Account Payable Leader

Overview

Role Purpose / Summary

As a Team Lead Accounts Payable (AP) India, you will lead a team of AP Associates & Senior Associates in delivering high-volume, accurate, and timely AP services. Your primary responsibility is to ensure smooth daily operations of the accounts payable process from invoice receipt to payment – while maintaining process stability, compliance, and service excellence within a shared services model. You will manage the team’s workload and performance, serve as a key escalation point for complex issues, and drive continuous improvements and automation initiatives within defined GBS governance.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Coordination: Lead and supervise the AP team’s daily operations, ensuring even workload distribution and adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Allocate tasks, manage work schedules (including leave planning), and monitor the team’s output and productivity. Coach and mentor team members, providing training, feedback, and support to develop their skills and maintain high engagement.
• Operational Oversight: Oversee end-to-end AP processing to ensure all supplier invoices, credit notes, and payments are handled accurately, on time, and in compliance with company policies. Track and manage invoice backlogs, proactively addressing any process bottlenecks or delays. Monitor team metrics (e.g., invoice turnaround time, on-time payment rate, backlog levels) and adjust team actions to meet or exceed performance targets.
• Issue Resolution & Escalation Management: Act as the primary escalation point for complex AP issues that cannot be resolved by the team, such as significant vendor disputes, complicated pricing or tax discrepancies, or system-related errors. Troubleshoot issues and coordinate with cross-functional teams (e.g., Procurement, IT, local finance teams) to ensure timely resolution and minimal business disruption. Maintain open lines of communication with internal stakeholders and vendors to manage and quickly resolve escalated queries or payment issues.
• Compliance & Control Ownership: Ensure strict adherence to internal controls, company policies, and external regulatory requirements within the AP process, including SOX controls, segregation-of-duties, and tax/VAT compliance. Own the execution of AP control activities (e.g., payment approval checkpoints, critical vendor account reviews) and lead the team’s preparation for audits by maintaining thorough documentation and promptly addressing any control deficiencies or audit findings.
• Continuous Improvement & Automation: Drive process improvement initiatives to enhance efficiency, standardisation, and quality in AP operations. Identify recurring issues or manual workarounds and collaborate with the GBS Continuous Improvement team to implement approved enhancements (e.g., adopting OCR invoice scanning or workflow automation tools). Champion best practices within the team, ensuring procedures are up-to-date and adjustments to SOPs or systems are communicated and implemented effectively.
• Performance Monitoring & Reporting: Monitor key AP performance metrics (e.g., invoice processing cycle time, first-pass match rate, payment accuracy, and duplicate payment prevention) and prepare reports or dashboards to share status and improvements with GBS leadership. Proactively manage risks and report potential service issues to senior management, along with mitigation plans, to maintain a high level of reliability.

Key Stakeholders / Interfaces

• External: Key Suppliers/Vendors – as needed for priority issues or escalations, handling critical supplier queries or disputes (e.g., resolving high-impact payment delays or repeated invoice discrepancies) and reinforcing commitment to timely, accurate payments.
• Internal: GBS AP Team (leading associates and senior associates); Procurement/Purchasing teams (aligning on purchase order or vendor master data issues); Plant/Division Finance Controllers or Accounting Leads (collaborating on complex invoice approvals, account reconciliations, accruals, and providing updates on AP metrics); GBS Operations Manager or GBS AP Process Lead (reporting performance, escalating major risks, receiving strategic guidance); IT support (addressing ERP or AP workflow system issues impacting operations).

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Commerce, Business Administration or related field.
• Experience: 8+ years of Accounts Payable or comparable finance operations experience. Previous experience as a team lead, supervisor, or similar leadership role (2+ years) in a shared services or SSC environment is required9. Experience in the manufacturing industry or multi-country AP operations is advantageous.
• Technical Skills: Strong proficiency in enterprise ERP systems (e.g., SAP or equivalent) for AP processes and reporting. Good command of AP workflow and document management tools. Advanced MS Excel skills for analysing AP data and managing team workload. Knowledge of AP automation tools, electronic payment platforms, and financial controls (e.g., SOX) is required.
• Language: Fluent English (written and spoken) is essential for coordinating with international teams. Additional languages (e.g., German) are beneficial but not mandatory.

Key Skills and Competencies

• Leadership & People Management: Strong team leadership abilities – capable of motivating and developing a team, providing clear direction, and managing performance. Skilled in delegation, coaching, and conflict resolution to cultivate a high-performing team culture.
• Organisational & Planning Skills: Proven ability in workload planning, priority setting, and time management, ensuring both daily tasks and closing activities are completed within deadlines. Capable of balancing team capacity and adjusting resources to meet peak demands (e.g., month-end).
• Communication & Stakeholder Management: Effective communicator who can clearly articulate issues, requirements, and successes to both team members and stakeholders. Adept at building positive relationships with internal customers (business units, other functions) and external contacts (key vendor accounts) to facilitate collaboration and quick issue resolution.
• Problem Solving & Decision Making: Analytical mindset with the capacity to assess complex problems and make informed decisions within GBS policy frameworks. Comfortable serving as the decision authority for first and second-level escalations in AP, applying policy and experience to achieve timely solutions while understanding when further escalation is necessary.
• Process Ownership & Compliance: Deep understanding of AP processes, internal controls, and compliance requirements. Committed to maintaining a rigorously controlled environment, proactively identifying risks and ensuring team adherence to all regulatory and audit standards.
• Continuous Improvement Mindset: Proactively drives improvement by examining existing processes and implementing enhancements. Encourages team contributions to efficiency improvements, automation, and standardisation, supporting GBS’s ethos of ongoing process optimisation.

Work Window / Shift Coverage

• US Business Hours: This position follows a fixed US business-hours shift (no domestic day rotation). Working hours typically align with North American office hours (approximately IST 15:00 – 24:00 and later), to provide direct support to US/Canada operations. The first 6 months will be 100% US window coverage i.e. 6.00 PM to 3.00 AM to ensure set-up and stability of GBS operations in the first phase of transition.
• Close-Period Coverage: During month-end and quarter-end closures, the Team Lead – AP ensures full coverage of US business hours, working extended hours and/or weekends as needed to guarantee all close-related deliverables (e.g., period accruals, reconciliations, urgent payments) are completed as scheduled.

Performance Expectations / KPIs

• As Team Lead – AP, your performance will be measured by both operational metrics and team management outcomes. Key expectations include:
• Operational KPIs: Achieving high on-time invoice processing rates (e.g., 98% of invoices processed within SLA) and meeting payment timeliness targets (e.g., 95% of payments on time) across your team. Maintaining a minimal backlog of unprocessed invoices and ensuring nearly zero duplicate or erroneous payments reflect strong process control.
• Team Performance & Development: Ensuring team members meet individual performance goals (accuracy, productivity, response times) and demonstrate improvement through coaching and training. Successful onboarding of new hires, cross-training for flexibility, and high team engagement will also be considered indicators of effective leadership.
• Compliance & Continuous Improvement: Zero audit findings or SOX control failures within your AP scope, demonstrating robust control environment management. Initiating and implementing measurable process improvements (e.g., reduction in invoice cycle time or exceptions by X%) will also be a significant part of your success criteria.