Billing Manager

This position is remote.

The Company:

Merit is a fast growing, pioneering financial services firm that invests heavily in the growth and development of team members. Merit seeks to establish, educate, and help individuals reach their financial goals as they transition into and experience retirement. With an unswerving commitment to excellence and reliability, Merit provides objective financial advice and believes in establishing long-lasting relationships. By offering an array of services, clients can receive tailored solutions that promote growth and help them achieve financial goals.

Merit believes in addressing the retirement challenges in America by helping clients reach financial freedom and confidence to the working population and retirees alike. This focus on comprehensive financial wellness enables us to deliver the ultimate client experience.

Headquartered in Alpharetta, GA, with 39 locations across the country, Merit balances tactical advice with innovative strategy. Our 250 hardworking employees are leaders rooted in humility and we are poised to grow. Merit is a multi-generational firm with a foundation built around servant leadership and total team leadership. We have been recognized as a “Best Places to Work” by InvestmentNews and have made the fastest growing companies list in both INC 5000 and Georgia’s Fastest 40. As we expand and work to bring our relationship-driven approach to the financial industry, we are looking for the right individuals to join our team.

Position Purpose  

The Advisory Billing Manager is a key resource to the Advisory Billing Team and will be responsible for ensuring that all aspects of client billing are performed timely and accurately. This includes and not limited to ensuring the timeliness and accuracy of client billing setups and terminations, processing quarterly advisory fees, reconciling fees between the billing system and custodians, tracking the outstanding fee receivables, monitoring and managing billing exceptions, providing excellent client service, escalating billing issues. This candidate must be self-motivated to collaborate effectively across various units within the organization such as Operations, Technology, Compliance, Accounting and Financial Advisors as well as external vendors and custodians to achieve positive experience for our clients.

  Responsibilities  

• Processing quarterly and monthly fees for investment management, financial planning and consulting arrangements through the RIA platform and affiliated advisors.
• Ensuring the timeliness and accuracy of client billing setups and billing terminations.
• Processing billing terminations and calculating final fees and refunds.
• Interacting daily with advisors and operations staff, address and troubleshoot requests and answer inquiries, or direct them to appropriate areas, in a timely manner. 
• Reconciling of billing data across different systems and custodians to ensure the fee accuracy and completeness, finding billing data discrepancies and working on resolving them.
• Collaborating across Operations, Technology, Finance and Compliance teams to look for opportunities and build efficiencies with the current process.
• Serve as an effective advocate for advisors and clients by collaborating with multiple departments in order to ensure prompt and consistent delivery of excellent client service. 
• Develop cross-functional understanding of department policies, procedures, and responsibilities. 
• Interacting with custodians and technology partners to resolve billing exceptions and find solutions to assigned tasks and projects. 
• Reporting and auditing of all billing processes, escalating issues in a timely manner. 
• Liaise with our investment team on client operational matters. 
• Liaise with compliance department for any auditing or reporting needs. 
• Updating billing processes and procedures for existing and new billing workflows. 
• Monitoring fee billing exceptions to find and resolve billing anomalies. 
• Preparing billing training materials and conducting billing training sessions.

Salary + Benefits:

• Competitive, based on experience
• Medical Insurance
• Dental/Vision Insurance
• Life & Personal Accident Insurance 
• Short-term Disability Insurance
• Long-term Disability Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Health Savings Account (HSA) or Dependent Care FSA
• 401(k) Plan with company matching
• Paid Time Off (PTO) and paid holidays 

Best Places To Work for Financial Advisors 2018-2024: Best Places to Work for Financial Advisors 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 – Recognized firms were required to be a registered investment advisor (RIA) that has been in business at least one year and having a minimum of 15 full-time/part-time employees. The assessment consisted of a questionnaire on benefits and policies completed by human resources staff along with an engagement & satisfaction survey completed by a minimum of 40% of staff. 50 firms were selected for this award from an undisclosed list of submissions. There was no charge to be included in this award listing.

Georgia Fast 40 2019 and 2022: The Georgia Fast 40 for 2019 and 2022 was awarded by the Atlanta Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. To be eligible companies must be for profit and headquartered in Georgia and the most recent year-end revenues ranging from $15 million to $500 million and have three years of verifiable revenue and employment growth.

Inc 5000 2019, 2020 & 2021: The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, which consists of more than 5000 companies, represents virtually all of the capitalization of the entire U.S. stock market

Compensation: Merit Financial Advisors offers competitive compensation based on experience, qualifications, location, and market data. Where required by applicable law, salary ranges will be provided during the hiring process.





REQUIREMENTS

Requirements:  

• Direct experience with Operations and Billing for an RIA.
• 5+ years of experience in the financial services industry. 
• 2-3 years of dedicated Advisory Billing experience. 
• B.A in Business, Finance or Accounting. 
• Experience with securities and investment advisory technology applications, preferably Orion and Salesforce.
• Experience with custodians, preferably Schwab and Fidelity.
• Knowledge of SEC, FINRA, and state investment advisory regulations. 
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills.
• Ability to design and manipulate complex Excel spreadsheets to generate meaningful reports.
• Superior client service skills.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills.
• Personable, approachable with a positive attitude and a solution-oriented mindset.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a challenging and dynamic environment to meet client needs.
• Ability to work independently as well as in a team setting with superior problem solving, time and project-management skills. 
• Ability to manage and execute on complex processes with an attention to detail while meeting deadlines. 
• Ability to listen well and communicate in a professional manner (written, video calling, telephone and in-person). 
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and projects; prioritize, triage, and resolve conflict effectively. 
• Creative problem solver with the ability to anticipate needs and actively participate in a culture of excellence. 
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office products, MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, including data analysis features such as pivot tables, vlookup, etc.
• Strong desire to learn new processes and an attitude to challenge the status quo with the aim to improve.