From left to right: Sylviane, portfolio administrator for 19 years (Analysis and Methodology Unit); Nicolas, portfolio administrator for 3 years (Littoral Group); Marie-Claude, portfolio administrator for 8 years (Facto Development Group)

Nicolas: “This job is half sales, half accounting. I take over an account once the factoring contract has been signed and I look after the everyday business of our creditor clients. You need a good level of computer literacy and you have to know the basics of management and be methodical. Most dealings with the clients are over the phone, but sometimes I'll be asked to accompany the administration manager or the account manager to a meeting with the client.” Marie-Claude: “It is up to the portfolio administrator to follow an invoice from its moment of acquisition until its settlement. While I have a certain amount of external contact, most of my daily work is done in liaison with the operational departments. ” Sylviane: “I have just been assigned the job of freelance administrator. This is an inter-departmental role that also demands significant technical expertise. It is my job to give case-specific training to new staff for complex accounts and to provide back-up in departments where the workload is particularly heavy.”

What does your job involve on a daily basis?

NC: “We purchase receivables, grant loans and oversee the process leading up to invoice settlement. We may also be asked to perform an audit function before the recovery manager is called in. As you can see, we have quite a long job description. A portfolio administrator typically manages about 25 accounts. There are 24 of us in the whole team, which is split into four sections. I work mostly with our offices in the north and west of France.”

M-C: “I manage around twenty 'small accounts'- clients with a turnover of less than € 1.2 million. I oversee the initial stages of a contract, providing a link between our sales staff and the client whose invoices we are acquiring. This is a long process involving a lot of chasing up over the phone. And that's with just twenty or so accounts to look after, compared to the forty more 'established' accounts my colleagues deal with.”

S: “When I'm training a new administrator, he or she will get 100% of my time for several days, and once they take the portfolio over I remain available to deal with any questions they have. New administrators are given an existing portfolio, and I help out until they are capable of handling about thirty accounts.”

What are the things you especially like in this job?

N: “Everything about it: I like being in contact with clients, of course, but also having to juggle lots of different responsibilities at the same time. I have a diploma in accounting and administration and a master's in economic and social administration, but I think that real experience is the way to learn this job. It's through having to look after other people's jobs that you end up becoming skilled at everything as a portfolio administrator.”
The job of administrator channels my ambitions – Nicolas

M-C: “This is a people-based job. No situation is ever the same, which stops the job from getting boring. I've always found this job very interesting and I've been doing it for eighteen years now. The best way to learn is through dealing with the detail of specific situations and problems, and there's a lot of scope for that here!”
Human contact first and foremost – Marie-Claude

S: “It's a job which is always changing and which leaves no room for boredom. What I like doing is putting my knowledge of Facto to good use. I joined Factofrance as a recovery agent when I was 19, and after five years of debt recovery I became a portfolio administrator. I have recently been moved to the position of analytical administrator. This is a newly created post designed to centralise problems and come up with solutions, if necessary by implementing new training programmes.”
This job is also about helping each other out – Sylviane