Head of Billing & Settlement
Head of Billing & Settlement leads billing and settlement. The role is responsible for payment charging, reconciliation with providers and partners, payouts, and the accuracy of the product's money flows.
What a Head of Billing & Settlement does
The Head of Billing & Settlement is responsible for how money moves through the product, from the moment a customer is charged or credited to the moment funds reach the company's or a partner's account. In high-risk verticals with many payment providers, complex fees, and a high rate of disputes, this role determines whether the numbers match in financial reporting and in partner payouts.
In fintech companies this role is kept separate from the payments product and from financial accounting. The task is to build and maintain the billing system (rules for pricing, charges, deductions, and refunds) and the settlement system (transaction reconciliation, clearing, payouts to counterparties, and period close). Without this, it is impossible to prove that revenue is correct, or to meet the reporting requirements of regulators and partners.
The role usually reports to the CFO or the COO/CPO, depending on the company's structure. The Head of Billing & Settlement leads billing, reconciliation, and payouts managers or leads, settlement analysts, and engineers who work on billing services and coordinate with the payments product and risk teams.
Responsibilities
- Design and agree on billing rules: tariffs, fees, minimum and maximum amounts, deductions, and reserves
- Organize daily and monthly reconciliation of transactions with payment providers, banks, and acquirers
- Monitor discrepancies between product data, provider data, and accounting data, and assign owners and deadlines for resolving them
- Ensure timely and accurate payouts to partners, affiliates, and other counterparties under agreed terms
- Run period-close processes and prepare data for financial reporting and audits
- Agree with the risk and compliance teams on rules for deductions, reserves, and handling of disputed transactions
- Handle chargebacks, refunds, and disputes at the settlement level, including amounts and timelines
- Manage data and reporting requirements from banks, providers, and regulators
- Plan the budget and roadmap for settlement infrastructure and coordinate development work with engineering teams
- Build procedures, RACI matrices, and settlement quality metrics for the whole team
Skills
- Deep understanding of the payments model: acquiring, processing, merchant accounts, and settlement schemes
- Ability to build reconciliation across several data sources and find the root cause of discrepancies
- Understanding of revenue recognition, reserves, and mutual settlements at a level sufficient for dialogue with finance
- Team management and clear division of responsibility between billing, reconciliation, and payouts
- Negotiation with payment providers and banks on terms, data, and timelines
- Working with regulator and partner reporting requirements without deep legal expertise
- Process formalization: procedures, SLAs, control schemes, and escalation paths
- Managing cash flow risk together with risk and anti-fraud teams
- Translating complex financial logic into requirements for developers and clear rules for operators
Tools
- SQL and BI tools (Metabase, Looker, Power BI) for reconciliation and reporting
- Payment systems and provider back-offices (acquiring, merchant dashboards)
- Internal billing and ledger systems
- Jira or Confluence for processes, requirements, and procedures
- Excel and Google Sheets for interim reconciliations and models
- ERP or accounting systems (1C, SAP, and similar) for integration with accounting
- Payout and mass-transfer systems for partners
How performance is measured
- Share of transactions matched across the product, providers, and accounting without manual adjustment
- Length of the settlement period close and number of adjustments made after close
- Share of partner payouts completed on the agreed date without errors
- Volume and trend of unexplained discrepancies and their average time to resolution
- Number of disputed transactions and chargebacks affecting settlements, and share of disputes won
- Accuracy of forecasts for settlement flows and reserves against actuals
By vertical
FinTech
In fintech, the role is tied to a multi-party scheme involving the issuer, acquirer, partner banks, and wallets. The Head of Billing & Settlement ensures that fees, conversion rates, and account balances match across all links and hold up under checks from regulators and partners.
Levels
Head of / Director
At the Head of / Director level, the role is responsible for the company's entire settlement model: billing architecture, provider strategy, budget, and accountability to the CFO. Decisions affect revenue, reporting, and audit readiness, so the level requires management experience and the ability to negotiate with finance, risk, and legal teams.
How to get there
People usually enter the profession from financial control, settlement accounting, treasury, or an operations role at a payments company. Experience with reconciliation, acquiring, partner payouts, or billing systems is useful. Most important is the ability to work with large volumes of transactions and trace discrepancies to their cause.
To grow in this direction, study the payments model in more depth: transaction types, acquiring schemes, the roles of the bank, provider, and merchant, chargeback and refund rules, and the basics of revenue and reserve accounting. It is useful to build a reconciliation of exports from two sources on your own and document the discrepancies. Growth usually comes first through leading a reconciliation or payouts team, and then through ownership of the entire settlement cycle.
At the head level, it is essential to build processes and negotiate: with the CFO on reporting format, with risk on reserves, and with providers on data and timelines. Experience managing a project to move to a new billing system or a new partner bank clearly demonstrates this level of responsibility.
Next steps: CFO or Finance Director, Head of Payments, Head of Finance Operations, Director of Revenue Operations, Head of Risk Operations
FAQ
How does a Head of Billing & Settlement differ from a Finance Director?
A Finance Director is responsible for the company's budget, reporting, and overall strategy. The Head of Billing & Settlement is responsible for a specific area: how payments are charged and processed, how transactions are reconciled, and how payouts are made. This role usually gives finance the accurate data and processes on which reporting is built.
Do I need to know programming for this role?
Deep programming is not required, but you need to understand data logic, write SQL queries for reconciliations, and read API documentation and schemas. When setting tasks for developers, it is important to explain a business rule so that it can be implemented and tested.
What determines income in this role?
Income depends on the scale of the company's money flows, the complexity of the settlement model, the number of verticals and providers, and how managerial the role is. Companies in high-risk verticals often pay more for experience with chargebacks, reserves, and bank requirements.
What experience is usually considered sufficient to move into this position?
Employers usually expect experience in financial control, settlements, or operations at a payments company, along with experience leading a team. At the head level, you need to show that you have handled complex reconciliations, closed periods, and built processes across finance, product, and partners.
How does this role differ from Head of Payments?
The Head of Payments is responsible for processing, payment routing, and conversion of the payment flow. The Head of Billing & Settlement is responsible for what happens to the money after a payment is processed: charges, fees, reconciliation, payouts, and reporting. The roles are closely connected and often work in tandem.
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