
The accounts payable manager needs to have certain stills to be able to effectively carry out their duties for their departments, including instilling the control and orderliness that ensures disbursements of funds are done by the right people and for the purpose stipulated by the organization.
This post focuses on the vital skills and qualities that individuals who work in the role of an accounts payable manager or who are aspiring to that position will need to develop to succeed on the job.
But first, let’s get to know who an accounts payable manager is:
Who is an Accounts Payable Manager?
The job of an accounts payable manager is a job that is concerned with control or moderation of activities that go on in the accounts payable department.
So, with this, you can say that an accounts payable manager is a manager in the accounts payable department whose job is to moderate the department, ensure that all forms of cash outflow in the organization are carried out smoothly with proper records of those transactions for future purpose.
Top 15 Accounts Payable Manager Skills
- Good interpersonal skills
There is one possible way to get the best out of the people you meet every day in your workplace and that is through interpersonal skills.
It is one way you can get the best input from the people inside and outside the organization.
If you desire to get the best of advice and support from those around you in the department or the organization at large, then you should be able to work well with them.
This is a bit of relationship building and imbibing team spirit with those around you.
For you to be able to work well with people or get the best out of them, you should be able to know that some character and attitude of yours must be adjusted to allow people get closer to you and feel relaxed and comfortable staying around you.
2. Good analytical skills
A good manager is known to be a good analyst of some sort. This is because this is one of the major demands of the job of a manager at any capacity or organization.
They take their time and make a good analysis of whatever happens around them in the organization.
When you work in this capacity, you should be able to be calm enough to carry out a good analysis of the job you are paid to do.
This is what you will need for you to be able to make sound and rational decisions relating to your job.
Analyzing the system of the organization and the nature of your job as well as the day to day issues that you are expected to handle in the organization calls for calmness and a whole lot of concentration for you to be able to make good analysis, which in turn can result to making good decisions.
3. Good work ethics
There are rules and regulations that guide every worker in the organization.
These rules are meant to guide the conduct of every worker in the organization.
This is because, naturally without these rules, people tend to do things the way they want.
This is where your professionalism is put to the test.
As an accounts payable manager, you should be able to carry out your job not because you are afraid of the rules and regulations obtainable in the organization but because you know what is right and want to do that.
Good work ethics entails doing what is right and doing it exactly at the right time and in the right way.
It serves the purpose of ensuring orderliness in the place of work as well as promoting the spirit of professionalism.
4. Planning skills
This is also one of the prevalent skills a manager of any capacity or industry should have.
Management becomes difficult or almost impossible if there is no adequate plan in place to decide or determine how things are done in the department or organization at large.
So for you an accounts payable manager, your plans should involve the daily transactions of the organization and how it should be carried out by you and the members of your team.
This will help avoid handling too many tasks that may not be necessary for the day.
One of the things you should bear in mind is that if you are making plans for the activities in the department or organization, it should be in view of the future goals of the organization.
This means that your plans should be more of active/proactive measures and not passive measures.
5. Problem solving skills
Understanding your job description should give you a glimpse of what is actually required or expected of you in the organization.
This is true because the purpose for which you are employed by a particular department is to add more value and productivity to that department.
If you are able to solve the problems stated in your job description, you can then boast of being valuable to the organization.
So, understanding the details of your job description is the first step towards developing the valuable problem solving skills.
Then you have the day to day problems you are expected to solve which may somehow deviate a little from the contents of your job description.
Hope you know that it is not purely your job description that determines what you do every day.
There are problems you are expected to solve daily based on your experiences of the job. You should excel in this.
6. Proficiency in IT related issues
In most organizations today, proficiency in Information Technology is a must have skill if you really want to stand a chance of getting employed in those organizations.
Why is it so?
The reason is because of the propensity of IT to helping you deliver a more excellent job and also help beat deadlines and help you deal with complex issues.
Now you know that proficiency in information technology is a must in most organizations.
You are expected to do your possible best to grab the necessary IT knowledge to help you stand a chance of landing your dream job or excel in the one you have already.
It will be out of place for you to be using analog methods of doing your work in a digital age or 21st century.
It is sure to be your undoing in the long run (that is if you can last in the job without being replaced by someone with IT skills).
7. Motivation
Someone once said that to know how motivated you are in your job, check how you feel when you remember you have to go to work on Monday morning and how you feel when you remember you won’t be going to work after Friday.
If you feel bad going to work on Monday, then it is a glaring notion that you are not motivated in the job and if you feel overly excited that it is Friday that you won’t be going to work the next day, it also means that you may not be excited about that job.
This goes a long way to reveal the real reason why many people are performing well below their mental and physical capacity.
This is not to say that it is abnormal to seek a break from your job but if the feeling is always geared towards not going to work then there is every possibility that you have lost your motivation in the job, which is not a good sight to behold.
8. Good knowledge of accounting
In this job, there are two most important skills you must consider: good mathematical skills and good accounting skills.
Good mathematical skills form the foundation of this job followed by an excellent knowledge of accounting.
