Day in the Life of an Accounts Payable Clerk

An accounts payable clerk is responsible for ensuring that company debts are paid in full and on time. A typical day in the life of an accounts payable clerk will involve reconciling and processing invoices as well recording and verifying expenses. Depending on your employer, you may also be required to provide supervisory duties and team leadership to other staff members.

Invoice Related Duties

An accounts payable clerk is tasked with reviewing vendor invoices for accuracy and making sure that necessary changes are made before issuing payments. During this process, verification of tax ID numbers may be necessary as well as calculating line item changes, freight charges, discounts and all taxes due. Once invoice errors are identified and corrected, clerks then generate checks using web payments of automated clearing houses. Other duties entail matching invoices to corresponding purchase orders doing stop payments for inaccurately paid invoices and scheduling payments in accordance to purchase contracts.

Accounts Receivable Responsibilities

In certain companies, an accounts payable clerk is also responsible for accounts receivables, which involve making invoices for customers and other debtors. In this capacity, you’ll be required to generate company profits by calculating all due payments and sending out invoices. You may also be required to make payment reminder notices, process refunds, unpaid accounts to collection agencies, deal with insufficient payments as well as solve payment disputes.

General Accounting Tasks

An accounts payable clerk may be required to post and verify payable transactions in general ledgers as well as maintain ledger payable accounts. In addition, you may need to allocate expenses to accounts and cost centers, evaluating and generating expense reports as well as making closing statements at the end of each accounting period. You may need to report all sales taxes to the relevant government agencies, record all petty cash disbursements, and maintain accounts payable files and spreadsheets.

Internal Relations

If you are employed in large company with several branches, you may be required to liaise between your accounts payable branch and that of the main headquarters. You might need to interact with accounting personnel and heads of departments to solve accounting payable issues on a daily basis. For instance, if invoices don’t have purchase orders, it may be your responsibility to ensure the right signatures and approval before the bill is paid.

Qualifications and Skills

To be a successful accounts payable clerk, confidentiality is a crucial quality. You need to possess good knowledge of accounting or bookkeeping and have the ability to develop job consciousness by pursuing education. You need to be a great team player with good attributes on problem solving, organizational and communication skills. A high school diploma can be a good start in pursuing the career as an accounts payable clerk. Some companies may require accounting or bookkeeping experience as well as knowledge of accounting programs.