Sr. Manager, Cash Application

About the company the company's mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems. About the role the company is scaling rapidly, and the volume of customer payments we receive is scaling with it. We are looking for a Senior Manager, Cash Application to take full ownership of the cash application function within our Invoice to Cash (I2C) organization. Reporting to the Head of Invoice to Cash, you will own the team, the daily operation, the KPI and SLA reporting, and the processes, procedures, and controls for cash application, and you will run the function with minimal oversight. This is a people leadership role with a clear build mandate: the function works today, and your job is to make it run predictably and efficiently at many times today's volume. Cash application is foundational to clean accounts receivable, accurate cash and revenue reporting, effective collections, and a smooth customer experience. Today the function is supported by a small team of Cash Application Specialists using an automation platform (Tesorio) that we launched earlier this year. Our operating model is automation first. Payment volume will grow many times over, and we expect the team to grow only fractionally, so the leverage has to come from auto-match rates, exception handling, Claude, and better upstream processes rather than from headcount. You will own that outcome: drive the cash application automation roadmap aiming for a largely touchless operation, define and refine the KPIs and SLAs the team is measured against, develop a small, high-performing team that manages exceptions rather than transactions, and keep the processes and policies underneath the function current as payment methods, entities, and systems change. You will work day to day with Collections, Credit, Billing Operations, Revenue Accounting, Treasury, Finance Systems, and Go-to-Market teams, as well as global and regional I2C leaders. We are looking for someone we can hand the function to: someone who identifies what needs to be built and builds it, runs the operation with data, brings sound recommendations on automation, policy, and staffing to I2C leadership, and escalates only what needs escalating. If you have scaled a cash application or AR operations function through rapid growth by automating it rather than staffing it, and want to do it again at a company building safe, frontier AI, we would love to hear from you. Key responsibilities Take full ownership of the global cash application function, including daily operations, team output, systems, controls, and reporting, and be accountable for its accuracy and timeliness with minimal oversight. Build a small, high-leverage team designed around exceptions rather than transaction volume: define the roles, skills, and regional coverage the function needs, hire and onboard specialists and contractors when automation alone cannot close the gap. Coach, mentor, and manage the performance of Cash Application Specialists and contractors, setting clear individual productivity and quality targets and growth paths, and develop a team lead who can run the daily operation in your absence. Build and run the team's operating cadence, including daily work allocation, queue management, escalation paths, and coverage for close, holidays, and regional time zones. Own and drive the cash application automation roadmap, covering auto-match rules, remittance capture and parsing, exception routing, and automated posting to the ERP, with the goal of a largely touchless operation where the team's time goes to exceptions and root causes. Serve as the day-to-day business owner of the AR automation platform for cash application, partnering with Finance Systems, Treasury, and the vendor on matching rules, bank and payment-processor feeds, ERP integration, and enhancement requests. Champion Claude adoption within the team: identify where Claude can remove manual work (for example remittance interpretation, short-pay and deduction coding, customer remittance outreach, and reporting), pilot them, and help specialists build fluency and confidence using them in daily work. Set and track automation and leverage targets for the function, such as auto-match rate, touchless posting rate, exceptions per specialist, and payments processed per head, and report progress against them. Define, evaluate, and refine the KPI and SLA set for the function, including same-day and next-day application rates, unapplied and unidentified cash balances and aging, exception resolution time, remittance request turnaround, posting accuracy, and auto-match rate. Build and maintain the dashboards that track team, regional, and individual performance against those targets, and publish regular, clearly framed performance reporting to I2C and Accounting leadership. Run the operation with the data: identify trends and bottlenecks, track volume and exception rates against team capacity, and bring data-backed recommendations to I2C leadership on where the next automation investment should go and when, if ever, additional staffing is warranted. Run a structured root-cause program for unapplied, misapplied, and unidentified cash and convert findings into durable upstream fixes with Billing, Collections, Treasury, and Go-to-Market. Own and maintain the cash application policies, desktop procedures, and internal controls, proactively identifying where they need to change as payment methods, entities, systems, and volumes change and driving those updates through review with I2C and Accounting leadership. This includes unapplied and unidentified cash, on-account payments, short pays and deductions, refunds and overpayments, customer remittance requirements, and write-off thresholds. Proactively identify and implement process improvements across the payment-to-posting cycle, standardizing how work is done across regions and entities and eliminating manual steps at their source. Own the control environment for cash application, including segregation of duties, review and approval thresholds, and audit-ready documentation, and serve as the primary contact for internal and external auditors for the area. Own the cash application component of month-end and quarter-end close, including cash-to-AR reconciliations, unapplied cash reporting, and timely resolution of reconciling items with Revenue Accounting and Treasury. Manage the day-to-day partnership with Treasury and our banking partners on remittance data quality, lockbox and virtual account usage, and the cash application impact of new payment methods and entities as the company expands. Partner with Collections and Billing Operations to resolve payment discrepancies, short pays, and disputes quickly, and to make sure applied cash flows through to accurate customer balances and dunning. Represent cash application in I2C and Finance systems and process initiatives, including new system implementations and entity and payment-method migrations, and provide input into decisions that affect the function. Work with regional I2C leaders to keep cash application standards consistent across regions while accounting for regional banking and payment differences. Minimum qualifications Experience managing a cash application or accounts receivable operations team, including hiring, coaching, and managing performance, in a high-growth or high-volume environment. Hands-on experience scaling a cash application function #J-18808-Ljbffr United States Digital Space LLC