Billing and Posting Clerks

Job purpose

To compile, compute and record billing and accounting data and to prepare itemised bills, invoices and statements for goods shipped and services rendered, so that customers are charged accurately and the billing records of the organisation are complete and correct.

Skills

• Working knowledge of billing and bookkeeping procedure — posting transactions, recording costs of goods and shipments, computing credit terms, discounts and shipment charges — with applied arithmetic, confident use of billing systems, and the ability to establish charges from rate books, manuals and government tax and tariff sources. Post-secondary study short of a degree is the norm, most incumbents having completed some college courses and others a high school diploma, plus one to two years of on-the-job learning.
• Contacts customers by telephone, e-mail and letter to obtain or relay account information, answers enquiries about rates, routing and billing errors, and consults sources such as insurance company representatives to establish charges. The register is factual and service-oriented, and no one is supervised.
• Verifies the accuracy of billing data and revises errors, resolves discrepancies in accounting records, and reconciles bank statements against cancelled cheques. Establishes charges for unusual items from purchase orders and charge slips. Problems are procedural, with rules and rate sources available.
• Runs a repeating cycle of billing preparation, statement despatch and record maintenance to dates that cannot slip, with considerable latitude in ordering own tasks inside established procedures.
• Keyboard and machine work throughout: typing, adding, calculating and billing machines, encoding and cancelling cheques on bank equipment, loading machines with statements and envelopes, and affixing postage. Repetitive hand use, not strength.

Responsibilities

• No line management. Provides a billing and account-enquiry service to customers and to the departments whose charges are recorded, with general administrative tasks such as answering telephones and ordering supplies.
• Computes and records what customers owe: prepares itemised statements and invoices, calculates fees for items purchased or services rendered, and tracks amounts charged to each client job. Handles cheques — verifying signatures, encoding and cancelling them, posting stop-payment notices on protested cheques, and adjusting accounts for cheques returned in error. Holds no budget and authorises no expenditure, and charges follow rates, tariffs and terms fixed by others.
• Operates and monitors billing, calculating and mailing equipment, clearing minor jams and notifying repair personnel of major faults. Ordinary care of a workstation, billing systems and invoice files.
• Keeps the records of invoices and supporting documents and the related bookkeeping, creates billing documents, shipping labels and credit memoranda, and updates manuals when rates or regulations are amended. Errors in the figures reach customers and affect company results, but the content and structure of the records are set by others.

Effort required

• Sustained accuracy across repeating tasks, where a single mis-posted amount reaches a customer. Attention is of the verifying and reconciling kind, and routine decisions recur frequently under time pressure.
• Regular contact with customers about amounts owed and billing errors calls for composure when a mistake must be explained and put right. Nothing in the work is recorded as conflict-laden, and the postholder does not set the charges being questioned.
• Seated at a workstation for most of the day, with repetitive hand movements at keyboard and machines and routine handling of documents. No lifting or exertion.

Working conditions

• An indoor, environmentally controlled office with no physical hazards, though machine and office operation produces distracting noise. Contact is frequent, including with external customers, and psychosocial demand is modest: no conflict situations or unpleasant behaviour are recorded.
• Hours follow a regular established routine across the occupation, a standard week for most with a substantial minority working longer. Work is governed by set billing procedures, but a good deal of freedom is exercised over the order in which it is done, and decisions recur frequently with effects on co-workers and company results.