Accounts Payable Specialist

Position Summary

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The AP Specialist is responsible for end‑to‑end Accounts Payable operations, including vendor master data maintenance, invoice lifecycle management, payment processing, month‑end close activities, and audit support. This role serves as a primary point of contact for vendors and internal stakeholders, ensures compliance with internal controls, and supports continuous improvement initiatives across accounting processes. This position performs advanced accounting coordination, system administration, reporting, and cross‑functional support activities critical to business operations.

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This position also delivers on the day-to-day commitments to our Customer, our Company, and our People:

• Purpose
• Process
• People

While building on our culture of:

• Doing it Right
• Doing it Safe
• Doing it Well.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Safety

• Read and understand the Crescent Safety Playbook – Doing It Safe.
• Ensure Safe and well-maintained Work Environment and conditions throughout all work spaces, facility and surrounding areas.
• Engage all people in cultivating and promoting a Safety-First Culture.
• Directs visitors to appropriate department or calls for personnel to assist in escorting the visitor to the appropriate area (i.e., GE foreign nationals). Ensures that visitors are wearing appropriate attire for walking through the warehouse safely (shared receptionist duty).

People

• Promote a Work Environment where Crescent People are valued and can safely communicate, grow and develop.
• Greet all visitors and guests in a professional and welcoming manner whether in person or phone conversations.
• Ensure mail is distributed to designated areas and all outgoing mail is processed accurately.
• Replenish postage machine with postage
• Participate in Crescent talent selection, talent development and recognition processes.
• Train and cross‑train team members to ensure continuity of AP operations.
• Train new users on the AP end‑to‑end process (shared folders, invoice flow, PO creation, receiving, and task creation for PO edits/corrections).
• Provide Emburse user training and guidance, including process expectations and policy understanding.
• Communicate and collaborate with operating sites, Accounting, and Payroll Group (PG) to resolve invoice/payment issues and benefit coverage variances impacting payables.
• Serve as a subject‑matter expert and primary point of contact for AP processes, systems, issue resolution and policy interpretation.

Productivity

• Monitor AP intake channels (mailbox, vendor portals, electronic submissions) and manage invoice workflow through payment/resolution.
• Manage end‑to‑end processing of PO and non‑PO invoices in NetSuite, including matching, exception handling, and coordination with operating sites to ensure accurate and timely posting.
• Match invoices to PO and receiving documentation; research and resolve discrepancies in coordination with vendors and operating sites
• Proactively manage aged and exception invoices by coordinating resolution with vendors and internal stakeholders to prevent payment delays, reporting issues and to keep AP current.
• Manage vendor onboarding in NetSuite, ensuring required approvals, documentation, and compliance with internal controls prior to activation.
• Serve as the system owner for the Emburse platform, managing corporate credit card administration and employee reimbursement processing, including user support, issue resolution, and ensuring timely, accurate processing aligned with month‑end close and reimbursement schedules.
• Coordinate vendor payment distribution (including mailing checks), ensuring required approvals, supporting documentation, and payment accuracy are complete prior to release.
• Support Cross Functional Teams to manage and prioritize staffing assignments to ensure customer demand and accounting schedules are met.
• Champion the Crescent Culture of Doing it Right, Doing it Safe and Doing it Well and abide by all written and understood policies and procedures.
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve AP workflows, reduce rework, and increase efficiency through process refinement and system utilization.
• Identify, drive and support all Continuous Improvement (CI) efforts.
• All other duties as assigned, including but not limited to the identification and training of an individual capable of successfully completing all stated Key Responsibilities as appropriate to maintain integrity of position for progression planning and coverage during times of absence.

Quality

• Maintain organized electronic AP documentation in accordance with retention requirements to support audit readiness, internal controls, and financial reporting integrity.
• Ensure compliance with internal approval matrix, accounting policies, and internal controls throughout AP processes.
• Perform vendor statement reconciliations to confirm completeness of AP activity (identify missing invoices/credits, duplicates, or payment discrepancies) and coordinate resolution.
• Validate coding accuracy for recurring non‑PO invoices, including correct expense accounts and segmentations to support consistent reporting.
• Review credit card transactions for policy compliance, required documentation, and appropriate coding/approvals.
• Maintain vendor master data accuracy (W‑9 collection, tax status validation, payment terms, ACH setup) and coordinate 1099 support to ensure correct vendor classification and annual reporting readiness.
• Fraud prevention control: Independently verify vendor requests for bank information changes (call‑back confirmation) and document validation steps.
• Support internal/external audits by providing documentation, explanations, and transaction support as requested.
• Provide detailed invoice data to support ESG reporting requirements as requested by Finance, Quality and/or Safety leadership.

