Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Billing Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Billing Manager is responsible for leading billing operations, invoice generation, accounts receivable management, billing system administration, and revenue reporting. This role ensures billing accuracy, compliance with accounting standards and company policy, timely cash application, dispute resolution, and continuous optimization of billing workflows and automation to improve cash flow and customer satisfaction.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Billing Specialist / Billing Analyst
Accounts Receivable Specialist / AR Supervisor
Revenue Analyst or Finance Analyst (Billing-focused)

Advancement To:

Director of Billing & Revenue Operations
Head of Revenue Operations / VP of Finance Operations
Finance Director / Controller

Lateral Moves:

Revenue Operations Manager
Accounts Receivable Manager
Order-to-Cash (O2C) Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own the end-to-end billing lifecycle for recurring and one-time revenue: design, schedule, execute, and validate invoice runs to ensure invoices are accurate, complete, and delivered on time across multiple billing models (subscription, usage-based, milestone, professional services).
Manage the accounts receivable function including cash application, unapplied cash research, aging analysis, and follow-up to reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) and improve cash conversion.
Lead month-end and quarter-end billing close activities, ensuring all deferred revenue, accruals, adjustments, and invoices are reconciled for accurate financial close and timely revenue recognition per ASC 606 / IFRS 15.
Develop and maintain billing policies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and controls to ensure compliance with GAAP, SOX (if applicable), and internal audit requirements.
Own dispute and query resolution: investigate billing discrepancies, partner with sales, customer success, and legal to resolve disputes, issue credit memos or adjustments, and implement preventive actions.
Configure, administer, and optimize billing systems and integrations — ERP and subscription billing platforms (e.g., NetSuite, Oracle, SAP, Zuora, Aria, Chargebee) and CRM integrations (e.g., Salesforce) — to automate invoice generation, pricing, and tax calculation.
Design and implement process improvements and automation across order-to-cash, including scripting, workflow automation, configuration changes, and RPA initiatives to reduce manual intervention and error rates.
Monitor and report on billing KPIs (invoiced revenue, DSO, aging buckets, dispute volume, billing accuracy, collections effectiveness) and deliver actionable insights to finance leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
Lead, coach, and scale a high-performing billing and AR team: hire, develop, set performance goals, conduct reviews, and ensure team adherence to SLAs and quality standards.
Oversee collections strategy and segmentation: prioritize accounts for escalation, manage aging remediation plans, set credit limits, and escalate high-risk or overdue accounts to leadership or outside collections as needed.
Perform regular billing reconciliations between billing system, general ledger, revenue accounting, and bank statements to ensure data integrity and timely resolution of reconciling items.
Drive pricing and contract compliance: validate that invoices reflect negotiated contract terms, discounts, commissions, and special pricing; partner with contracts and sales ops to resolve inconsistencies.
Manage multi-jurisdictional billing complexities including taxability, VAT/GST, invoicing rules, withholding tax, and regulatory requirements across domestic and international customers.
Support implementations, system upgrades, and cross-functional projects (ERP migrations, subscription billing adoption, CRM-billing sync) as the subject matter expert for billing requirements and test plans.
Create and maintain billing templates, invoice formats, and customer-facing documentation to support billing clarity and reduce disputes.
Collaborate with revenue recognition and accounting teams to ensure billing activities align with recognized revenue schedules, deferred revenue roll-forwards, and audit-ready documentation.
Conduct root cause analysis for recurring billing errors and implement corrective actions, process changes, and preventive controls to reduce billing exceptions.
Partner with sales ops and customer success to validate orders, SOWs, renewals, cancellations, upgrades, downgrades, and proration calculations to ensure bill-to accuracy.
Manage third-party billing relationships, outsourced invoicing, and collections vendors; define KPIs and SLAs and monitor vendor performance.
Prepare and present billing and collections performance reports to finance leadership and executive stakeholders, and lead continuous improvement initiatives informed by data.
Ensure high level of customer service by providing timely answers to billing inquiries, building strong relationships with strategic customers, and participating in customer escalations when required.
Implement and maintain data security, segregation of duties, and access controls for billing systems to protect sensitive customer and financial information.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc financial analysis and provide billing-specific inputs to cash flow forecasting and working capital planning.
Assist finance and revenue accounting teams during internal and external audits by preparing schedules, supporting documentation, and process narratives.
Contribute to cross-functional projects such as product launches, pricing changes, and sales promotions by validating billing implications and system readiness.
Provide training materials and conduct workshops for internal teams (sales, customer success, finance) on billing processes, invoice interpretation, and dispute workflows.
Maintain and update the billing knowledge base and runbooks to support continuity and reduce onboarding time for new team members.
Participate in vendor selection and evaluation for billing and collections solutions by documenting requirements, conducting vendor tests, and scoring fit/gap analyses.
Support system testing, UAT, and data migrations for billing system changes; create test cases, validate results, and document defects.
Maintain data hygiene and master data governance for bill-to accounts, pricing masters, tax codes, and payment terms to reduce billing exceptions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deep experience with billing and subscription systems (Zuora, Chargebee, Aria) and ERPs (NetSuite, Oracle, SAP) — configuration, integrations, and administration.
Strong understanding of revenue recognition rules (ASC 606 / IFRS 15) and practical experience reconciling billing to recognized revenue.
Advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, macros) for reporting and reconciliations.
SQL proficiency for extracting and analyzing billing, AR, and transactional data from relational databases.
Familiarity with CRM integrations (Salesforce) and order-to-cash data flows between sales, billing, and finance systems.
Experience with accounts receivable processes: cash application, unapplied payments, aging, and collections strategy.
Knowledge of taxability, VAT/GST, and multi-jurisdictional invoicing requirements.
Experience implementing process automation (RPA, workflow tools) and integrating APIs for billing system automation.
Strong financial controls experience, including SOX controls, segregation of duties, and audit readiness.
Exposure to business intelligence and reporting tools (Tableau, Power BI, Looker) for KPI dashboards and executive reporting.
Familiarity with electronic billing and payment systems (ACH, SEPA, credit card gateways) and bank reconciliation processes.
Experience managing billing integrations during system migrations, upgrades, and large-scale IT projects.

Soft Skills

Strong leadership and team management: hiring, mentoring, developing, and retaining billing and AR talent.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management with the ability to translate technical billing issues into business impact for finance, sales, and customer teams.
Detail-oriented and analytical mindset with the ability to perform root cause analysis and implement durable solutions.
Customer-focused approach to handle billing escalations while protecting revenue and company policy.
Process improvement mindset with a bias for automation, standardization, and measurable outcomes.
Time management and prioritization skills in a fast-paced environment with competing month-end and customer demands.
Negotiation and conflict resolution skills for collections and dispute settlements.
Adaptability and resilience to lead change during system implementations and business model transformations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s plus professional certification (CPA, CMA) or advanced degree (MBA) preferred.
Relevant certification or training in ASC 606, revenue recognition, or billing systems is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Accounting
Finance
Business Administration
Information Systems (for billing systems & integrations)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

5–10 years of progressively responsible experience in billing, accounts receivable, revenue operations, or finance.

Preferred:

7+ years leading billing or order-to-cash teams, with hands-on experience in subscription or SaaS billing environments, ERP and subscription billing platform implementations, and demonstrated success in reducing DSO and dispute volume.