Assistant Manager - Accounts Payable

Essential Functions/Responsibilities:

Manage a team of four to eight AP Specialists.

Strong operational experience in Accounts Payable including Vendor Master.

Hands on experience in SAP & Ariba.

Cultivating a problem-solving approach, promoting a continuous improvement mindset, and motivating the team to achieve annual goals.

Resolve the issues/discrepancies during the month-end close to having an accurate accounting book close.

Review payment proposal, invoice postings & payment discrepancies, vendor line item reconciliations.

Strong knowledge of the impact of General Ledger account entries and reconciliation.

Responsible for selecting General Ledger accounts and providing reconciliations to Manager.

Review and update current policies, procedures, reconciliations and financial reporting as needed.

Able to identify and track current exceptions process & reporting to ensure business improvements have been achieved – establish key metric goals for process improvements.

Responsible for communication with Vendors/external & internal stakeholders for topics related to Invoice Rejections, Process updates, Delayed Payments, GL balance variance.

Supervise the maintenance of accurate balances for subsidiary ledgers and general ledger accounts. 

Overseeing training of temporary and new hires; distribution of workflow, monthly journal entry authorization and reconciliation.

Ensure that the accounts payable and the company’s financial obligations are met efficiently

Identify, lead or provide direction on key projects to simplify, control and automate current manual business processes within the domestic payable department & other supporting groups.

Establish department goals and monitors quality & performance standards.

Help design and develop new tools and process to support the current manual matching process.

Participate in annual and quarterly A/P audits verifying account balances and accruals.

Maintains and supervises record retention as it applies to domestic payables.

Ensure compliance with corporate approval and purchasing policies

Effective Communication with Internal & External stakeholders regarding changes to procedures, tools and other items that may impact the processing of vendor invoices & payments.

Coordination with purchasing department and internal business units to ensure proper authorization, approval and efficient invoice processing and payment.

Oversee accounts payable staff members in providing support to 3rd party vendors for master data updating, invoicing issues, and payment status inquiries.

Responsible for coaching , feedback and performance review of the team.

Oversee the preparation of periodic reports and reconciliations as required including KPIs for the Accounts Payable team & share regularly with Management.

Secondary Functions:

Maintain positive and proactive open communication with all company management, staff and other departments in order to contribute to smooth flow of information and efficient operation of the organization.

Perform other duties as assigned.

Job Scope:

Work is moderately complex and occasionally requires independent judgment and decision making.  Work is generally performed independently with minimal supervision. Mistakes/errors can delay processing of time-sensitive payments or result in overpayment of invoices.  Errors in judgment can adversely affect the image of the company and delay receipt of goods and services from vendors.  Poor monitoring of subordinates' workflow can create need for additional overtime.

Interpersonal Contacts:

Contacts are normally made with others both inside and outside the organization. Internal contacts may include all levels of the organization up to senior executives. External contacts are typically vendor and supplier representatives.  Interactions tend to focus on information exchange, problem solving, explanation, discussion and interpretations. Contacts regularly contain confidential or sensitive information.

Supervisory Responsibility:

Responsibilities include assigning and monitoring, daily workflow as well as providing input on employee evaluations, absences, overtime, hiring, terminations, pay changes, job changes, and training. Ability to deal with day to day personnel issues as they arise.

Specific Job Skills:

Possess thorough knowledge of accounts payable and accounting procedures and techniques.  Possess excellent analytical skills.  Good supervisory/management skills required.  Possess excellent written and oral communication skills.  Possess good organizational skills and ability to pay attention to detail.  Ability to read, write, speak, and understand English.  The mental ability to conduct ongoing interpersonal interactions and analyze and solve problems is essential.  Thorough knowledge of various computerized accounting and general office software products. 

Education:

Master’s Degree specializing in Finance/ Accounting is preferred.

Experience:

Requires a minimum of 3 - 5 years experience in a supervisory position in an accounts payable department. Experience in SAP is preferred. Experience with multinational organization strongly preferred. Experience with reporting and data consolidation tools such as PowerBI or BW strongly preferred.  

Job Conditions:

Job requires hours that may occasionally exceed 8 hours per day and/or 40 hours per week during times of peak activity. Evening meetings and/or weekend work occasionally required to collaborate with people in other time zones and to ensure timely project completion. Some job pressure exists in the balancing of several projects with conflicting and sometimes changing deadlines. The ability to sit for extended periods and to bend, kneel, and stoop. Ability to operate telephones and computer hardware and software, including keyboard and 10-key. Exposure to a computer CRT.

This job description is not meant to be an all-inclusive list of duties and responsibilities, but constitutes a general definition of the position's scope and function in the company.