
This post provides highly important skills and qualities you need to have as an accounts payable specialist to be effective on the job and also to apply in making your resume or CV.
Before we get into it, let’s learn about the accounts payable specialist job:
Who is an Accounts Payable Specialist?
An accounts payable specialist is a person hired in a business organization who is in charge of payment of the company bills.
They also oversee the preparation of records, bookkeeping and other financial transactions for use by other departments of the organization, most especially the accounting department for the purpose of auditing and tax matters.
Top 15 Accounts Payable Specialist Skills
- Necessary experience
Working as an accounts payable specialist demands quite a lot of experience.
That is the fact about this job which you should know. It is not a job for inexperienced fellows who are still new in this field.
So, experience is highly required to be able to fit in well into this job.
If you have not worked in this capacity before, then the experience you will need will be from related jobs.
Meaning that you should have worked for some years in other account payable job descriptions like an accounts payable assistant or any related job.
Most times the number of years you have worked is the major advantage you will have if you will necessarily land this type of job.
So, having worked for like 5 years in another firm in the same job or related job can help you get this dream job.
2. Efficiency in the use of Microsoft suite
This is very important to whatever you do in your organization. Considering the kind of job you do, you shouldn’t think twice about the need to use some software packages to enhance your productivity in the organization.
You should see to it that you employ the possibilities embedded in the software.
Your job needs these possibilities and the efficiency of digitalization.
Digitalization is the latest trend and technology you can think of if you really want to make your job easier than before.
You need to embrace digitalization and explore every possibility it affords.
Your job has dimensions which will definitely require your knowledge of some other software tools apart from Microsoft excel or other accounting packages.
So, you have to brace yourself up and get the knowledge about digitalization and know how to work with the knowledge you gather.
3. Good organizational skills
Functioning in this capacity is no mean feat at all and not something to be careless about in your approach to the job.
One of the ways you can deal with carelessness is through exhibition of some good organizational skills in the department.
This job comes with a lot of responsibilities but you will not be able to achieve much if you cannot do what is expected of you.
That is why good organizational skill is highly recommended in this job and something that can make your resume a much attractive one.
This is because this is one of the basic skills your employer will be looking out for when perusing your resume.
4. Active learning
When you consider carefully the evolution of demands needed to succeed in certain jobs, you will come to the conclusion that anyone who is not willing to add valuable knowledge to their knowledge base is bound to be left behind in this century.
This is because the demand for succeeding in certain jobs as that of an accounts payable specialist evolves with time to accommodate more skills and expertise.
So with this, if you are not willing to improve in what you already know how to do then there is no future in sight.
There are many ways you can add to your skill collection and knowledge base and one of them is to attend seminars, workshops, watch some videos on the YouTube which have a lot to teach you in your job.
By the time you do these things for some months, you should be able to stay on top of your game.
5. Communication skills
Active and effective communication remains one of the vehicles of growth which almost every organization looks for in the resume of any employee or potential employee.
It is a vehicle of progress and growth without which the goals of the organization can be delayed.
Therefore, if you are an accounts payable specialist, then you should bear it in mind that you must up your communication skills or risk being replaced by a more proactive communicator.
There is no place for being ineffective in the area of communication.
Communication serves the purpose of helping you build the necessary relationship while also helping you get information across to the necessary people in need of the communication.
Oral and written communications are two forms of communication you should be able to carry out without struggle in the workplace.
6. Problem solving skills
What determines how long you can last in your job is your effectiveness or usefulness to the organization where you work.
It is also a known fact that your useful to your organization is all about how many problems you are able to help the organization solve.
Knowing this fact that your longevity and progress in this job depends on how efficient you are in problem solving, you are expected to always come up with ideas that will help solve some pressing needs of the organization where you work.
To be so certain about some of the problems you are expected to solve or help solve in the organization, you have to consult or go through your job description to have a full knowledge of the type of problems you should expect yourself to handle and do your possible best to make sure you live up to the expectation of the organization.
7. Time management
Anyone who cannot manage time in this century is not fit enough to work in the capacity of an accounts payable specialist.
This is because, organizations are looking for the possibilities of achieving so much within a short period of time and efficiently too.
The ability to achieve a lot within the shortest possible time is one of the factors that can make customers or clients to keep patronizing an organization.
