Senior Accounts Payable Specialist

Senior Accounts Payable Specialist | Hybrid

The Senior Accounts Payable Specialist oversees the full accounts payable cycle from invoice receipt through payment, ensuring accurate processing, strong financial controls, and timely support for internal and external stakeholders. This role serves as a key resource for accounts payable procedures and systems, provides guidance to team members, and helps drive process improvements while maintaining high volumes of weekly invoice activity.

Responsibilities

• Manage the full accounts payable cycle from receipt through payment, including purchase order and non-purchase order invoices, coding, system entry, coordination of approvals, and preparation of payments.
• Validate invoices against purchase orders and receiving records to confirm appropriate documentation, accuracy, and authorization prior to payment.
• Review employee expense submissions for accuracy, proper supporting documentation, and adherence to established expense policies, and ensure timely processing of reimbursements.
• Reconcile accounts payable activity to the general ledger, investigate variances or outstanding items, and ensure accurate financial reporting.
• Create and maintain accurate vendor profiles, ensuring that all required documentation and account information are current and complete.
• Respond promptly and professionally to inquiries from vendors, employees, and internal business partners regarding invoices, payment status, discrepancies, and other accounts payable matters.
• Track invoice and payment activity to ensure processing deadlines, volume targets, and departmental service expectations are consistently met.
• Coordinate recurring payment activities using check, ACH, wire transfer, and other approved payment methods, ensuring accuracy and timeliness.
• Support monthly and annual financial close activities, including accounts payable reconciliations and preparation of accruals.
• Act as a knowledgeable resource for accounts payable procedures, systems, controls, and operational questions, providing guidance to colleagues as needed.
• Assist accounts payable team members with daily questions, process guidance, training, and resolution of more complex transactions or exceptions.
• Review team output as needed to help maintain accurate, complete, and consistent accounts payable processing and documentation.
• Evaluate existing workflows and recommend improvements to streamline processing, reduce errors, enhance use of automation tools, and strengthen financial controls.
• Provide invoices, payment records, reconciliations, and other supporting documentation requested during internal and external audits.
• Maintain complete, well-organized, and compliant accounts payable records in line with applicable document retention practices.
• Assist department leadership with monitoring operational targets, invoice volume, workload distribution, and performance measures.
• Help lead the accounts payable team by serving as a key support partner to leadership, without direct people management responsibilities.
• Manage the shared accounts payable email inbox, ensuring inquiries and invoices are handled efficiently and accurately.
• Use Excel extensively, including pivot tables, lookups, and SUMIFS formulas, to analyze data, support reconciliations, and monitor invoice and payment activity.
• Participate in special projects, process improvement initiatives, and other accounting-related responsibilities as business needs arise.

Essential Skills

• 5 + years of progressive accounts payable experience, including full-cycle invoice processing for both purchase order and non-purchase order invoices.
• Proven experience processing high volumes of invoices, with the ability to accurately handle approximately 200-300 invoices per week.
• Strong hands-on experience with accounts payable operations, including invoice processing, purchase order matching, and general ledger reconciliation.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, VLOOKUP or similar lookup functions, and SUMIFS, with the ability to use Excel extensively for analysis and reporting.
• Working knowledge of accounts payable systems and platforms, with familiarity or experience in SAP or JDE preferred.
• Experience using automated invoice processing, accounts payable platforms, or workflow automation tools.
• Experience with employee expense management platforms such as Emburse or Concur, including reviewing expenses, validating documentation, processing reimbursements, and monitoring policy compliance.
• Strong…