Are you a credit controller?

[PeonyTruffle]

If you are a CC, how many customers are you responsible for?

Just trying to establish if my colleagues and I are seriously overloaded or if we just need to suck it up (all brand new to this role but have been here a year)

We look after 1500 customers each, and deal with all price, delivery and standard accounts queries - we are also expected to be on the phone to chase for payments for the majority of the day (no prob actually making the calls this but absolutely swamped with queries)

We feel like ducks frantically paddling under the surface.....

It does sound like a lot considering the work you're dealing with, but I don't know the ins and outs of larger CC departments.

To me though, a credit controller is the person that chases outstanding debtors, not dealing with price and delivery queries. That should be dealt with by their account manager, surely? It would be much more manageable dealing with 1500 accounts if you were just chasing payments.

Is there a bit of a viscious circle here? Not enough money coming in to staff the department correctly but without a correctly staffed department there's not enough people chasing the money in the first place??

I feel for you OP. There's nothing worse than feeling like you're constantly firefighting.

I can't understand why Credit Controllers are dealing issues unrelated to Finance i.e. price & delivery. Those queries and tasks should be allocated to the related departments; either Sales or Fulfilment.

Credit Controllers main tasks should be chasing payment updates, approving new customers (doing relevant credit checks and completing necessary paperwork for onboarding of new customers).Standard Accounts should really be covered by the Finance Department. A Credit Controller is not an accountant, a finance manager or indeed a whole accounts/finance department.

I would be asking for a meeting with management/HR and asking that they investigate the job roles and query why the aforementioned hasn't been correctly allocated.

I agree with you both, it's an absolute shambles. Has been since I joined (in a different dept and was drafted in to help with the volume of email queries for a couple of weeks and here I am a year later)
V understaffed across us and customer support which is why such a large quantity of queries end up being our responsibility.

I think I need to cut my losses, update my CV and move on