Cash App Team Leader

The posting

A career in IBM Consulting is built on long-term client relationships and close collaboration worldwide. You’ll work with leading companies across industries, helping them shape their hybrid cloud and AI journeys. With support from our strategic partners, robust IBM technology, and Red Hat, you’ll have the tools to drive meaningful change and accelerate client impact. At IBM Consulting, curiosity fuels success. You’ll be encouraged to challenge the norm, explore new ideas, and create innovative solutions that deliver real results. Our culture of growth and empathy focuses on your long-term career development while valuing your unique skills and experiences.

Your role and responsibilities:

The Cash Application Team Leader is responsible for managing and overseeing the end-to-end cash application process. This includes daily customer payment posting, account reconciliations, and the performance of the cash application team to ensure accurate financial records and clean ledger balances. This role involves leading a team, optimizing processes, driving improvements, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to enhance cash flow and working capital. You should be flexible to work in shifts.

Key Responsibilities:

Business related:

1. Works on rule-based decision making and leads transaction processing of (depending on the scope of the contract) daily customer payment posting and account reconciliations according to agreed process maps and Desk Top Procedures or other guidelines agreed with client.
2. Leads day to day related activities including interaction with stakeholders, client (manage meetings in effective way, prepare agenda, issue logs, and presentations according to Governance model) or third-party providers.
3. Delivery high quality, customer focused service to clients and provide timely and accurate processing of complex cash application transactions and all related tasks within agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and control frameworks.
4. Lead, set and achieve operational objectives, track, and report service performance Makes timely decisions by balancing the need for action with the need of an objective, fact-based perspective that optimizes data, intuition, and expertise.
5. Anticipates (highlights in advance any potential slippage) and takes action to create an opportunity and/or to avoid future crisis (provides potential solutions and works jointly with internal and external clients to corrects existing problems promptly).
6. Actively participates and manages the transition and stabilization phase.

Per Process:

1. Order Management: Oversee the order processing cycle, ensuring timely and accurate order entry and fulfillment. Collaborate with sales, logistics, and supply chain teams to resolve order discrepancies and improve efficiency.
2. Invoicing and Billing: Ensure accurate and timely invoicing in compliance with company policies and legal regulations. Monitor invoice generation, distribution, and follow-ups to address customer queries or disputes.
3. Credit and Collections: Manage credit assessments, approvals, and limit reviews for customers. Supervise collection activities to minimize overdue balances and bad debt risk. Build and maintain relationships with customers to resolve payment issues effectively.
4. Dispute and Deduction Management: Lead the resolution of disputes and claims by coordinating with internal stakeholders and customers. Analyze trends in disputes and implement corrective measures to prevent recurrence.
5. Cash Application: Oversee accurate allocation and posting of payments to customer accounts. Address unallocated payments or mismatches promptly to ensure account reconciliation.

Process Improvements:

1. Identify inefficiencies in the Cash Application process and implement solutions to enhance productivity and reduce costs and drive automation initiatives to streamline Cash Application processes and improve accuracy.
2. Continually strives to simplify, standardize and improve processes. Seeks and exchanges information, ideas, and concepts to actively support any CI initiatives and/or tools improvements.
3. Engages in and drives all innovation and continuous improvement initiatives to help to achieve Continuous Improvement targets.
4. Provide insights and recommendations to management for process improvements by using data analytics to drive decision-making and enhance Cash Application effectiveness.

Compliance and Governance:

1. Ensures adherence to internal controls, company policies, and legal regulations and assists in audits both internal and external and cooperates with auditors to make sure that the audit is completed on time.
2. Ensures valid escalation matrices on both internal and client side are up to date.
3. Ensures timely Desk Top Procedures update. Ensures that operating procedures are communicated to the team, understood and followed by them.
4. Track and report Cash Application performance metrics (e.g., daily deposits and cash posted reports, payment allocation and posting to customer account).

Reporting and Analysis: Cash Application Team Lead is responsible for providing regular reports and analysis on key Cash application metrics such as but not limited to payment allocation, completion of daily postings, and cash application accuracy. Monitors and communicates performance indicators to management, identifying risks and opportunities.

Leadership and Team Management: Manage, mentor, and develop the Cash Application team, fostering a collaborative and performance-driven environment. Conducts regular training to enhance team skills in Cash Application processes and tools.

1. Motivates and manages his/her team of F&A professionals. Organizes and prioritizes team’s work and executes it based on importance and impact. Commits significant time and effort to develop talents and capabilities of his employees through coaching and mentoring. Manage workload distribution and ensure adherence to SLAs and KPIs.
2. Ensures that the team is cross-trained/multi-skilled and proactive customer focused. In addition, Cash Application Team Lead continually strives to improve the cash application processes and motivate his/her team members to do the same also by encouraging people to run continuous improvement projects.
3. Ensures that cross training of backups/shadows is in place and knowledge is retained within the team. Special attention to be put on new joiners training (on the job training, proper support, documents walkthrough etc) and feedback providing to them on their work progression and development plans.
4. Ensures that the daily activities, both individual and team ones, are fulfilled according to the timetable, procedures, and business goals as agreed with the client based on Statement of Work (SOW).
5. Set goals, monitor performance, and provide coaching and feedback.
6. Act as a mentor for junior team members, be responsible for training of new joiners

1. Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting, or a related field.
2. With at least 6 years of experience in Order to Cash (O2C), with at least 3 years in a managerial/team leader capacity.
3. Strong understanding of OTC processes, ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle), and automation tools.
4. Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
5. Strong leadership and interpersonal skills with the ability to manage cross-functional teams.
6. Excellent understanding in financial reporting and data analysis.
7. Knowledge of relevant regulatory requirements and best practices in credit, collections, and invoicing.
8. Key Competencies: Customer-centric approach with strong communication and negotiation skills. Ability to handle complex processes and adapt to changing business needs. Focus on continuous improvement and innovation in OTC operations. This role plays a pivotal part in ensuring financial health and customer satisfaction, requiring a dynamic and results-oriented leader to drive OTC excellence.