Group Debtors Manager

Dis-Chem Pharmacies in Midrand has an opportunity available for a Group Debtors Manager to join the Finance team. The main purpose of this role will be to lead the Group Debtors function by driving effective debt collection, accurate billing, revenue recovery, account administration, medical aid claims management, stakeholder engagement, financial reporting, and compliance. Accountable for maintaining healthy debtor books, improving cash flow, reducing aged debt, strengthening controls, managing key stakeholders and leading teams to achieve departmental objectives in line with company policies, and governance standards.

Minimum Requirements

Essential:

• Matric or equivalent Senior Certificate
• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting, Commerce, Credit Management or a related field
• Minimum 5 - 8 years' experience in Debtors, Credit Control, Accounts Receivable, and Finance
• Minimum 5 years' management experience leading multi-functional teams

Advantageous:

• CA (SA), Leadership or Management Qualification
• Experience managing large debtor books
• Retail, Healthcare, Pharmacy, FMCG, or Distribution industry experience

Roles & Responsibilities

Accounts Receivable Management and Debt Recovery:

• Manage the end-to-end administration, maintenance and control of debtor accounts across all debtor categories.
• Review and approve new account applications, credit limit changes, repayment arrangements, and account maintenance requests.
• Drive debt collection activities to maximise recoveries, reduce overdue balances and maintain healthy debtor books.
• Analyse aged debt reports, identify high-risk or distressed accounts, and escalate matters requiring legal, write-off or recovery action.
• Manage acknowledgment of debt, repayment plans, debt review accounts, estates, sequestrations, and legal handovers and attorney recovery progress.
• Oversee debtor statements, reconciliations, journals, receipts, allocations, adjustments and write-offs to ensure accuracy, completeness and policy compliance.
• Ensure debt write-offs are properly motivated, authorized and processed in line with company policy.
• Oversee attorney handovers and monitor external debt recovery progress where required.

Medical Aid Accounts, Claims and Recovery Management:

• Manage the medical aid debtor book across all business units to ensure accurate account administration and timely recovery.
• Monitor outstanding claims, rejected claims, unpaid transactions, and aged medical aid balances across schemes and administrators.
• Drive resolution of payment delays, administrator changes, system issues, pricing disputes, and processing errors.
• Review refund requests, store registrations, scheme onboarding and related supporting documents.
• Ensure claims systems support accurate claims processing, effective reporting and timely issue resolution.
• Review, approve and monitor debtor-related journals and accounting adjustments in line with approval mandates and financial controls.
• Liaise with pharmacies, dispensary, medical schemes, administrators, software vendors and customers to resolve complex claim, account and payment queries.

Billing, Revenue Recovery and Financial Controls:

• Oversee accurate billing and recovery of trade terms, commissions, logistics fees, advertising recoveries, sallies, promotions, and other revenue streams.
• Ensure invoicing complies with approved agreements, supporting documentation and financial control requirements.
• Manage account maintenance, invoices, credit notes, receipts, reconciliations, journals, allocations, and month-end processes.
• Review and approve financial transactions affecting debtor, billing and medical aid accounts, and maintain effective related controls.

Accounting, Finance Reporting and Business Integration Support:

• Support annual financial statements by providing accurate accounts receivable information, reconciliations, audit schedules and supporting documents.
• Prepare, review and validate balance sheet reconciliations, debtors’ disclosures, IFRS 9 expected credit loss calculations, impairments, provisions and related accounting entries.
• Analyse debtor days, collection performance, working capital indicators and recoverability trends, provisions and bad debt exposure to support financial reporting and business decision-making.
• Review, approve and monitor debtor-related journals and accounting adjustments in line with approval mandates and financial controls.
• Support new business integration by defining debtor accounting processes, reporting requirements, system controls and handover procedures.

Debtor Reporting, Performance Analysis and Control Oversight:

• Monitor debtor ageing, medical aid recoveries and collection performance against agreed targets.
• Analyse collection trends, recovery performance, account risks, and bad debt exposure to inform corrective action.
• Prepare accurate monthly management reports, dashboards and KPI updates on debtor ageing, recoveries, collections, medical aid performance and control effectiveness.
• Review bad debt provisions, impairments and related journals to ensure accuracy and compliance with financial reporting requirements.
• Ensure month-end and year-end debtor reporting is completed accurately, timeously and in line with finance requirements.
• Provide auditors with complete debtor reports, reconciliations and supporting documentation and maintain governance, control risk, oversight across debtor, billing and medical aid processes.
• Analyse collection trends, account risks, reporting gaps, control weaknesses and process improvement opportunities, and implement corrective actions.
• Maintain strong governance, internal controls and risk oversight across debtor, billing and medical aid processes.

Stakeholder Engagement, Escalation and Confidentiality Management:

• Build and maintain productive relationships with customers, administrators, pharmacies, stores, vendors, service providers, and internal departments.
• Plan resources, allocate workloads effectively and drive accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex debtor, billing, medical aid, fraud investigations and special projects initiatives.
• Protect confidential customer, financial and company information in line with company policies.
• Coordinate timely resolution of escalated queries, disputes and service concerns with relevant internal and external stakeholders.
• Provide clear feedback to stakeholders on account status, claim outcomes, recovery actions, risks and required next steps.
• Collaborate with finance, operations, pharmacies, legal, IT and external partners to resolve debtor, billing and medical aid matters.

Team Leadership, Performance and Resource Management:

• Lead, coach, develop and manage the Debtors’ teams to deliver departmental objectives.
• Set clear performance expectations, service standards, priorities and team objectives.
• Monitor productivity, service levels, work quality and team performance against agreed targets.
• Manage workforce matters, including leave, attendance, performance reviews, disciplinary processes, and employee relations.
• Identify training needs and facilitate ongoing skills development and promote a high-performance, customer-focused and compliant team culture.
• Plan resources, allocate workloads effectively and drive accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Compliance, Risk and Governance Oversight:

• Ensure debtor, billing, medical aid and financial administration processes comply with company policies, SOP’s, approval mandates, financial controls and applicable requirements.
• Monitor compliance with credit, debtor, medical aid, contractual, regulatory, health, safety and workplace requirements.
• Escalate fraud, theft, procedural breaches, control failures, busin