Billing and Financial Systems and Operations Expert

FRANK SCHAEFER

Mobile: 810-***-****

**************@*****.***

www.linkedin.com/in/frankschaefer/

Experienced operations, IT and finance professional with highly-developed

analytical and problem solving skills. Ability to work autonomously, make

decisions, drive change and get things done in a dynamic environment.

Expertise includes:

. Process Optimization & Re-Engineering

. Financial, Billing & Operations Systems

. Product Development and Launch

. Systems Architecture and Integration

. Business Requirements Analysis

. Revenue Assurance

. Shared Service and Revenue Cycle Operations

. Vendor Management (Contracts, SOWs)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

ANPI LLC. 2011 - present

Senior Director of Carrier Services and Billing

Responsible for managing order-to-cash processes and shared services,

including systems development, order entry, product catalog, taxation,

billing, disputes, cost and revenue assurance for a $170 million revenue

stream. Responsibilities and accomplishments include:

. Direct the analysis, development, testing, implementation and audit of

ordering, taxing, billing and revenue assurance systems, APIs and

processes related to new products and services. Drive integration of new

products and services into the systems infrastructure.

. Manage complex financial systems and operations including software

development and maintenance of more than 1 million rates and over 1

billion chargeable events per month.

. Oversee all activities associated with 8 internal and external order-to-

cash systems, including the submission of problems, enhancement requests

and escalations as well as the coordination of system releases and

execution of billing cycles. Successfully identified and resolved over

500 system defects in a 2 year period which has reduced average billing

cycle durations by 4 days.

. Negotiate and manage vendor contracts for services such as outsourced

operations, capacity purchases, managed services, system consulting and

bill print. Implement controls to ensure adherence to contractual terms.

Identified and won over $250,000 in contract disputes.

. Direct validation, reconciliation and cost of goods sold analysis

including software development, audits and forecasting. Conduct general

ledger integration and financial reconciliation activities.

. Select, implement, operate and conduct training for the OSS/BSS solution

including consolidation of billing systems and complex system

integrations. Launched a new system for a new product line in less than

90 days, using minimal vendor professional services, resulting in savings

of over $150,000.

. Lead cross-functional Operational Leadership Team meetings and coordinate

projects between Accounting, Marketing, Sales, Provisioning, Customer

Service, Information Technology and other business areas. Design and

implement new processes and drive improvement of existing processes.

ACN INC. 2003 -2011

Director of Billing, North America

Directed all aspects of $250 million in U.S. and Canadian billing,

including product catalog maintenance, development of system and process

enhancements and implementation of revenue assurance activities. Key

responsibilities and accomplishments included:

. Directed the gathering, analysis, documentation and validation of complex

business requirements related to billing, mediation, accounts receivable

and revenue assurance systems and activities in the US and Canada.

Identified business and system requirements for the launch of numerous

services, including local phone, internet, IP phone equipment and VoIP

services across 43 US states and 3 Canadian provinces.

. Lead successful billing system replacement project, including managing

the RFP process and conducting detailed due diligence activities with

prospective vendors. Lead requirements gathering, data migration, test

case creation and execution as well as parallel bill run validation.

Successfully consolidated three billing streams into a single system over

the course of 14 months.

. Negotiated numerous vendor contracts for billing systems and services

such as bill print and mailing. Reduced annual billing expenses by more

than $150,000 by renegotiating a key vendor contract and identifying ways

to reduce bill print volumes.

. Managed all complex operational activities in a 24 x 7 x 365 environment,

including executing, troubleshooting and auditing all automated and

manual system jobs required to produce timely and accurate billing.

Managed 3 mediation systems, 3 billing systems and 62 billing cycles.

. Lead Functional Requirement Document creation and system design to ensure

processes and software supported the business from a provisioning,

billing, taxation, call center and collections perspective. Managed a

team of business analysts and maintained subject matter expertise for all

OSS/BSS functionality and processes. Successfully managed an average of

5 major projects per year in addition to supporting hundreds of smaller

initiatives and providing production support.

