Senior Billing Co-ordinator

Who we are

We are one of the largest international law firms in the world. With over 30 offices across the globe, we strive to exceed the expectations of our clients, providing them with the highest-quality advice and legal insight, which combines the firm’s global standards with in-depth local expertise.

Our firm, work and people span jurisdictions, cultures, and languages. We offer our clients a truly international perspective. We believe every career should be rewarding and stimulating - full of opportunities to learn, thrive, and grow. That’s why we’re so proud of our inclusive, friendly, and team-based approach to work.

Our one firm global strategy is focused on targeted growth led by the needs of our core clients, those who we can best support with the breadth and depth of Clifford Chance expertise, across the sectors and geographies, which matter most to them.

You’ll find our clients in commercial and industrial sectors, the financial investor community, governments, regulators, trade bodies, and not-for-profit organisations. But no matter who they are or why they’ve reached out to us, we provide a world-class service every step of the way. And that’s possible thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit and conscientious approach to work that you’ll find across all of our teams.

Whichever area of the business you join, you’ll become an integral part an innovative, diverse and ambitious team of people. Clifford Chance is a place where the brightest minds and the best of colleagues meet.

 

The role

Clifford Chance's Finance team is at the heart of its strategy. The department is involved in managing accounts, budgets and forecasts, providing trend and competitor analysis and other statistical support for partner presentations, as well as cash management, remuneration and internal audit, ultimately ensuring that the firm is compliant, efficient and profitable.

You will be assisting the London billing team in issuing bills by doing a multitude of tasks in order for a bill to successfully be issued and paid.  We have a monthly target across London.

Our strength comes from our teamwork and working together as a highly talented and collaborative team.

 

Who you will work with

The billing function in London supports all partners in the London office and assists with the management of their work in progress with the purpose of drafting and issuing bills.  You will predominantly be working with Partners, Managing Associates, Practice Assistants, Billing Advisors and Warsaw Billing Assistants and to a lesser extent the Client Centric Billers and eBilling Team and our Delhi Finance Team.

 

What you will be responsible for

The specific purpose of this role is to provide assistance and support to the partners and the billing team within the London Office.  The role is extremely busy, and you will be required to adhere to firm policies and procedures.  You need to be able to work independently as well as part of a team and be able to work to tight deadlines.

 

What you will do

Support and guidance to Partners.

As you will be assisting up to 15 partners you need to be able to prioritise your workload effectively and be able to interpret various instructions.  You will find you have exceptionally busy periods, particularly the last week of each month, quarter ends and year end, when overtime will be expected in accordance with our overtime policy.

Operational Activities

• Partner/ Managing Associate Billing Meetings
• Ensuring new matters are set up in line with client agreements
• Conducting finance review and input stages in Intapp
• Ensuring bills are prepared in accordance with client agreements and the firms processes
• Amending, authorising, finalising and emailing bills
• Collating documentation to go with bills
• Monitoring and actioning requests received via email
• Day-to-day billing support of the Partners
• Updating information within GPMS/Intapp
• Interacting with Partners, Fee Earners and Practice Assistants
• Chase outstanding draft bills (to include outstanding timesheets)
• Producing periodic reports
• Ad-hoc queries
• Escalation of issues/problems

Tasks

• Amend attachments/breakdowns (transfers / time splits) as part of the billing process
• Prepare Matter Review Reports and Matching Excel Reports
• Prepare pre bill guides / draft invoices / breakdowns
• Amend pre bill / draft invoices / breakdowns
• Update matters from ebilling validation report
• Reviewing, updating the WIP tool to assist and support billing forecasts in achieving monthly billing targets
• Deliver bills (including CC Worldwide bills) and ebills in the correct format
• PDF of bills
• Collating and filing all bill papers in the relevant network drive
• Time/costs transfers and write offs in accordance with the Clifford Chance policy
• Cancel invoices, produce credit notes and reissue bills (same day) where applicable
• Collating and filing cancelled bill papers and applicable credit notes in the relevant network drive
• Follow up with Partners/Managing Associates for drafts / settled bills
• Viewing detail within matter financials
• Liaise with offshore team on specific billing tasks
• Deliver a collaborative and pro-active approach in working with the collections team throughout the billing and collections process

