Top 15 Accounts Payable Clerk Skills to Stay Top of Your Job

This post provides exhaustive information on accounts payable clerk skills and qualities that you can develop to improve your performance on the job and become successful in your career.

Who is an Accounts Payable Clerk?

An accounts payable clerk plays a key role in the management of financial documents in the accounting department.

He/she is expected to take note of transactions on paper and manage the documents used in the transactions.

We can deduce that an accounts payable clerk is an employee in the accounting department of an organization whose job is to verify entries, compares those entries with account balances, as well as charge expenses to accounts through the available invoices.

Top 15 Accounts Payable Clerk Skills to Stay Top of Your Job

If you are looking to be more effective and be successful in your accounts payable clerk career, here are important skills and qualities to develop:

Confidentiality
Skilled in accounting
Job awareness
Good work ethics
Business acumen
IT knowledge
Accountability
Analytical skills
Proficiency in mathematics
Problem solving skills
Communication
Presentation skills
Relationship building
Good listening skills
Good documentation.

Confidentiality

As an accounts payable clerk, confidentiality should be your thing.

Issues that have to do with financial transactions should only be made known to the relevant people or bodies as the case may be.

It is unprofessional to render public what should be made secret.

Also, understand that this is mostly for security reasons.

When you are not careful with keeping financial details of the company in your care, you are putting the organization at a security risk, and if this happens, it might cost you your job.

Know that in order to keep your job, this is one of the things you should be able to do.

Though communication is needed from you, it must not be with the wrong people.

And the wrong people are those people you are not permitted to share the financial affairs of the company with.

Skilled in accounting

One thing you need to be good at is accounting. This is the first step towards becoming effective and good enough in your job.

If you fail in this aspect, it is bound to reflect in the quality of your work within the organization.

Accounting skills or knowledge starts from what you have been taught right from high school.

You should be able to recall them and make use of the knowledge you have in accounting to build a good career as an accounts payable clerk.

Also, you should be able to go for more accounting trainings and certifications.

This can boost your chances of getting to the top of your career in accounting.

So, the more skilled you are in accounting, the greater your chances of succeeding in that field.

Job awareness

Your job has its job descriptions and what you need to do to be effective in it.

This is the first thing you should have in mind and try to improve in what you are asked to do.

This is the pathway to achieving greatness in your job. Ignorance of your job description can be fatal.

This is made know to you through seminars and in house trainings of staff in an organization.

However, your personal development in your job is what matters most.

You are not bound to be stereotype but creative in doing your job as long as it is within the ambits of the organization’s rules and regulations.

Apart from the in house trainings you get from your organization, you should be able to search out for better ways to render a better service to your organization.

This is where your hunger for success will be brought to the limelight.

Good work ethics

There are some work ethics you need to know in the organization where you work and the field you find yourself.

These work ethics are meant to give you a better playing ground to achieve your personal goals, as well as render acceptable service to the organization that employed you.

One good work ethic you should learn is the right attitude to work.

There is always a problem when an employee in an organization develops a bad attitude to work.

This includes lateness to work and sleeping during working hours.

These bad attitudes always hinder the growth of the organization as a whole and also, in most cases, results to query and a possible sack.

This is never your desire and as such should not be something associated with your personality in the workplace.

Business acumen

Being an accounts payable clerk does not insinuate that you should be totally ignorant of what happens in the business world outside your organization.

You should be grounded in the knowledge of what is happening in the marketplace.

Being ignorant of basic business ideas will be like you shooting yourself in the foot.

You have to be business inclined for you to be a balanced accountant in any organization you find yourself.

You cannot afford to be ignorant; neither can you afford to have just a little knowledge about business.

Lastly, the documents in your possession or that you are permitted to handle will definitely contain some information which you can only understand with a satisfactory business knowledge.

IT knowledge

There is no one that wants to excel in his/her business or job that does not recognize the importance of having basic IT skills.

This is gradually becoming a foundational skill for every job.

This is due to the fact that the digital world is now all encompassing and can be employed to do any kind of job.

In your field, there are applications or software tools, especially designed for accounting works like spreadsheet packages, as well as database management packages.

You need to know them; what they can do and how you can use them in your job.

You will be doing yourself a great disfavor in your job if you do not have basic IT skills.

This will help you extend your job to beyond the four walls of the organization and this will help you be more efficient in delivering accurate and faster results.

Accountability

Your job is a sensitive one which demands lots of accountability regularly.

You are in a situation where you can be part of some transactions and being a key figure in it means you have to be careful and intentional about each transaction you are part of.

One thing your employer will not be pleased about is to discover carelessness in your job or work.

You have to be clinical and observant.

You have to develop an eagle-eye or what I tag diamond eye. This entails carefulness with little or no place for errors.

Sometimes when errors occur, you should be able to defend yourself and make corrections.

Be sure not to give your employer any hint that you cannot be trusted with the financial transactions of the organization.