GLOBAL CROSSING 2001 -2003

Senior Manager, North American Billing

Managed a workgroup that was responsible for ensuring the accuracy and

timeliness of over $1 billion in annual revenues. Key responsibilities and

accomplishments included:

. Identified and managed revenue assurance projects which improved

billing accuracy and stopped revenue leakage. Through research,

analysis and problem solving, fixed numerous system issues that

resulted in billing more than $2.5 million in previously

unbillable services.

. Worked directly with sales and customers to investigate and

resolve disputes, including creating SQL, Syncsort, SAS and JCL

programs to analyze and correct issues. Successfully

investigated and defended more than $1.7 million in customer

disputes over a 2 year period.

. Developed business requirements for system enhancement projects,

including facilitating project meetings, gathering data,

clarifying and documenting the business requirements and

creating comprehensive documentation. Also included testing all

software changes as part of SDLC activities.

. Managed Arbor/BP billing system product catalog and rate

configuration activities as a key part of a $50 million billing

system replacement project. Included directing a team of

business analysts, gathered requirements and used complex SQL

statements to configure database tables.

MAXCESS INC. 2000 -2001

Director of Credit, Billing and Collections

Lead all aspects of the credit, billing and collections functions.

. Responsible for directing all OSS/BSS, collection system configuration

activities and print vendor changes at this start up company.

. Interpreted customer contracts and configured new products, rates,

discounts and contracts in Arbor/BP. Performed User Acceptance Testing on

Arbor/BP releases including rate changes, product configurations and bill

format changes.

. Developed tools for identifying dispute and cost reduction opportunities

by auditing incoming invoices from vendors to ensure accuracy.

. Established standardized collections policies and procedures and

negotiated with past due accounts. Included identifying and monitoring

KPIs such as DSO and roll rates.

NEWSOUTH COMMUNICATIONS 1999 -2000

Billing Manager

Managed all aspects of the retail and CABS billing system activities,

including product configuration and testing and maintained all billing

system Oracle database tables.

. Lead billing Order Entry team, ensuring that subscriber, service and

pricing information was interpreted from order forms and gathered from

customer cuts and entered into OSS timely and accurately.

. Managed all billing issue investigation and resolution. Investigated

trouble tickets, determined root cause, and fixed issues or partnered

with billing software vendor to resolve and develop workarounds.

. Developed SQL scripts to resolve billing issues and run billing

operations. This included writing complex scripts to query Oracle

databases to retrieve and update information. Also developed SQL scripts

to perform inserts and deletes into database tables.

US XCHANGE LLC 1997 -1999

Director of Billing and Collections

Directed a team of 45 employees in the credit, billing and collections

department.

. Developed and implemented all standardized credit, billing and

collections policies, processes and solutions in a fast-paced, start-up

environment. Responsible for ensuring that all products and services

were billed and collected in an accurate and timely manner.

. Developed and executed strategies for limiting bad debt. Responsible for

all credit and accounts receivable policies, procedures and operations,

including authorizing credit, managing lock box operations and collecting

past-due dollars. Managed entire order-to-cash process.

. Evaluated state and federal debt collection regulations and built

collections policies and procedures to ensure adherence. Managed efforts

of internal collections and third-party agencies.

. Directed the work of all billing department personnel to ensure that all

End User billing information was entered into the billing systems in a

timely and accurate manner.

AT&T 1988 -1997

Manager

Lead support functions and operational teams in the Billing, Accounts

Receivable, Credit, Fraud and Collections areas.

. Designed and implemented processes to identify and reduce bad debt caused

by high risk customers, delinquent accounts and repetitive debtors.

. Enhanced AT&T's fraud control processes and systems to deter, detect and

block fraud activity on AT&T's network. Supported fraud resolution call

center.

. Developed and executed strategies to manage customers throughout their

lifecycle, including instituting deposits, usage threshold monitoring,

implementing credit limits and other risk mitigation strategies.

. Identified strategies for rehabilitating past-due customers, increasing

billing integrity and reducing churn of slow pay customers. Supported

collections call center.

. Conducted benchmarking activities with other telcos to identify best

practices for fraud prevention and bad debt reduction.

. Managed activities of union-represented employees, studied CWA collective

bargaining agreements and resolved union grievances.

EDUCATION

Masters of Business Administration. Walsh College, Troy, MI. Graduated

2008.

Bachelors of Science, Business Management. Nova University. Ft. Lauderdale,

FL. Graduated 1992.

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