Senior Manager - Accounts Payable

Job Description: Senior Manager Accounts Payable

Job Summary

The Senior Manager – Accounts Payable will provide strategic and operational leadership over the end-to-end Procure-to-Pay (P2P) lifecycle. This role is a critical function within our Global Finance organization, responsible for driving a flawless Month-End Close (MEC) rhythm, ensuring airtight internal audit controls, and leading meticulous expense accrual and provisioning processes.

The ideal candidate acts as a high-level strategic liaison, managing complex internal and external cross-functional relationships while mentoring a high-performing AP team.

Core Responsibilities

1. 1. Month-End Close (MEC) Reporting & Core Accounting

• Sub-ledger Governance: Lead and take absolute ownership of the monthly Accounts Payable close process, ensuring strict adherence to global close calendars.
• Reconciliations: Review and approve critical sub-ledger to General Ledger (GL) reconciliations, GR/IR (Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt) clearing accounts, and vendor aging balances.
• Financial Reporting: Prepare and present periodic AP Management Information System (MIS) reports, Month end Schedules.

1. 2. Accruals & Provisions Management

• Expense Accruals: Partner closely with Corporate Accounting and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) teams to calculate, review, and record precise month-end expense accruals and reclassifications.
• Open Commitments: Analyze unbilled receipts, open purchase orders (POs), and unprocessed invoices to estimate and record accurate liability provisions, mitigating any under-reporting of expenses.
• Review Framework: Establish and enforce a robust maker-checker framework for all manual journal entries related to the AP ledger.

1. 3. Stakeholder Management & Communication

• Cross-Functional Synergy: Act as the primary escalation bridge between Procurement, Treasury, Legal, and Business Operations to streamline workflows and eliminate upstream billing bottlenecks.
• Vendor Governance: Manage strategic relationships with high-value and critical global vendors, navigating settlement disputes, payment terms negotiations, and escalations.
• External Providers: (If applicable) Oversee and govern operational SLAs with third-party BPO or shared service partners.

1. 4. Audit, Controls & Compliance

• Audit Ownership: Serve as the primary point of contact for internal, statutory, and external Sox/financial audits. Ensure zero late or missing deliverables.
• SOX & Internal Controls: Design, implement, and monitor robust internal control policies to prevent fraudulent activity, duplicate disbursements, or compliance failures.
• Statutory Compliance: Oversee correct domestic and international tax implications at the invoice level (e.g. withholding taxes, GST/TDS where applicable).

1. 5. Team Leadership & Process Innovation

• People Management: Supervise, mentor, and build career pathways for a mid-to-large sized team of AP specialists and team leads.
• Automation Roadmap: Drive systemic process improvements, pushing for higher PO-backed invoicing, OCR implementation, and RPA (Robotics Process Automation) for repetitive tasks.

Role Requirements & Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Finance or Accounting required. Professional certification such as CPA, CMA, or Chartered Accountant (CA) is highly preferred.
• Experience
• 6–8+ years of progressive corporate finance experience, with at least 3–5 years in a dedicated AP management or supervisory capacity.
• ERP Expertise
• Deep, hands-on administrative or advanced user experience in Tier-1 ERP systems (specifically SAP, Oracle).
• Technical Skills
• Advanced Microsoft Excel capabilities (Power Query, complex lookups, nested logic for variance analyses).
• Competencies
• Absolute clarity in executive communication, rapid conflict resolution, and data-driven problem-solving.