Customer Value

• Provide timely, professional responses to vendor and internal stakeholder inquiries regarding invoice status, payment timing, and issue resolution.
• Serve as a primary contact for vendor and internal AP inquiries, providing timely resolution while protecting vendor relationships and reporting accuracy.
• Demonstrate proactive issue resolution to prevent payment delays, reporting errors, or vendor dissatisfaction.
• Proactively identify and address issues that could negatively impact vendor relationships, financial reporting accuracy, or internal controls.
• Communicate clearly and proactively with vendors and operating sites to resolve PO/invoice variances and prevent delays or service disruption.
• Protect vendor relationships and support uninterrupted operations by anticipating risks that could impact payment accuracy, reporting, or supplier confidence

Financial

• Support accurate financial reporting by ensuring AP activity is complete, properly coded, and aligned with GAAP and internal control expectations.
• Participate in month‑end close by meeting established AP cutoff timelines and providing required schedules/documentation to support reporting and audit readiness.
• Proactively monitor open purchase orders and partner with buyers to determine appropriate short‑close or closure actions, ensuring commitments and accruals are accurately reflected in financial reporting.
• Manage approved project spend by overseeing PPO worksheet activity, tracking expenditures against authorized budgets, preparing supporting journal entries, and ensuring accurate month‑end balance sheet reconciliation through complete workpaper tie‑outs
• Reconcile insurance‑related balance sheet accounts, investigate variances, and support timely resolution.
• Support end‑of‑month reporting through preparation/coordination of accrual support for recurring/non‑PO expenses (ensuring appropriate period recognition).
• Ensure audit and review requests are supported with clear documentation, transaction support, and AP data integrity.
• General Math skills – unit of measure conversions and similar problem solving

Cultural Competencies 

Do It Right

Doing what is right for our customers, doing what is right for our company, and doing what is right for our People.  Continually improving the quality of our product and services.  Monitoring and measuring every key ingredient which could negatively impact our quality.  Doing it Right ensures we will always be a Premier Service Provider.

• Identifier and champion of change opportunities, adept at countering resistance to change and an advocate for continuous improvement
• Provide direction and rally the team impetus, forge teams
• Willing to take calculated risks
• Accurate and timely completion of assigned tasks
• Thoroughness
• Following up with the site regarding questions on vendor bill variances (to POs)
• Following up with vendors on inquiries

Do It Safe

Providing a safe environment and supporting our people to reach their highest potential.  A safe environment where all forms of risk are assessed and controlled.  A safe environment open to new ideas, where our people’s opinions and overall well-being count.  A diverse environment where everyone fits and can be successful.

• Self-assured
• Able communicator—good clarity, balanced talker and listener
• Patient
• Effectively assertive and able to handle conflict and confrontation situations
• Solution vs. blame oriented
• Mixture of firmness and flexibility
• Has energy and enthusiasm
• Holds self and others accountable

Do It Well

Optimizing all our resources to efficiently and effectively perform all tasks well.  Our overall productivity as a company is a reflection of the thousands of activities performed well each and every day by everyone.  At Crescent, our ability to Do it Well is a real source of pride valued by our customers.

• Systematic trainer, willing and able to develop people
• Good work ethic, task focused and willing to extend extra effort
• Able to follow structure where it exists and create structure where it does not
• Resilient—able to deal with the unexpected, not easily flustered
• Has sense of urgency
• Follows up to ensure quality task completion
• Organized to ensure consistent and accurate execution
• Use Critical thinking to address and resolve issues
• Identify and investigate discrepancies

Work Environment / Physical Demands

• Fast paced environment, requiring adaptation to continuous changes in Company, Customer and People needs.
• Ability to frequently sit, stand, walk, reach with hands and arm’s length, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, and crouch.
• Ability to regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds, occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Ability to sit for extended periods of time at desk in traditional office environment

Systems Usage

• NetSuite
• Nulogy PackManager
• MS Office Suite (Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams)
• Overall PC proficiency

Performance Metrics and Trends

• Safety
• People
• Productivity
• Quality
• Customer Value
• Financial

Qualifications

Education & Experience:                                                                                                                   

• Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance or purchasing
• Experience building relationships with vendors
• 1-3 years of experience in accounting/procurement/purchasing activities
• Proven track record of willingness to take on new challenges
• Open to growth through increased responsibilities and cross training

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with systems mentioned above
• Detailed oriented
• Training and/or education in accounting

We will absolutely know the AP Specialist is successful if they can:

• Independently complete their daily, weekly and monthly assigned duties
• Maintain high quality of vendor/supplier AP processing with minimal entry/payment issues
• Highly proficient and accurate with data entry, data processing and quick to learn new systems and technology
• Demonstrate an ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and organize work effectively
• Lead cross-functional efforts to bring process improvement as well as initiative to automate the A/P process.
• Communicate directly and transparently with the accounting team, offering assistance wherever needed, to form a cohesive team environment