Reports

• Run WIP reports via the Partner Dashboards
• Run and review open draft reports for your partners
• Run and review matching anticipated report for your partners
• Run and review prebill time report for your partners
• Diarise to run specific prebill guides and/or matter review reports

Report matter financials

• Time and costs on clock (identify standard rate and contract rate)
• Outstanding invoices (where applicable to billing process)

Intapp/Matter Maintenance

• Update phases and tasks
• Add / Remove quoted fee detail
• Update rates, by either a rate set or applying project specific rates
• Update billing address, tax/zero rated, print formats, workflow person
• Matter discounts
• Update purchase order numbers, payable by info, client reference, cost number and any other info that is client specific

Escalation

• Providing timely and accurate feedback to the Billing Manager or Assistant Billing Manager
• Escalation of issues/problems/concerns to the Billing Manager or Assistant Billing Manager
• Assigning tasks to the Warsaw Billing Assistants (where applicable)
• Assisting with the identification of Client reporting requirements
• Various adhoc queries and problem solving.

 

Your experience

Skills:

You should be able to demonstrate excellent organisational skills, with an aptitude to follow processes, and instructions, plus understand new concepts quickly.

You will need a flexible working approach and the confidence to communicate, both written and verbally, with people at all levels.

You should be able to demonstrate a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail.

You should be able to demonstrate excellent data entry skills.

Experience:

The role holder will have previous experience of working within a billing or revenue team, ideally within a Professional Service firm environment. 

Knowledge:

You will be able to demonstrate technical knowledge and expertise of a global professional services practice management system (Keystone, Elite, CMS or SAP), together with a sound knowledge of Excel and Word.

You will have a good understanding of the financial processes that underpin billing activities, and the ability to apply these when dealing with the requirements of Billing Advisors and Coordinators, Partners and the clients with whom they work. 

Qualifications:

GCSE's grade A-C including Maths or equivalent.

 

How we will support you

From your first day with us, you will have varied opportunities to continuously grow and develop your skills and knowledge. From formal training, informal coaching and mentoring through to skills-based and technical training and on the job learning.

Much about this role will be on the job training, specifically around the processes and procedures we have in place in order to successfully submit invoices. Notwithstanding you can access the firm's academy website for personal training which covers technical skills through to improving your confidence and resilience

We are conscious of workplace wellbeing, and we have a designated team member who is a mental health first aider, we run a variety of social events for networking these operate on different scales and can vary in size from just the billing team or the wider partnership team.

 

Hybrid working

This role follows our 'balanced' hybrid working approach and as long as business needs allow, you will be supported to work in a hybrid way with the expectation of working from the office for a minimum of 50% of your time.

 

What we offer including our broad range of benefits and working environment

When you join Clifford Chance, you will have access to a broad range of benefits to support you across many aspects of your personal and professional life including financial, wellbeing, lifestyle, and family friendly benefits. For more information on what we offer specifically in the UK, please visit our What We Offer page on our career site. 

 

Equal opportunities

At Clifford Chance, we understand that our true asset is our people. Inclusion is good for our team and their families, our firm and society. 

We are committed to treating all employees and applicants fairly and equally regardless of their gender, gender identity and expression, marital or civil partnership status, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, social or economic background, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation, or age.  This applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment including pay, promotion, training, transfer and every other aspect of employment.

We have a variety of flourishing employee networks. These networks are a place for colleagues to share experiences and advocate for change wherever they see an opportunity for improvement.

Our goal is to deliver an equality of opportunity, an equality of aspiration and an equality of experience to everyone who works in our firm.

Find out more about our inclusive culture here