Manager, AP Shared Services

Wakefern Food Corp. is the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States and supports its co-operative members' retail operations, trading under the Shop Rite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market, Gourmet Garage, Fairway Market, and Morton Williams banners in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Employing an innovative approach to wholesale business services, Wakefern focuses on helping the independent retailer compete in a big business world. Providing the tools entrepreneurs need to stay a step ahead of the competition, Wakefern’s co-operative members benefit from the company’s extensive portfolio of services, including innovative technology, private label development, and best-in-class procurement practices.

The Manager – A/P Shared Services is an initiative-taking and driven member of the Wakefern team, and an expert on Accounts Payable especially regarding the retail grocery industry. The A/P Shared Services Department works in multiple Accounts Payable environments for both Wakefern and our Retail Shop Rite stores. This position will be instrumental in transforming our legacy AP systems into SAP and implementing automation tools for both Oracle and SAP.

The Manager will be primarily responsible for designing consistent, efficient processes across all the functional payments to bring efficiencies and economies of scale to the department that will leverage cross-training and expanded spans of control. This position has four direct reports with a total department of approximately thirty associates.

The Manager A/P – Shared Services is a Member of the Finance Leadership Team and contributes to the design of short-term and long-term strategies for continuous improvement in Accounts Payable.

• Support the deployment of SAP Hana 4 for the PTP cycle. Participate and collaborate with the design team, implementation partners, Tech, and procurement for successful deployment.
• Drive change management and adoption of the new system.
• Oversee processing of invoice payments in a timely manner for both our warehouse and retail operations using various systems and forms of automation including EDI and third-party Automation tools.
• Develop key KPIs and reporting benchmarks to monitor performance.
• Ensure automated reporting of accounts payable information is provided accurately and timely to key stakeholders to enable them to manage the business in an efficient and economic manner.
• Keep up to date with Accounts Payable System practices in the industry, identify and work with Leadership and other departments as necessary to update or execute automated processing tools as appropriate.
• Ensure supervisors provide timely updated information to procurement areas, as necessary.
• Partner with vendors, procurement, and members independently to resolve disputes, answer questions and support day-to-day operations.
• Oversee the training, development, cross training, and evaluation of associates.
• Participate in Finance Leadership sessions and create developmental opportunities for team members.
• Draft new company accounting policies procedures where applicable.
• Completion of special projects and additional duties as assigned.

• Contributing member of the Wakefern Finance Leadership Team.
• Maintain a close, working relationship with leadership to address their issues and concerns as it relates to their Accounts Payable obligations.
• Manage the integration of new entities into A/P Shared Financial Services (including AP Automation).
• Liaise and facilitate effective cross-departmental working relationships.
• Provide a work atmosphere conducive to productivity, good morale, motivation, and responsive customer service.

• Identify process and service improvements aligned with stakeholder needs and opportunities.
• Liaise and work as the primary point person with Indirect Procurement to continue to refine best practice hand-off and follow up points between the two departments while maintaining production working relationships.
• Drive standardized processes and efficiencies across A/P Shared Financial Service to create consistent procedures that result in materially correct financial statements based on agreed-upon thresholds.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily. The…