Senior Accounts Payable Specialist

The Senior Accounts Payable Specialist manages the day-to-day accounts payable cycle with a heavy focus on inventory, raw materials, and manufacturing vendors. This role ensures accuracy in inventory costing, resolves complex three-way matching discrepancies, and maintains strong vendor relationships. As a senior member of the team, this individual will lead month-end closing activities related to AP and help optimize financial workflows.

• Inventory & Three-Way Matching: Execute high-volume processing of inventory and non-inventory invoices, ensuring strict adherence to the three-way matching process ($PO \rightarrow Receiving/BOL \rightarrow Invoice$).
• Variance Resolution: Proactively investigate and resolve discrepancies between purchase orders, goods receipts, and supplier invoices by partnering with Procurement, Warehousing, and Quality Control.
• Month-End Close: Lead AP month-end close processes, including preparing accruals for unvouched receipts (Goods Received/Invoice Not Received - GRIR), reconciling AP aging schedules to the general ledger, and tracking manufacturing variances.
• Vendor & Cash Management: Maintain and manage key raw material and component vendor accounts. Review vendor statements regularly, resolve past-due balances, and optimize payment timing to take advantage of early-payment discounts where beneficial.
• Compliance & Internal Controls: Ensure strict compliance with internal controls, Sox guidelines, and company authorization limits. Oversee annual 1099 reporting and maintain audit-ready documentation.
• Process Improvement: Identify bottlenecks in the invoice approval workflow and assist in implementing or upgrading AP automation tools, OCR scanning, or ERP system enhancements.

Qualifications & Skills

• Experience: 5+ years of progressive Accounts Payable experience, with at least 2-3 years strictly within a manufacturing or distribution company.
• Education: Preferably associate’s or Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related business discipline.
• ERP Systems: Strong proficiency in robust manufacturing ERP systems (such as Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, or any tier 2 system) is critical, particularly with inventory control and purchasing modules.
• Technical Skills: Intermediate to advanced Excel skills (VLOOKUPs, pivot tables, and data manipulation for large vendor statements).
• Core Competencies: Deep understanding of standard cost accounting concepts, sales and use tax application for manufacturing exemptions, and freight/shipping cost allocation.