. Team Management
The team contributes a lot to the growth and expansion of the department and the organization at large and it is the duty of the accounts receivable manager to play a key role in developing the department and bringing it up to standard.
This can be done through several means, like providing healthy competition, delegation, and discipline when and where necessary, motivation etc.
There are many ways you can make this happen.
Whichever way you choose, the most important thing is for you to develop the team into a formidable unit.
Motivating the team starts with self-motivation, whereby you stay positive and motivate others in the workplace to do better than they have been doing.
When you keep your team motivated, you get the best out of them and that is something you wouldn’t want to miss in your job.
6. Accuracy
Accuracy entails doing your transactions with little or no mistakes whatever.
Is this a possible feat to achieve?
Well, the answer can be determined by you. But first you have to believe that you can be clinical and efficient in whatever thing you do in this job.
To achieve accuracy in your financial activities will demand a lot of focus and mental alertness.
You will need to be physically and mentally present in every transaction to be able to avoid mistakes or errors in the records you produce.
So, focus and mental alertness is needed in this job.
Also, you have to consider making use of equipment, like your computer to work on figures and formulas to make sure that you are sure of the result you have with you.
When you employ the services of a computer, you are sure to get what you want.
7. Good Analytical Skills
To manage things and people in the department and organization at large will require a high level of analytical skills.
This is because, as you have a lot of things to think about and make decisions on, to avoid making rash decisions, you will need to think deeply and analyze things before you make decisions.
So good analysis will be a skill you will need to prevent you from making decisions based on assumptions and sentiments.
How you really feel in this job is not what you work with, you work with the facts you were able to dig up while making your analysis.
Your analytical skills grow with your ability to think more deeply and not on the surface.
Try to understand that though you sometimes find yourself under pressure to make some critical decisions, yet it is important you resist the temptations of allowing the pressure becloud your sense of analysis and judgment.
8. Negotiation Skills
Negotiation is part of business life. It is something that is always resident as long as financial transactions are carried out on daily basis.
You should understand that the organization will always be faced with customers who may not pay up on the spot for services rendered.
So, one of the things you can help do is to negotiate on the method of payment and probably with the intention of making the whole process easy for the customer/client.
This is one of the many customer service skills you will need to have to make the customers happy with the organization.
It is during negotiation that you will be able to give the customer some good terms of payment, which will make it easy for the customer to pay and also help the organization retain the patronage of the customer even in the long run.
9. Report Writing Skills
It is not everyone in the department that is permitted or expected to write reports to the hierarchy of the organization about the financial activities of the accounts receivable department.
However, one of the set of people who might be tasked with this function is the accounts receivable manager.
As one of the people charged with the duty of writing reports about the financial transactions that go on in the department, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn how to write a readable, unambiguous, and meaningful report.
If that is the case, then you should know how to write a comprehensive financial report which may be needed probably at the end of the month to ascertain the cash inflow into the organization.
It is up to you to learn how to write a report.
10. Proven Work Experience
This remains one of the things that every employer will always look for in your resume.
Though you might be intelligent and probably have a good grade from school, it will be something of great concern to any employer to hire someone without a proven work experience from somewhere else.
That is why this is something you should not overlook when writing your resume for this position.
You should be able to present a resume that contains a good number of years you have worked as an accounts receivable manager or in a related job description.
That is why it is not really a bad idea to gather experience by doing some related jobs even though they don’t pay as much as you want.
The experience there is what should matter so much to you, not necessarily the salary.
11. Managerial Skills
Yes, this is the number one skill that is expected to be found in your accounts receivable manager resume.
You are basically a manager though in the department of accounts receivable.
So, management skills are the number one skill you should consider.
It is not enough though to have this skill clearly stated in your resume, but it is important that you have it inherent in you, or that you have taken your time to undergo some credible leadership trainings.
Also, note that management skills are to be upgraded from time to time to ensure that what you know today is what is needed today.
The qualities needed to succeed in this role change with time as well.
12. Multitasking/Prioritization
Two things are important to note and that is multitasking and prioritization.
Multitasking is one of the leadership/management qualities you will need.
You will do quite exceptionally well in your job if you are able to multitask and prioritize the tasks.
Let’s talk about multitasking.
Multitasking is a dimension of versatility and capacity building.
It is your ability to manage more than one task simultaneously.
Prioritization is one factor that can help you multitask.
That is to say that multitasking becomes meaningful if you are able to prioritize the different jobs you have at hand and execute them according to their relative importance and timeframe given to execute each of them.
13. Excellent Communication Skills
Management involves a lot of actions as well as talking.
Communication is a livewire and a good means of building and maintaining relationships in the organization.
So, to be a good and efficient manager, the art of communication should be well understood by you.
You should understand the dynamics and the important roles communication plays in your job and that of others in the department.
If you are not able to understand the dynamics and importance of communication in the department, you will end up abusing it and in turn shoot yourself in the foot due to poor communication skills you exhibit every day.
14. Creativity
A good accounts receivable manager is one of the most creative brains an accounts receivable department should have.
In other words, how to handle the affairs of the organization will definitely start from proper administration of the department (accounts receivable department).
And if the development and growth of the organization will start from the department, then the required creativity should come from the bigwigs of the department, e.g. the accounts receivable manager of the organization.
If you are poor in creativity, the department will suffer the effects.
When we talk about creativity, it is important to note that creativity is sometimes inherent and sometimes acquired through active and intentional learning.
But one thing is always certain in life: hard work will always beat talent any day any time.
15. Relationship Building
Relationship building is a basic and must-have skill for anyone desiring the job of an accounts receivable manager in any organization.
This is because there is no future for any organization when the staff of the organization have no working relationship among them.
Finding yourself working with different kinds of people in the workplace will demand a lot from you in order to build a working relationship with them.
One of those things you will need to do is to have empathy.
Nothing makes people feel special other than knowing that you feel the same way they feel.
This will endear them to you and give them the impression that they are special to you.
Relationship building is near impossible if you are not able to identify with the weaknesses of your fellow workers in the workplace and possibly help them get over them.
Accounts Receivable Manager Skills for Resume
If you are making a resume or CV for the accounts receivable manager position, then you can apply the skills and qualities presented in this post in making the core competence part of the resume.
This will prove to the hiring manager that you have the skills to be effective in your work and career as an accounts receivable manager.
Conclusion
The accounts receivable manager is an important figure in the accounts receivable department due to their role in managing the resources and staff of the department.
The 15 skills discussed above are some of the skills you need to succeed in the job of an accounts receivable manager with any organization.
These skills are important and could make the difference considering you have a lot of competitors vying for this job.