Billing Analyst interview questions and answers

Billing specialists may be the first line of collections for a company. If your specialist will need to handle some collection issues, you’ll want your candidate to be confident and firm yet able to diffuse a hostile situation. Listen for examples of both these qualities as your interviewee describes an actual experience. If they have not been in that situation before, ask how they would handle it.

• Holds a firm and confident attitude
• Focus on diffusing the situation with a potentially hostile customer
• Adherence to company escalation policy

You’ll want a billing specialist who is detailed-oriented and can catch, research and resolve billing discrepancies. If your specialists will have direct customer contact, you’ll want them to have good customer relationship skills. Ask for a real-life example, and listen to how your candidates went about resolving the situation, both from a data standpoint and from a relationship standpoint.

• Tactful approach with customers
• Experience with finding and resolving billing discrepencies
• Willingness to document the situation in detail

If you use Microsoft Excel as many businesses do, you’ll want to ensure that your candidate has extensive experience with formulas, worksheets and other tools within this program. In addition, you’ll want to see if your potential billing specialist has worked with your particular accounting package. This may include Quick Books, Microsoft Dynamics, or even a proprietary system. Consider your candidate’s interest level in learning a new system if needed as well.

• Experience with your current billing system
• Flexability in learning a new or company-specific system
• Understanding of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets

Since billing specialists have front-line duties when it comes to invoices and collecting bill payments, there may be a need to involve them if your company is audited. Assess your candidate’s experience with the auditing process and whether or not they take proactive steps in their daily work to prepare for a potential one. Even if they haven’t been audited in the past, they should have some general knowledge of the process.

• Knowledge of auditing requirements and process
• Proactive attitude in audit preparation
• Experience with audits in the past

Part of a billing specialist’s job is often to collect payment from customers. Sometimes customers may not pay their invoices on time. Having a billing specialist on staff who’s able to manage not just the administrative tasks associated with billing but also handle customers is vital. The answer you get from the candidate should provide a clear explanation of how they would collect payment from the customers. A great answer should include:

• The importance of building customer relationships
• The value of collecting every invoice
• Steps for how the candidate would follow up with the customer

A great candidate answer might reflect this example:

You’ll want to understand your candidate’s experience level with tasks they’ll be expected to handle as a billing specialist in basic accounting, such as the ability to classify, compute, post, verify or record data. They should be able to describe this process and give you a basic explanation of each stage in a typical billing cycle. You may want to evaluate the amount of experience your candidates have in each of these areas as well.

• Ability to compute and record data
• Experience with each stage of the billing process
• General comprehension of billing terms