The Client Finance Lead acts as a liaison between finance and project teams to manage revenue recognition, billing, and financial reporting. They are responsible for maintaining financial governance, monitoring project budgets, and ensuring accurate documentation throughout the financial lifecycle of client jobs.
We are on the lookout for a Client Finance Lead. This role will act as a key liaison between finance, brand, and project management to ensure needed reporting and data is shared out to appropriate teams and revenue is properly recognized. The role will have a close working relationship with The Controller and Head of Finance as a key component of the role.
What You'll Be Doing:
Client and cross-functional partnership
Serve as the primary day-to-day finance contact for assigned clients, accounts, and project teams.
Partner with Account Management, Production, Business Affairs, Project Management, Media, and Accounting throughout the financial lifecycle of each job.
Participate in recurring client finance, budget, billing, WIP, and job-status meetings.
Provide client teams with timely visibility into project budgets, actual costs, commitments, billings, collections, and remaining available funds.
Proactively identify financial risks, unresolved issues, and opportunities, escalating material matters as appropriate.
Respond to internal and client questions related to budgets, estimates, invoices, purchase orders, job status, and financial reporting.
Job setup and financial governance
Own the financial setup and maintenance of client jobs and projects within the agency’s financial and project-management systems.
Review scopes of work, client estimates, fee arrangements, billing schedules, and approved budgets before opening jobs.
Confirm that jobs are supported by appropriate client authorization, including signed scopes, approved estimates, purchase orders, or other written authorization.
Maintain job-level documentation and ensure financial records agree with approved scopes, estimates, change orders, and client purchase orders.
Coordinate job-code creation and communicate coding instructions to Account Management, Production, Business Affairs, Media, and other participating departments.
Coordinate with Production, Business Affairs, Media, and Accounts Payable to identify missing vendor invoices and remaining financial obligations.
Support the administration of scope changes and change orders, ensuring incremental work is properly authorized, budgeted, and billable.
Perform regular job-level reconciliations throughout the project lifecycle.
Client billing
Own the preparation, review, and timely submission of client invoices for assigned accounts and projects.
Develop and maintain billing schedules aligned with contracts, scopes of work, project milestones, approved estimates, and client requirements.
Reconcile proposed billings to approved budgets, recognized revenue, WIP, incurred costs, prior invoices, and remaining client authorization.
Ensure that fees, labor, production, talent, media, travel, and other costs are billed in accordance with contractual terms.
Maintain accurate billing trackers and provide visibility into billed, unbilled, and forecasted amounts.
Resolve rejected invoices, missing documentation, portal issues, purchase-order discrepancies, and other billing exceptions.
WIP, AR, and Revenue support
Review job-level work in progress, unbilled costs, unbilled fees, deferred revenue, and other project balances as part of the monthly close process.
Maintain accurate WIP schedules and investigate aged, unsupported, or potentially non-billable balances.
Support Finance leadership and Accounting with monthly revenue-recognition calculations and related supporting documentation.
Monitor accounts receivable balances and invoice status for assigned clients.
Partner with Account Management to follow up on outstanding invoices.
Investigate payment delays, short payments, invoice deductions, client disputes etc, and escalate when necessary.
Support cash forecasting by providing informed collection timing for material client balances.
Assist with client profitability analysis, including labor performance, production margins, pass-through costs, over-service, write-offs, and scope changes.
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