Senior Accounts Payable (AP) Payments Manager

Quick Facts

• Role: Senior Accounts Payable (AP) Payments Manager (hands-on leadership)
• Focus: Supplier payment operations, controls, and scaling processes/systems
• Location/Work model: San Francisco, CA; hybrid (3 days in office Mon–Wed)

Description

You will own and scale supplier payment operations, ensuring accurate, timely payments backed by strong controls and dependable service as volume grows. Responsibilities include reviewing and approving payment runs, overseeing BPO/AP agent execution, and personally resolving complex payment exceptions, especially during volume spikes and month-end close. You will partner with procurement, supplier master data, accounting, treasury, tax, and finance systems to improve ERP/banking/procurement workflows and apply automation/AI with appropriate controls and human review.

Responsibilities

• Own supplier payment operations: review and approve payment runs for supplier/payment data accuracy, required approvals, and exception resolution; oversee manual disbursements and payment inquiries within authority and segregation-of-duties requirements.
• Resolve complex exceptions: act as primary escalation point for payment holds, rejected/returned payments, potential duplicates, and close blockers; coordinate with treasury, banking partners, accounting, and AP processing teams to resolve and verify outcomes before retrying or closing issues.
• Strengthen payment readiness: partner with procurement and AP teams to resolve invoice, PO, approval, and supplier-data gaps; establish clear ownership and follow through on recurring upstream issues.
• Support forecasting and close: provide reliable payment forecasts and cash-needs inputs to treasury; reconcile payment activity and exceptions (including payments after AP close) to support accounting close and cutoff decisions.
• Maintain effective controls: uphold SOX-aligned approvals, independent supplier bank-detail verification, segregation of duties, and audit-ready documentation; support internal/external audits and remediate control gaps.
• Improve systems and processes: define payment workflow and reporting requirements with finance systems and partners; test ERP and bank integrations (including host-to-host workflows); introduce automation or AI with validated outputs, exception handling, and clear accountability.
• Lead BPO delivery and capacity: set SLAs and KPIs, review quality/performance, coach service partners, and maintain documented procedures and backup coverage; plan for volume spikes and close demands.
• Report performance and risk: own reporting on payment timeliness, exceptions, rejection/return trends, forecast accuracy, service quality, and control issues.

Requirements

• 8+ years of AP, payments, or related finance operations experience
• Demonstrated ownership of complex indirect AP and supplier-payment operations, including PO and non-PO workflows
• Experience leading teams or outsourced delivery partners (BPO/AP agents), setting expectations, developing capability, and managing performance
• Strong payment-control judgment, including investigation of duplicates, bank-detail changes, and payment failures
• Depth in AP accounting, reconciliations, accrual inputs, and close coordination
• Experience translating AP needs into ERP or procurement-system improvements with measurable results
• Clear communication and ability to influence partners and senior stakeholders in ambiguous situations
• Willingness to work directly in payment queues, investigate failures, and support close when needed

Benefits

• Hybrid work model (3 days in office Mon–Wed)
• Relocation assistance for new employees