Accounts Payable Specialist

Location: Bengaluru

About the role:

ZEISS India is part of Carl Zeiss AG, Germany, with operations spanning Medical Technology, Industrial Quality & Research, Consumer Markets and Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology. The India organization manages significant cross-border transactions with ZEISS affiliates and vendors across 40+ countries.
The  Analyst – International & Intercompany Payments  will be responsible for the complete execution and control of international vendor payments and intercompany settlements, while also driving improvements in efficiency, automation, compliance and payment processes.

Key Responsibilities
1. International Payments
Manage end-to-end foreign currency payments for imports, services, royalties, professional fees, logistics, reimbursements and advance payments.
Validate invoices, POs, goods receipts, contracts, tax documents, bank details and import documentation.
Execute payment runs across multiple currencies, banks and payment methods.
Manage payment rejections, returns, recalls, amendments and bank queries.
Resolve vendor payment issues and ensure timely closure of ageing items.
2. Intercompany Payments
Process payments to ZEISS group companies in line with treasury, transfer pricing and intercompany policies.
Manage intercompany reconciliation, netting and settlement activities.
Resolve mismatches and ageing balances before month/quarter-end.
Coordinate with global finance teams and Group Treasury on settlement schedules and cut-offs.
Ensure appropriate documentation and tax treatment for intercompany transactions.
3. Banking & Treasury
Operate bank portals and payment platforms for payment initiation, authorization and tracking.
Handle documentation required for outward remittances and coordinate with banks until payment closure.
Provide payment forecasts and cash-flow inputs to Treasury.
Reconcile bank statements and investigate unidentified/unapplied transactions.
Monitor bank charges, FX spreads and correspondent bank deductions.
Support FX exposure reporting.
4. Tax, Regulatory & Compliance
Ensure compliance with  FEMA, RBI regulations and applicable purpose codes  for international payments.
Manage withholding tax requirements under  Section 195 and DTAA .
Validate  TRC, Form 10F, No-PE declarations  and coordinate  Form 15CA/15CB .
Ensure correct GST/IGST and reverse-charge treatment for imports and import of services.
Monitor IDPMS/EDPMS, Bills of Entry and advance remittance regularization.
Maintain complete audit documentation.
Ensure maker-checker, segregation of duties and payment authorization controls.
Strengthen fraud-prevention measures such as bank-detail verification, duplicate vendor checks and sanctions screening.
5. SAP & Systems
Work extensively on  SAP S/4

HANA , including invoice verification, vendor accounting, payment runs and bank reconciliation.

Experience with  MIRO, F110, DMEE/DMEEX, Bank Communication Management and Electronic Bank Statements  is preferred.
Maintain vendor master data and payment-related information.
Work with systems/IT teams on testing, enhancements and issue resolution.
Use tools such as VIM/OCR, SAP Ariba, Concur, treasury systems and BI tools.
Improve and automate payment and ageing reports.
6. Process Improvement & Automation
Map and analyze the complete payment process to identify bottlenecks, rework and unnecessary handoffs.
Benchmark ZEISS processes against global MNC, GBS/shared-services and APQC-type best practices.
Drive improvements in:
Straight-through processing
Payment cycle time
First-pass accuracy
Cost per transaction
Exception/rework rates
Payment accuracy
Identify opportunities for  RPA, AI-assisted document processing, workflow automation, rules-based validation and ISO 20022 readiness .
Use structured problem-solving/Lean/Six Sigma…