Knowledge of accounting is needed because of the nature of your job.
Your job entails manipulation of figures and recording of financial details and also overseeing the outflow of cash out of the organization depending on your job description.
You can see that by reason of having to oversee the outflow of cash from the organization and also ensuring that such transactions are recorded, you have some accounting job to do in this regard.
Therefore, you should be able to know your basic accounting principles and work with them.
9. General managerial skills
Though you may be working as a manager in the accounts department, this does not limit you to only the accounting department.
You should be able to handle similar managerial roles as may be required from you by the hierarchies of the organization.
So, what do you need to migrate to another similar role?
This is important because if you claim to be versatile, then you are saying that you are able to handle similar managerial positions whether in the organization or another organization entirely.
On that note, you should broaden or widen your managerial prowess to ensure that you don’t spend much time adapting to a new managerial position in the organization or elsewhere.
The thing is that you can be a better manager only if you can widen your managerial scope.
10. Leadership skills
There is no doubt that anywhere in the world of business a manager is a leader and an important personality in the organization.
This is because by reason of their position they can show their team what to do and can also compel them to do it.
Your leadership role comes into forms: leading by example and compelling the members of your department to do so if need arises for you to use compulsion.
It is all part of what makes you a manager in that organization.
Therefore, you should be able to work with the two formats.
Among the two formats of leadership, you should be able to work more with setting examples rather than compulsion all the time.
You are not to be viewed as a mean and disrespectful fellow in the organization simply because of your position, rather be a coach and make them work without grudges.
11. Communication skills
Communication is an integral part and central to achieving organizational goals both in the short and long run.
This is because information is established and disseminated through effective communication as well as coaching and orientation/reorientation of everyone working in the organization.
So, what is your role in this regard?
Your role is to ensure that you are able to establish and disseminate information within the department and all around the organization as may be required from you.
Your communication skills should be admirable and efficient.
Most especially, as a leader and a coach in the organization, communication is a viable tool you have to make your information reachable and understandable to the people under your influence.
Simply put, leadership and coaching will be difficult without good communication.
12. Negotiation
As someone who stands a good position of meeting with customers almost on daily basis, you will always see the need to negotiate with customers or clients about the best value of the goods or services your organization renders to them.
It is all part of business and you cannot change that.
What you do is to flow with them and learn how to negotiate or bargain with customers to ensure you give them the best value for their money while also ensuring the profits of the organization are intact.
Also, you can negotiate methods of payment since it is your office that oversees the outflow of cash from the organization.
You should earn your organization some good terms and conditions of payment that will not weigh heavily on the financial muscle of your organization.
13. Good organizational skills
Having good organizational skills is not theoretical but more of what you can do when the need arises.
Meaning that this skill is not necessarily what you learn theoretically but something you should bear in mind and know how to do whenever the need arises.
An effective accounts payable manager should also be good at organization, meaning that you should be able to organize the flow of activities in the department and make sure that things go smoothly as you would like as well as the hierarchies of the organization.
You have to exercise control and not be passive.
You should be able to detect how things work and how you want them to work.
An example is scheduling days to carry out payments when they are due without being reminded about that all the time.
14. Middleman role
As you know, a middleman is more of a central figure who exists to be a bridge between the organization and its clients.
They receive information from clients and relate it with the organization and also pass information across to clients from the organization.
This is quite both interesting and demanding.
It demands that you are always on hand to mediate between the organization and the clients, especially in the area of financial payments to the clients.
This is what really makes you a middleman in the organization.
To be effective in this role, you should know the qualities of middlemen, of which one is balancing and maintaining the relationship between the organization and the clients through good communication and negotiation.
If you can do these two things, then you can comfortably say you can excel in this job.
15. Deadline management
Deadline management is one thing that some people struggle to really handle in their jobs.
This can lead to outright layoff of such employee because their organization is bound to lose some deals or good money each time it fails to meet up with deadlines owing to their inability to do so.
If you are to be a good accounts payable manager, you are expected to take note of the deadlines attached to every job you are given to handle.
You should also work on yourself to always get the job done even before the given deadline.
So, for this reason, laziness and procrastination should not be associated with you.
Don’t relax until you are sure that you have completed whatever task that was given to you.
Finish your job before embarking on any form of relaxation or enjoyment whatever.
Accounts Payable Manager Skills for Resume
If you are making a resume or CV for the accounts payable manager position, you can apply some of the skills presented in this post in crafting it (if you have them).
This will make your resume more compelling as it shows that you have the right skills and qualities to be able to carry out your responsibilities as an accounts payable manager effectively.
This is why it is important to develop these skills
Conclusion
Being in the position of an accounts payable manager comes with a lot of responsibilities basically because of the sensitivity of the department.
You are required to monitor and control the activities that take place in the department and ensure that the department is running smoothly.
The skills that have been discussed above are very important to you in this job and that is why this article has discussed the importance of each skill extensively and comprehensively.
Working as an accounts payable manager can be challenging, but with the above skills, you will be able to perform your duties effortlessly and successfully and the job will be enjoyable.