Collections Manager

Full-time

Fairfax, VA

Educational Services

About the position

The Collections Manager directs departmental activities in a manner that applies policies fairly, maximizes service, and ensures procedures support fiscal responsibility and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for the supervision of the Account Loan Management team to deliver exemplary service to students, as well as internal and external customers.
• Ensures staff is knowledgeable with office policies and procedures and committed to the highest level of customer service.
• Coordinates and assists with appropriate outreach to students with past due balances, and handles escalated matters as needed.
• Responsible for all aspects of performance management including training, goal setting, monitoring and delivery of work efforts, and providing feedback through verbal updates and written performance reviews to the team.
• Adheres to legal and university policies and procedures and undertakes disciplinary actions as needed.
• Responsible for financial controls in collections and university or other loan programs.
• Develops and maintains a program that reduces defaulted student accounts write-off cost by focusing on earlier identification and intervention of 'at risk' accounts before the start of the collection process.
• Monitors and evaluates operational effectiveness, and affects change required for improvements.
• Enforces Commonwealth Accounting Policies and Procedures (CAPP) Manual and Virginia Code requirements regarding past due receivables thereby managing risk and ensuring proper fiscal stewardship of university resources.
• Ensures loan programs are maintained following university and federal requirements.
• Assists General Accounting with completing research related to clearing account reconciliation.
• Meets internal deadlines set for reconciliations.
• Performs other related departmental duties as needed.

Requirements

• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Experience in collections (typically at least 2 years) and supervisory experience (typically at least 2 years) in a customer service environment.
• Experience in accounts receivable.
• Knowledge of collection laws.
• Excellent written and verbal communication abilities.
• Proven organizational abilities to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Demonstrated leadership and management skills, including supervising a team, triaging and assigning tasks, conducting staff hiring, training, development, and overseeing performance evaluations.
• May need to work during the university winter break.

Nice-to-haves

• Bachelor's degree in related field.
• Demonstrated supervisory experience in a financial or accounting organization.
• Experience helping students navigate financial systems to successfully persist in their studies.
• Understanding of the higher education landscape.
• Ability to develop effective collection strategies.
• Ability to manage difficult conversations with debtors.