About the Opportunity

Position Summary

Our client is seeking a contract Accounts Receivable Recovery & Process Analyst to improve the accuracy, visibility, and collectability of accounts receivable.

This role goes beyond traditional collections. The successful candidate will investigate customer balances at the invoice and project level, determine why amounts remain outstanding, distinguish genuinely overdue balances from contractually deferred receivables, and drive issues through to resolution.

A key focus will be reviewing project holdbacks and retainage to determine which balances are legitimately not yet due versus those that have reached their contractual release date and should be actively collected.

Key Responsibilities

AR Recovery & Analysis

- Review customer, invoice, and project-level aged AR, with an initial focus on high-value and 60+ day balances.
- Determine whether outstanding balances are collectible, disputed, awaiting internal action, contractually deferred, or potentially uncollectible.
- Prioritize collection activity based on value, age, customer risk, contractual status, and likelihood of recovery.
- Contact customers regarding genuinely overdue balances and investigate issues preventing payment.
- Develop recovery plans for significant or high-risk accounts and elevate stalled or high-risk balances as required.
- Follow issues through to resolution rather than simply documenting collection attempts.

Holdback & Retainage Review

- Review project holdbacks and retainage to determine contractual release and payment conditions.
- Distinguish between holdbacks that are not yet due and those that have become due for collection.
- Review contracts, project milestones, completion dates, warranty periods, customer acceptance requirements, and other applicable release conditions.
- Coordinate with Finance, Project Management, Operations, and customers to confirm expected release dates and outstanding requirements.
- Identify holdbacks that have reached their release conditions but remain unpaid and transition them into active collections.
- Maintain expected release/due dates and recommend improvements to the reporting and treatment of holdbacks.

AR Data Cleanup & Classification

- Review aged AR records and ensure significant balances have accurate, current explanations.
- Clean up incomplete or outdated reason codes and establish standardized AR classifications.
- Ensure material balances identify the current issue, collectability status, responsible owner, next action, target date, and contractual due/release date where applicable.




- Identify accounts with insufficient information and work with internal stakeholders to complete the records.
- Improve the quality of AR data to support management reporting and root-cause analysis.

Dispute & Issue Resolution

- Investigate issues preventing payment, including:
1. Billing and pricing discrepancies
2. Missing or incorrect purchase orders
3. Customer portal or documentation issues
4. Project completion or acceptance issues
5. Warranty or deficiency claims
6. Unapplied payments and credits
7. Legal or insolvency matters
8. Holdback release conditions

- Coordinate resolution between Finance, Collections, Project Management, Operations, Sales/Account Management, and customers.
- Maintain an actionable dispute tracker with owners, next steps, and completion dates.
- Identify recurring issues contributing to delayed payment and recommend corrective actions.

Reporting & Process Improvement

- Develop a true collectible AR aging that distinguishes accounting aging from contractual collectability.
- Categorize balances into actionable groups such as:
- Collect Now
- Resolve Dispute / Internal Issue
- Holdback / Not Yet Due
- Holdback / Now Due
- Credit / Cash Application Issue
- Escalate / Legal / Write-Off Review

- Lead daily AR/collections calls and establish priorities.
- Prepare weekly AR action reporting showing cash collected, disputes resolved, holdbacks identified, credits/adjustments, and remaining actionable overdue AR.
- Highlight high-value collectible balances, overdue customer commitments, stalled disputes, internal blockers, and upcoming holdback release dates.
- Identify recurring AR issues and recommend improvements to collection, holdback, reporting, and AR management processes.
- Document processes for transition to the permanent Finance and Collections team.

Key Deliverables & Measures of Success

Success will be measured by tangible improvements to the AR portfolio, including:
- Reduction in actionable past-due AR and increased cash recovery.
- Identification of aged balances that are legitimately not yet due.
- Accurate classification and contractual release dates for material holdbacks.
- Improved visibility into disputed and internally blocked balances.
- Accurate reason codes, ownership,



next actions, and target dates for priority AR.
- Resolution of unapplied cash and credit issues.
- Reduction in unresolved customer disputes and overdue holdbacks.
- Improved AR reporting and identification of recurring causes of delayed payment.
- Documented process improvements that can be transitioned to the permanent team.

About You

- 5+ years of experience in Accounts Receivable, Collections, Credit, Finance Operations, Project Accounting, or a related discipline.
- Experience managing complex, high-value commercial receivables.
- Strong reconciliation, investigative, and analytical skills.
- Experience with project-based billing, holdbacks, retainage, or contractually deferred receivables.
- Ability to interpret contractual payment terms and apply them to AR collection and reporting.
- Experience resolving invoice disputes with customers and cross-functional teams.
- Strong Excel skills, including filtering, pivot tables, reconciliation, and analysis of large datasets.
- Experience with ERP-based finance and collections systems.
- Strong communication, documentation, negotiation, and follow-up skills.
- Ability to independently drive issues through to resolution in a contract environment.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.
- Experience with Power BI or similar reporting tools.
- Experience in industrial services, equipment, construction, engineering, infrastructure, or other project-based environments.
- Experience with long-term projects involving holdbacks, retainage, milestone billing, warranty periods, or substantial completion requirements.
- Experience improving or standardizing AR and Collections processes.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate combines solid AR/Collections experience with project and contract awareness. They are comfortable reviewing an aging report, drilling into invoices and projects, interpreting contractual terms, reconciling discrepancies, communicating with customers and internal stakeholders, and driving outstanding issues to resolution.

They can quickly distinguish between a genuine collections issue, customer dispute, internal billing issue, cash application problem, legitimately deferred holdback, and holdback that is now contractually due.

The successful candidate will bring structure, accuracy, and accountability to the AR portfolio while improving visibility into what is overdue, what is coming due, why balances remain outstanding, and who is responsible for resolution.

Pay Range

$40– $49 /hour

📌 Senior Accounts Receivable Recovery and Process Analyst (Mississauga)
🏢 Vaco Recruiter Services
📍 Mississauga