Accounts Receivable Cash Application Specialist

MES Life Safety•Dania Beach, FL

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

MES is seeking an Accounts Receivable Cash Application Specialist to ensure customer payments are identified, posted, and applied accurately and promptly. The role processes daily lockbox deposits, ACH payments, wire transfers, checks, credit-card settlements, and other customer receipts across multiple MES entities and bank accounts. The specialist researches missing remittance information, resolves application exceptions, reconciles cash activity, and reduces unapplied cash balances. This position is based in MES’s Dania Beach, Florida office, with an anticipated schedule of four days in the office and Friday remote. The regular schedule is Monday through Friday, generally 8:00 AM–5:00 PM. Regular nights and weekends are expected, and some flexibility may occasionally be necessary during month-end, year-end, or other critical deadlines. The role involves extended computer use and working within daily bank-processing and month-end closing deadlines.

Requirements

Associate degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
At least three years of accounts receivable, cash-application, or accounting experience.
Experience processing high-volume customer payments.
Working knowledge of lockbox deposits, ACH payments, wires, checks, and customer remittances.
Understanding of invoices, credit memos, deductions, overpayments, and unapplied cash.
Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Outlook.
Strong reconciliation, research, and analytical skills.
Excellent attention to detail and data-entry accuracy.
Ability to manage daily deadlines and changing priorities.
Ability to handle confidential banking, customer, and financial information appropriately.
Strong Excel skills, including filters, lookups, reconciliation, and working with large datasets.
Ability to process a high daily transaction volume accurately and efficiently.
Comfort communicating with customers, collectors, Sales, and other internal teams to obtain remittance information and resolve discrepancies.
Dependability, responsiveness on Teams and email during working hours, and ability to work independently with limited supervision.
Strong ownership and follow-through in resolving exceptions and unidentified or unapplied cash.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field.
NetSuite or comparable enterprise resource planning system experience.
Experience with automated cash-application software or bank-integration platforms; Celigo is specifically noted as a plus.
Experience processing transactions for multiple legal entities and bank accounts.
Experience with Canadian-dollar or other foreign-currency receipts.
Experience in a distribution, manufacturing, service, or high-volume transactional environment.
Familiarity with customer procurement portals and electronic remittance formats.

Responsibilities

Retrieve and review daily lockbox, ACH, wire, check, and electronic-payment activity.
Record customer receipts accurately and promptly in NetSuite, applying payments to the correct customer accounts, invoices, credit memos, and business entities.
Process payments involving multiple invoices, deductions, discounts, short payments, and overpayments; follow remittance instructions and document applications.
Meet daily service-level and month-end cutoff requirements, and verify that posted payment totals agree with bank and lockbox activity.
Maintain accurate transaction dates, payment methods, reference numbers, and supporting documentation.
Obtain missing remittance details and research unidentified receipts to determine the correct customer account and invoice application.
Investigate payments made under parent companies, third parties, customer locations, or alternate account names; resolve duplicate payments, short payments, overpayments, offsets, and unauthorized deductions.
Coordinate with Accounts Receivable Collections Specialists and escalate significant or unresolved exceptions to the Accounts Receivable Manager.
Document research, application decisions, and outstanding actions; assign unresolved cash items to an owner and monitor them.
Review unapplied and unidentified cash reports daily, research aged balances, and coordinate resolutions with customers and internal teams.
Apply credit memos according to customer instructions and approved procedures; identify credits for open invoices and research refund requests.
Prepare refund documentation and ensure refunds, write-offs, and account adjustments receive required authorization.
Reconcile daily cash postings to lockbox reports, bank deposits, and electronic-payment activity; investigate missing, duplicated, or incorrectly posted transactions.
Support monthly reconciliation of cash receipts, unapplied cash, and accounts receivable balances, and confirm deposits are recorded in the correct legal entity, currency, and bank account.
Coordinate corrections involving intercompany or cross-entity payments and retain reconciliation support according to company policy.
Monitor automated cash-application interfaces and exception queues; review system-generated matches when required and manually research payments that fail automated matching.
Identify recurring remittance or system issues and work with Finance and IT on improvements to matching, remittance capture, and posting rules.
Assist with testing system upgrades, bank integrations, and cash-application enhancements; maintain process documentation and procedures.
Respond to customer payment-application, account-balance, and available-credit questions; provide payment details and documentation to AR Collections Specialists.
Assist with customer account reconciliations, communicate recurring payment issues, and participate in daily cash reviews, aging meetings, and month-end close activities.
Provide coverage for other cash-application functions and support internal and external audit requests involving customer receipts.