Credit Controller job interview

geek84

Hi Folks

I shall be going for a credit control vacancy interview in the next few days. Although I have been to a fair few similar interviews before, can someone be kind enough to tell me what type of questions can be asked at the interview?

I particularly want to know what is meant debtor days & average debtor days. Also, what can I say when asked about the total values of the ledgers that I have been responsible in the past. I do know individual accounts and how much they owed in a particular month etc

Finally, do you think I should look up the prospective employer's company on the Companies House website to get some facts and figures for the interview?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Marga

hi , i have been working as a credit controller since April

Debtors days and average debtors days are two analysis that are done to check how long it takes the debt to be collected. It is very useful to calculate then late payment charges, or take decisions like putting the customer on a stop credit due to bad reputation on payments.

I do manage a £36M ledger with over 280 different customers , some large companies some small ones. The value of the ledger is NOT that important. The important bit is to prioritise and organise your month in advance and dedicate time to learn and find the strengths and weaknesses of each account/customer. I have my normal salary and then we have targets to meet to ensure the debt is collected , we have targets for Prior Debt, 90 Days,60 Days etc....
Also you might be asked about accounts on different currencies, i have accounts that the customers trade in £ and Euros and US dollars.

Finally when i went onto the interview i was asked what i knew about the collections team and how they impacted in the company.

The way our company is spread is we have a big finance department where the collections team (or accounts receivable) is made of sales ledger team, credit assessment team and credit controllers team. We have some doings with our accounts payable team for contras and in case we need to stop payments to suppliers if the work is not completed etc for one of our customers which prevents the invoices from being paid

I was also asked how i would deal with situations where the customer refuses to pay.


I hope everything goes well!

If you need any more detailed tasks or something like that let me know

geek84

Hi Marga

Many Thanks indeed for your response.

You state that - Debtors days and average debtors days are two analysis that are done to check how long it takes the debt to be collected.

Can you please tell me how I calculate these? Would I need to calculate it for each individual customer? If so, it would take a very long time!!

Finally, I know you said it wasn't important, but what shall I say if the interviewer asks me the value of the ledger that I responsible for in my past role? Can you give me any realistic figures?


Thanks in advance for your response.

Rinske

Hi Geek84,

Debtor days and average debtor days are calculated on the totals, rather than the individual customers.

The calculation is total debtors at the end of the year divided by the (credit)sales times 365 to give it in days. Average debtors is debtors value at the start and end of the year added up and divided by two and then divided by credit sales times 365.

As for the realistic figures on ledger value, that totally depends on the type of company and the size.

You could have a look at the financial figures of the company, which gives you an indication on how big they are and how well they are doing and other things that might be helpful, but it depends on how much preparation you want to do and think they expect you to do. Usually it's more for yourself then that you use it in the interview.

geek84

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

I am thinking of getting the company accounts from the Companies House website.

Would you be able to advice how I go about doing that? I did go on the website before and got a bit lost!

Many Thanks

geek84

Hi Folks

Can you please advice what questions I could ask the interviewer at the end of the interview.

Many Thanks

Paul C

Think about what previous experience you can bring to the role - where you can add value.

Have you got any ideas about improving income collection? Speeding up payments, reducing bad debts. Probably lots online around this or in study books. Eg discounts for paying early, phoning people up rather than just chasing by letters.

Try and ask genuine questions at the end - that have not been addressed in the interview. If you have a mental blank at the end just say “thank you very much but you have answered all my questions during the interview”. But try and knock out one or two! May be something to find out about in-house or external training opportunities? Take a piece of card or paper in with a couple questions on it for when they ask you.