Accounts Payable Supervisor

Description

The Accounts Payable Supervisor is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the accounts payable function, supervising a team of five employees and ensuring the accurate, timely, and efficient processing of approximately 7,500 vendor bills per month.

This position is responsible for maintaining strong internal controls, enforcing three-way matching procedures, resolving vendor account discrepancies, managing internal and external service inquiries, and ensuring vendor statements are reconciled accurately and timely.

The supervisor will play a key role in improving AP processes, standardizing procedures, and supporting the implementation, and ongoing optimization of an automated accounts payable system integrated with NetSuite. The ideal candidate combines strong technical AP knowledge with hands-on problem-solving, team leadership, customer service, and process improvement capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

1. Accounts Payable Operations

• •Supervise daily AP activities to ensure invoices are processed accurately, efficiently, and within established service-level expectations.
• •Oversee the processing of approximately 7,500 vendor bills per month, ensuring appropriate coding, documentation, approvals, and payment terms.
• •Ensure invoices are matched against purchase orders and receiving documentation in accordance with company policy.
• •Investigate and resolve invoice discrepancies, including quantity, pricing, freight, tax, duplicate invoices, and missing receiving documentation.
• •Monitor invoice processing queues, approval workflows, aging items, and payment due dates to prevent late payments and missed discounts.
• •Ensure invoices are properly coded to general ledger accounts, departments, locations, and other required reporting dimensions.
• •Maintain appropriate segregation of duties and compliance with established AP policies and internal controls.

2. Three-Way Matching and Invoice Exception Management

• •Enforce consistent three-way matching of purchase orders, receiving records, and vendor invoices.
• •Establish procedures for identifying, tracking, escalating, and resolving invoice exceptions.
• •Partner with Purchasing, Receiving, Inventory, and Operations to resolve discrepancies and obtain missing documentation.
• •Monitor recurring exceptions and identify root causes to reduce rework, processing delays, and unnecessary manual intervention.
• •Ensure invoices that do not meet matching or approval requirements are appropriately held and resolved before payment.

3. Vendor Statement Reconciliation and Account Cleanup

• •Oversee the timely reconciliation of vendor statements to the company's AP records.
• •Direct the investigation and resolution of missing invoices, unapplied credits, duplicate billings, payment discrepancies, and aged reconciling items.
• •Establish priorities for cleaning up historical vendor balances and resolving long-standing discrepancies.
• •Maintain clear documentation of reconciliation activities and outstanding items.
• •Communicate with vendors to resolve account issues and maintain productive vendor relationships.
• •Monitor vendor account accuracy and ensure discrepancies are resolved before they affect payment execution or financial reporting.

4. Internal and External Service Inquiries

• •Supervise the AP inquiry and service ticket process for requests from employees, vendors, Purchasing, Receiving, and other internal departments.
• •Ensure tickets are logged, categorized, assigned, prioritized, and resolved within established service-level targets.
• •Monitor ticket volume, aging, resolution time, and recurring issues.
• •Escalate urgent payment issues, vendor account holds, duplicate payment risks, and operational disruptions.
• •Develop standard responses, procedures, and knowledge resources to improve service consistency.
• •Identify recurring inquiry trends and recommend process improvements that reduce avoidable tickets.

5. Team Leadership and Performance Management

• •Supervise, coach, and develop a team of five AP employees.
• •Assign workloads, balance invoice processing and exception resolution, and monitor individual and team performance.
• •Establish clear productivity, accuracy, timeliness, and customer service expectations.
• •Provide training on AP procedures, three-way matching, NetSuite, vendor communications, and automated workflows.
• •Conduct regular performance discussions and identify development opportunities.
• •Promote accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and a customer-service-oriented culture.
• •Develop cross-training and backup coverage to ensure continuity of operations.

6. NetSuite and Accounts Payable Automation

• •Use NetSuite to monitor AP transactions, invoice status, vendor records, approvals, payment terms, and account reconciliations.
• •Identify opportunities to improve invoice processing through automation, workflow standardization, and better system utilization.
• •Participate in the evaluation, selection, configuration, testing, and implementation of an automated AP solution integrated with NetSuite.
• •Document existing processes and define future-state workflows for invoice capture, purchase order matching, coding, approvals, exception handling, and payment preparation.
• •Coordinate user acceptance testing, validate transaction accuracy, and help resolve system and integration issues.
• •Develop user training materials and support the transition from manual processes to automated workflows.
• •Monitor implementation results and recommend enhancements that improve efficiency, accuracy, visibility, and control.
• •Help establish reporting and dashboards to measure invoice processing performance and automation effectiveness.

7. Financial Controls and Reporting

• •Monitor AP aging, invoice backlogs, vendor statement reconciliation status, exception rates, and upcoming payment obligations.
• •Support month-end close activities, including AP cutoff, accruals, reconciliation support, and resolution of outstanding items.
• •Ensure appropriate documentation and audit trails are maintained for invoices, approvals, vendor changes, and payment activities.
• •Assist with internal and external audit requests and provide supporting documentation as needed.
• •Identify control weaknesses, potential duplicate payments, fraud risks, and opportunities to strengthen AP procedures.
• •Prepare regular operational reports and communicate significant issues, trends, and improvement opportunities to management.

Requirements

Skills Required

• •5+ years of progressive accounts payable experience, including substantial experience with high-volume invoice processing.
• •2+ years of experience supervising, leading, or coordinating an AP team.
• •Demonstrated knowledge of purchase order matching, receiving documentation, and three-way matching procedures.
• •Experience investigating invoice discrepancies and reconciling vendor statements.
• •Experience managing vendor inquiries, internal service requests, and invoice exception queues.
• •Strong understanding of AP controls, invoice approvals, payment terms, duplicate payment prevention, and vendor master data controls.
• •Proficiency with ERP systems, spreadsheets, and AP reporting tools.
• •Strong organizational, analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• •Ability to manage competing priorities and maintain accuracy in a high-volume environment.

Skills Preferred

• •Experience with NetSuite , particularly vendor bills, purchase orders, item receipts, saved searches, approval workflows, and AP reporting.
• •Experience implementing or optimizing an automated AP or invoice processing solution.
• •Familiarity with OCR, intelligent invoice capture, automated three-way matching, workflow automation, and electronic invoice approvals.
• •Experience supporting ERP integrations, user acceptance testing, process documentation, and end-user training.
• •Experience in a multi-department, multi-location, or multi-entity organization.
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