Operations Leader Vendor Setup & Maintenance Accounting

About Lowe’s

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) is a FORTUNE® 50 home improvement company serving approximately 16 million customer transactions a week in the United States. With total fiscal year 2024 sales of more than $83 billion, Lowe’s operates over 1,700 home improvement stores and employs approximately 300,000 associates. Based in Mooresville, N.C., Lowe’s supports the communities it serves through programs focused on creating safe, affordable housing, improving community spaces, helping to develop the next generation of skilled trade experts and providing disaster relief to communities in need. For more information, visit Lowes.com.

About the Team

This team is responsible for overseeing various activities aimed at ensuring timely and accurate payments to Lowe’s carriers and associates. Their duties range from onboarding different types of vendors into our payment systems, to monitoring the accuracy of bills through vendor invoice and employee expense record audits for enterprise purposes. Additionally, the team is also responsible for enabling the vendors for Electronic Funds Transfer.

Job Summary:

The primary purpose of this role is to be responsible for leading the Vendor Setup & Maintenance related operations. The individual is also responsible for providing Managerial, Strategic and operational leadership to the Vendor Setup & Maintenance/ Travel & Expense team with responsibility for 14 FTE’s across levels who are managing accurate vendor creation that enables timely payments. Identifies payment & operational improvements and implements changes.  Maintains strong partnerships with all SSC-M partners, Invoice processing/ Pay audit team teams and vendors

Responsible for designing and implementing operational strategies, Management reporting structure that drives timely payment reconciliation. Ensures compliance on internal & external control/governance, build connection across upstream teams to delivers on key business objectives and drive cross functional projects with deliver efficiency

Drive team engagement, Team Member development in a fast-paced environment and create a culture that delivers a great experience for associates and guests with every interaction.

To this end, drive necessary financial policies, risk control matrices, standard operating procedures, and internal controls; implement appropriate governance processes that assure compliance with regulatory (such as SOX) as well as management mandates. The individual will also need to recruit, manage, and develop a strong, performance-oriented team, capable of effectively engaging and growing with the business.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Core Responsibilities:

• Review on daily workload management, Assigning goals & responsibility to the team, Adherence to SLA & TAT, Compliance to internal/external control.
• Plan, forecast and execute weekly/monthly deadlines to ensure relevant reports are published with audit findings
• Continuously evaluate financial risks and develop comprehensive risk-based audit plan for existing processes and new transitions
• Strategize, define, and implement team processes, policies, procedures and best practices
• First point of contact for internal teams such as Helpdesk, SSC-M Partners, GL Reconciliation & Finance technology teams on issues that has an impact on timely and accurate vendor payment.
• Proactively communicate financial risk findings to leaders, partners and team members
• Create training roadmap to ensure team training needs are met and all process gaps and controls are addressed in a timely manner
• Support hiring needs by conducting interviews
•  Coach, Develop & counsel team and associates to facilitate individual development
• Administers timely performance reviews, and ensures a high quality of team member performance and the other expectation as per the policies and procedures
• Responsible to maintain a highly engaged team who can play a larger role towards the success of organization
• Works on special projects as assigned.
• Working knowledge of accounts payables, vendor master data, enabling EFT
• Pro-actively identify potential risk of setting up vendor, phishing attempt to change vendor banking details  
• Key contact for SSCM relating to the processes mentioned above
• Should maintain a seamless channel of communication with the relevant stakeholders

Years of Experience:

• 10-12 years’ experience in retail accounting & accounts payable with 2-3 years of supervisory role

Education Qualification & Certifications (optional)

Required Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting & Finance)

Skill Set Required

Primary Skills (must have)

• In depth knowledge in Vendor Master Management, accounting, leadership, problem solving, process improvement.
• Strong skills in the following areas: RPA, Data Analytics, Ability to handle multiple projects, Attention to detail,
• Excellent in problem solving, Ability to challenge processes & processes related decisions
• Hands on experience on any ERP & Data warehouse, such as SAP, Oracle, Mainframe etc.

Secondary Skills (desired)

• Proficiency in MS Tools

Lowe's is an equal opportunity employer and administers all personnel practices without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law.