This may spell the end of your reign in that organization.

Analytical skills

This is a basic skill you should acquaint yourself with.

There is no doubt that critical analysis is part of your job as an accounts payable clerk.

So in this regard, you should be a good analyst, able to spot out issues that may not be seen from the surface.

To be a good analyst demands that you are conservative and have a great deal of focus and concentration.

You may find it difficult to be a good analyst if you are easily distracted in your job. This may hamper your analytic abilities.

Your ability to analyze some documents clinically will help you solve some conundrums which other people may not be able to solve.

It is a prerequisite for being a problem solver.

Critical analysis works hand in hand with creative thinking.

Proficiency in mathematics

Accounting is a game of numbers. This means that on daily basis and per transaction you play around with numbers.

You do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This is basic mathematics playing out in your job daily.

So, what does this tell you?

It means that since you have to play around with numbers almost on daily basis, you should not be found wanting in the mathematics department.

The result can be devastating and embarrassing to say the least.

Good knowledge of mathematics can help you solve conundrums as well as help you in your analysis of documents and transactions.

If you have forgotten your basic mathematical operations, try your best to get it back and go for more advanced mathematical knowledge.

Problem solving skills

Problems may not be new to you in your job. You can rather call them challenges.

Challenges are sometimes unique to different fields and industries.

But, regardless of the field, the most important factor is not the occurrence of problems or challenges but the ability to overcome them when they occur and improve your working experience.

This also concerns you in your job; you have to be creative in handling problems that arise in the course of executing your job.

So, identify the challenges facing you in the organization, analyze them, and be sure they are not products of bad work ethics.

You can then go ahead to develop the capacity to solve the problems.

Communication

Communication is a vital factor in your quest to achieve success in your job.

Your skillset will not be complete without making mention of communication as something you are good at.

It is necessary for you to be excellent in rendering good communication.

There is no job in the world that does not demand communication skills.

Communication is what you need to maintain smooth flow of information within and outside the organization.

You just cannot do without good communication in your job.

With excellent oral and written communication skills, you are able to effectively keep your organization updated about the state of your job.

Presentation skills

It is during presentation that you render account of how you have carried out your job in the organization.

It might be when the organization is carrying out routine auditing and other examining processes. So you have to be ready for it.

Your presentation skills should be able to help you make convincing presentations in the organization.

It shows confidence and leaves no one in doubt about your ability to handle the job in the long run.

It is therefore important to develop strong presentation skills.

When doing presentations, it is necessary that your body language be put in check.

Remember that your body language has the ability to amplify your point or undermine your effort during a presentation.

This means that you have to work on yourself in order to be a powerful presenter.

Relationship building

You are not the only one in the accounting department. You are just a part of it and need to see yourself in that light.

Accounting work is too big and demanding for any large organization to have just one person overseeing the accounting affairs of the organization.

So, what should be your attitude while working with your colleagues in the accounting department?

The answer is simple: be a team player.

Since the job is not all about you but the interest of the organization, you should be able to work towards the growth of the department and the organization as a whole.

There is no room to be self-centered or self-willed in everything.

You have to put the team first and avoid any activity or behavior that puts you at odd with other members of the team or department. This can be detrimental to your job.

Good listening skills

Succeeding in your job has a lot to do with you obeying specific instructions given to you by the manager of your department or directly by your employer.

Most of the instructions or directives are verbal and demand that you listen well.

When you listen with good concentration, you afford yourself the opportunity to do what is required of you.

Sometimes, during trainings people are found doing one thing or the other that does not allow them have a full grab of the needed information.

Also, when building relationships in the workplace, you need to be skilled in listening to be able to give others room to make suggestions to you on how to do better in your job.

All these require your ability to listen properly without distractions.

Good documentation

Documentation is very important in your job description. You should be able to put down in writing or use computer to store details of your activities or transactions that you were involved in with the correct date and possible nature of the transaction.

To this effect, you should have some excellent writing skills. You should be able to note the important points that need not to be left out of the records.

This also means that you should be able to keep records and produce them when they are required from you.

Documentation is mainly for future purposes as well as auditing purposes.

It is unprofessional to carry out transactions without keeping accurate record of all the transactions you were involved in or authorized to sanction.

That is what documentation is all about.

Accounts Payable Clerk Skills for Resume

If you are writing a resume or CV for an accounts payable clerk position, the skills or competence section needs to be compelling to convince the recruiter/employer that you are the right person for the role.

You can apply the accounts payable clerk skills and qualities highlighted above in creating your skills section.

By showing in your resume that you have some of the above skills can significantly boost your resume/CV and increase your chances of getting the accounts payable clerk job.

Conclusion

The documentation and report of finances in an organization remains an important job of the account payable clerk of an organization.

The job demands carefulness and a whole lot of skills and qualities to succeed in your career as an accounts payable clerk.