Matthew Cowell
Longridge,Lancashire
Summary
Results-driven professional specializing in credit control management with a track record of enhancing accounts receivable efficiency. Expertise in minimizing overdue debts and boosting cash flow via effective credit strategies. Strong relationship-building skills and operational improvements contribute to sustained financial growth.
Overview
22
22
years of professional experience
Work History
AR Supervisor
Compleat Food Group
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
08.2025 - Current
- Managed credit control processes for key customers within Compleat's portfolio.
- Supported resolution of aged issues from cyber attacks and other challenges, facilitating payment recovery of £1.6m.
- Promoted to accounts receivable supervisor in November 2025 due to strong performance.
- Facilitated recruitment to expand credit control team, increasing headcount from 8 to 17 across multiple group entities while delivering remote training.
- Established an effective notes system for tracking aged debt issues across the group's portfolio, enhancing understanding for reporting purposes.
- Participated in weekly aged debtors meetings with AR manager, finance controller, and director of central finance to discuss outstanding debt movements.
- Oversaw daily management of a team of 17.
OTC Supervisor
Inizio
Manchester
04.2025 - 08.2025
- Managed one of Inizio’s largest portfolios, reducing aged debt by 45% within five months through proactive account management and targeted recovery strategies.
- Built and maintained a close working relationship with the Finance Director, resolving complex financial queries and improving issue turnaround times.
- Oversaw high-value intercompany transactions on a daily basis, ensuring accurate postings and strict adherence to non-negotiable deadlines.
- Produced and submitted detailed monthly reports, consolidating complex financial data and providing comprehensive aged debt analysis for CFO reporting packs.
Credit Control Manager
The Nurture Group
Rishton, Blackburn
12.2023 - 04.2025
- Promoted to Credit Control Manager by Transactional Finance Head due to rapid expansion of Nurture.
- Oversaw recruitment for credit control team expansion.
- Implemented new credit control strategies and established KPIs for efficient cash management.
- Manage one of Nurture's largest clients.
- Enhanced team working methods to improve efficiency and minimise aged debt.
- Management of 10 credit controllers.
- Overseeing Aged Debt over 3000+ clients.
- Reduced outstanding debts with strict enforcement of payment terms and conditions by informing customers of potential legal action and required remediation to avoid escalation.
- Hold regular aged debt reviews with key internal stakeholders to reduce issues with Clients.
- Improve processes, optimising workflow efficiency.
National Accounts Credit Controller / Team Supervisor
The Nurture Group
Rishton, Blackburn
08.2023 - 11.2023
- Responsibility of the National Accounts for the Nurture Group consisting of around 80 clients with approximately 7000 invoices.
- Working with Facility Management companies to ensure prompt payments and resolve queries on invoices to ensure their ledgers were up to date.
- In this time, I built good relationships with the clients and held regular meetings to reduce the debt position.
- Supervising a team of 6 credit controllers, holding 121's, performance reviews and setting the team targets to drive cash collection.
- Assisting the Head of Transactional finance creating new reports and held regular meetings with the leadership teams to highlight any risks or support needed.
Credit Control Team Leader
Burtons Foods Limited
Blackpool
10.2014 - 07.2023
- Responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Accounts Receivable Team, managing five Credit Control Administration Assistants.
- Responsibility for the accounts receivable side of the business cash book, recording all incoming receipts against an expected forecast for the month.
- Stakeholder management duties for the Accounts Receivable Team, both internally across the business, and externally with our customers.
- Personal management of the two largest customer accounts for the business with total annual sales of £100m per annum.
- Creation of new customer accounts into the SAP system, once a credit limit has been determined and agreed.
- Assisting the Accounts Receivable Manager in all yearly account audits.
- My team managed 210 live accounts with an invoice value of circa £25m on the ledger at any given point.
- The intense focus on cash collection and persistence in claim resolution that I expect from my team ensures that the average aged debt over 30 days equates to just 3% of the ledger.
- My team processes all customer invoices and manages the dispute resolution process for all invoices queried by our customers, (handling approximately 600 claims per month).
- I conduct weekly meetings with my team to manage performance, address any arising account issues, determine why overdue items have not been resolved and put in place action plans where required.
- I also conduct two Personal Development Plan (PDP) meetings with each team member annually to appraise performance, encourage development and identify any training and requirements to ensure a fully cross-skilled team at all times.
- I personally undertake all training to ensure consistency across the team.
- I actively look for improvements that can be made within business processes.
- As an example, I recently worked with IT colleagues to implement my idea for an automated billing run for all non-EDI invoices which for several years had been manually emailed or posted out to customers.
- This implementation has saved the business £7,000 in postage costs and 60 WTE days per annum.
- I am quick to spot issues in processes.
- As an example, during the recent Brexit transition, I identified an issue where system generated invoices were not picking up the correct VAT rate for Irish customers.
- I determined the root cause and then worked with IT colleagues to resolve the issue and prevent future occurrences.
- I then worked with my team and the affected customers to rectify all incorrect invoices and ensure that payments were not delayed.
- In 2018 & 2019 my team integrated the systems of two company ledgers into the Burtons ledger, following company acquisitions.
- As a team we maintained our performance and results whilst inheriting an additional 100 accounts with no additional uplift in WTE.
International Credit Control Coordinator
Burtons Foods Limited
Blackpool
10.2012 - 09.2014
Credit Controller
Burtons Foods Limited
Blackpool
06.2009 - 10.2012
Senior Credit Controller
Halsall International Limited
Fleetwood
06.2008 - 06.2009
Credit Controller
Halsall International Limited
Fleetwood
05.2005 - 06.2009
Returns Clerk
Halsall International Limited
Fleetwood
09.2003 - 05.2005
Education
G.C.S.E Awards - English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Business Studies, History, Religious Studies, Music
Cardinal Allen Catholic High School
Fleetwood07.2003
AAT Level 3 Diploma - Accounting
Blackpool & the Fylde College
Blackpool06.2016
AAT Level 2 Certificate - Accounting
Blackpool & the Fylde College
Blackpool06.2015
Skills
- SAP operating system and B1
- Microsoft Office applications
- Excel data analysis
- In-house query system
- AS400 and JD Edwards accounting
- Sage and Maconomy
- Infor CloudSuite and Dynamics
Custom
- Walking with my dog
- Getting involved in local community projects
- Socializing with family and friends
- Mountain Walking
- Travelling
Timeline
AR Supervisor
Compleat Food Group
08.2025 - Current
OTC Supervisor
Inizio
04.2025 - 08.2025
Credit Control Manager
The Nurture Group
12.2023 - 04.2025
National Accounts Credit Controller / Team Supervisor
The Nurture Group
08.2023 - 11.2023
Credit Control Team Leader
Burtons Foods Limited
10.2014 - 07.2023
International Credit Control Coordinator
Burtons Foods Limited
10.2012 - 09.2014
Credit Controller
Burtons Foods Limited
06.2009 - 10.2012
Senior Credit Controller
Halsall International Limited
06.2008 - 06.2009
Credit Controller
Halsall International Limited
05.2005 - 06.2009
Returns Clerk
Halsall International Limited
09.2003 - 05.2005
G.C.S.E Awards - English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Business Studies, History, Religious Studies, Music
Cardinal Allen Catholic High School
AAT Level 3 Diploma - Accounting
Blackpool & the Fylde College
AAT Level 2 Certificate - Accounting
Blackpool & the Fylde College