The Role
The Working Capital Controller is a senior finance role with end‑to‑end accountability for the Australia office's working capital performance across work in progress (WIP), billing, collections, debt, and trust account administration. The role leads a team of working capital professionals and acts as a trusted commercial partner to Partners and senior lawyers, supporting compliant, profitable, and timely delivery of client matters.
Working closely with Partners, Lawyers, and specialist teams (including Business Development, Legal Practice Management, Tax, and Commercial), the role balances strong commercial judgement with rigorous control and policy compliance across local, regional, and global requirements.
This role plays a critical part in protecting cash flow, profitability, and financial discipline, while enabling Partners and lawyers to deliver successful client outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
1. Business Partnering & Stakeholder Management
Build strong, credible relationships with Partners, lawyers, practice support colleagues, and clients; act as a trusted commercial adviser to influence decision‑making.
Proactively follow up with Partners and practice support colleagues on agreed actions to resolve matter, billing, and collection issues.
Respond to financial and commercial enquiries from clients, Partners, and lawyers relating to client matters.
2. Commercial Support & Matter Economics
Partner with Business Development teams at matter inception to ensure new matters are structured in line with firm policies, with optimal profitability and minimal tax risk.
Review and support rate setting for Australian matters, including promoting use of the APAC rate card for Australian support on overseas‑led matters and maintaining awareness of local, regional, and global client rate agreements.
Perform in‑progress reviews of matters and proactively escalate commercial, recovery, and profitability risks to Management, Tax, and Commercial teams.
Champion use of in-house commercial tools and reporting (including MRPT and Power BI dashboards), guiding Partners and lawyers on ongoing profitability analysis.
Support delivery of commercial awareness training to Partners and lawyers in collaboration with the Commercial team.
3. Working Capital Management
Lead regular financial review meetings with Partners and Senior Lawyers covering fees, profitability, billing status, WIP, and debt.
Perform monthly WIP provision assessments in compliance with IFRS 15, including forecasting and reporting the revenue impact of significant provision movements.
Assess and recommend WIP and doubtful debt provisions in line with firm policy.
Closely monitor matter progress and recovery, anticipating WIP write‑offs and uncollectable debts, and escalating risks early to enable timely intervention.
Drive collections performance by focusing on long‑outstanding debts and partnering with Partners to achieve timely recovery.
Set and monitor monthly billing and collection targets based on WIP and debt profiles.
4. Controls, Governance & Team Leadership
Provide strong leadership, coaching, and direction to the Working Capital team to deliver high‑quality billing and working capital support.
Ensure working capital operations comply with firm policies, accounting standards, and local regulatory requirements through training and a robust controls framework.
Act as an approver for billing and working capital controls within Control Manager.
Collaborate with Working Capital Controllers across the global network on cross‑border matters, billing issues, and best‑practice sharing; contribute to regional and global finance initiatives.