Billing Team Leader

What you will be doing:

• Lead, coach and develop billing team members, creating a collaborative, accountable and service-led culture aligned with group values.
• Plan and allocate workloads, monitor capacity and provide appropriate cover for business-as-usual activity, billing peaks and planned change.
• Set clear objectives and service expectations; provide regular feedback, one-to-ones, performance support and development planning.
• Support recruitment, induction, training, succession planning and the development of billing expertise across the team.
• Create a culture of continuous learning, knowledge sharing and constructive challenge, enabling team members to take end-to-end ownership.

• Oversee the accurate and timely completion of the end-to-end billing process for teams and brands within scope, from pre-bill preparation and review through to bill production, approval, posting and appropriate filing or delivery.
• Coordinate standard, composite, multi-payer, split, eBilling and other complex billing requirements, escalating material exceptions or risks appropriately.
• Ensure billing instructions, narratives, rates, discounts, disbursements, write-offs, VAT treatment, payer details, budgets and billing cycles are applied accurately.
• Ensure all billing practices, and processes remain compliant with SARs
• Work closely with credit control to monitor and embed purchase order requirements into the billing process.
• Maintain effective daily, weekly, month-end and year-end routines so deadlines are met without creating avoidable period-end congestion.
• Monitor queues, aged items, rejected bills, eBilling failures, unbilled WIP and other exceptions, ensuring prompt investigation, resolution and escalation.
• Provide hands-on operational support for complex or high-priority matters where required, while retaining appropriate oversight of the wider service.

• Support the design, implementation and phased expansion of the central billing function, helping to stabilise transferred activity before scaling across group.
• Help define and embed common billing policies, workflows, controls, service levels, quality checks, standard operating procedures and clear ownership points.
• Capture, map and challenge existing processes, identifying duplication, control gaps and opportunities to simplify or automate.
• Support testing, implementation and adoption of system and process changes, including effective use and configuration of Aderant and associated billing or eBilling tools.

• Act as a principal day-to-day contact for billing stakeholders across designated brands, developing a strong understanding of their operating models, clients, services and billing priorities.
• Build trusted relationships with partners, fee earners, brand leadership, finance colleagues and business support teams, ensuring expectations, responsibilities and service standards are clear.
• Work closely with the bids team and client partners to identify and seamlessly feed in new key client/framework requirements.
• Provide practical guidance on billing requirements and best practice.

• Support effective management of the billing lifecycle and WIP by maintaining visibility of work awaiting action, billing readiness, exceptions and delivery against agreed timetables.
• Work with revenue control, credit control, commercial finance and operational colleagues to improve the flow from work undertaken to accurate billing and onward cash collection.
• Identify trends, recurring causes of delay, revenue leakage and avoidable rework, liaise with commercial managers , agreeing corrective actions, and futureproofing.

• Maintain a robust quality-control framework for billing, including proportionate review, exception checking, reconciliation.
• Ensure activity is undertaken in accordance with internal finance policies, delegated authorities, information security requirements, client terms and applicable regulatory and statutory requirements, including VAT and the SRA Accounts Rules where relevant.
• Ensure client and matter billing requirements, outside counsel guidelines and eBilling rules are understood, documented and reflected in delivery.
• Maintain accessible and current process documentation, supporting internal and external audit activity as required.
• Identify potential errors, control failures or service risks early, contain their impact, escalate appropriately and support remediation.

• Monitor service quality, turnaround times, accuracy, stakeholder experience and team productivity against agreed measures and service levels.
• Use data, team insight and stakeholder feedback to prioritise improvements that reduce rework, strengthen controls and improve the client and colleague experience.
• Lead or contribute to billing and wider Finance Operations projects, ensuring operational requirements are understood and changes are embedded effectively.
• Maintain productive working relationships across Finance Operations and other group services, resolving hand-off issues and supporting joined-up end-to-end processes.
• Champion standardisation and automation where these improve control and service, while applying sound judgement where a tailored approach is commercially or operationally justified.

• Detail-oriented with a high level of accuracy.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Proactive and self-motivated.
• Strong ethical standards and integrity.

What you will need:

• Substantial billing or revenue-cycle experience gained within a legal or professional services environment.
• Experience of supervising, coaching or leading a team in a high-volume, deadline-driven operation.
• Strong understanding of end-to-end billing processes, WIP management, financial controls and the dependencies between billing, revenue and collections.
• Experience of eBilling platforms, client billing portals and structured client billing guidelines.
• Working knowledge of UK VAT and, where relevant to the work in scope, the SRA Accounts Rules and cross-border billing considerations.
• Experience of handling complex billing requirements and resolving operational exceptions with sound judgement and attention to detail.
• Proven ability to build credible working relationships with partners, senior stakeholders and operational teams.
• Experience of improving processes, documenting controls and supporting successful operational or systems change.
• Strong analytical and organisational skills, with the ability to interpret information, prioritise competing requirements and meet strict deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical billing matters clearly to varied audiences.
• High level of integrity, discretion and awareness of information security and confidentiality requirements.

• Experience of Aderant, or a comparable professional services practice-management or finance system.
• Experience of establishing, centralising or scaling a shared billing service across multiple brands, practices, offices or entities.
• Advanced Excel skills and experience producing operational reporting or dashboards.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Benefits, Agile Working and Additional information