Remember that the pressure to be time conscious comes from the customers down to the hierarchies of the organization, which in turn transcends to the lower level workers of the company.
You are to develop a means or apply good technology that can help you meet deadlines and not dragging the organization backwards because of your inability to manage time.
8. Teamwork
This is also one of the things you should get accustomed with in your job as an accounts payable specialist.
Teamwork serves the purpose of helping individuals in the department or organization to achieve both the organizational goals and their personal goals in the job.
Without teamwork, organizational goals are delayed if not aborted.
You achieve greater efficiency and excellence in your job when you are in a team of professionals who share the same passion and goal with you barring difference in personal goals and ambition.
But all the same, with some good professionals in your team, you are bound to achieve more.
Understand that team work is not all about what you can benefit from the team (though that is one of the benefits you derive from being a member of the team) but also what you do to help others in the team achieve their personal goals and ambitions in the job.
9. Business acumen
One is known as a specialist if they have expertise in a particular field of life.
This is based on the fact that such a person has undergone some detailed or life/career defining trainings.
It means that a specialist has their own area of specialty.
However, as you know that the demands of jobs like this require more than just what you learn in school or what you have been trained to become, you will need to go beyond that and become flexible enough to adapt seamlessly to any other job description.
One of the skills you will need to add to your specialty as an accounts payable specialist is business acumen.
Business acumen entails having satisfactory knowledge of business and what happens in the marketplace, as well as some of the rules and regulations that govern the operation of businesses within the geographical area where your organization is situated.
10. Self-motivation
Self-motivation is the most important type of communication anyone can have in this contemporary time in the business world.
The business world is more demanding than ever that only the people who are motivated in themselves can match both the speed and the demands of their jobs.
Self-motivation is so important that it could be the single reason why you will remain in this job when other factors or skills fail you.
Of course, you know that sometimes what you know may not be enough to help you scale through some hurdles.
So, at the point when things are not going well for you, having self-motivation is one thing can help you pick yourself up and drag your out of the miry clay of despondency in your job and keep you moving.
You need self-motivation because it may be the last help you may resort to when you don’t feel like pushing anymore.
11. Collaboration
Sometimes, some people are very concerned about what they can do to create more value for themselves and the organization where they work but seem not to come to a reasonable idea of what to do.
However, the good news is that collaboration is the key.
Collaboration works like network marketing where you get more hands to do some jobs of which at the end of the day everyone benefits from their individual inputs.
If you understand the principles of network marketing, then collaborating with people in the workplace won’t be difficult.
Collaboration involves more people helping you do your job, not necessary through direct input but with their advice and other supports they can offer.
You also need to make sure that you can also add value to their jobs too, especially if they are your coworkers in the organization.
12. Deadline management
Your accounts payable specialist job has timing and what is expected of you to accomplish within a given time frame.
It is not a position where you handle jobs without taking cognizance of the time to complete it.
Time is everything and it matters a lot in any job, including the role of an accounts payable specialist.
There are some jobs you will be doing periodically, either monthly or yearly or any other time interval accrued to your position as the accounts payable specialist of your organization.
You should take cognizance of these timings and work towards meeting the deadlines of the jobs assigned to you.
If you should meet up with deadlines in your job, then you should be able to do some good planning on how to do so.
It is not magical and also not impossible to meet up with deadlines.
All you need to do is to divide the job into smaller portions and take them up one day at a time and you will see that you will be okay in the end.
13. Information management skills
Information management connotes a lot of things. First it starts with collation of data, processing the data, presentation, representation and storage of data for future use by anyone entitled to use such data/information provided by you.
There are two main sources of data you will have to know and they are: data given to you by the organization from other departments and your personal data which you were able to generate through your personal research or mini auditing exercise.
So, if you have some data at your disposal, it is important you treat such data with discretion and confidentiality.
You should not be careless with some data, especially the ones that have some personal details about people.
You should do your best to know that classified data is not for everyone’s consumption.
14. Experience in accounting
Who wouldn’t like to employ or have an employee working in this capacity with lots of accounting experience? Absolutely no one!
So, it means that experience in accounting is a big plus to you in this job and can help you excel in your responsibilities.
If you have sufficient experience in accounting, you should be able to work in different accounting capacities either in the same organization or in another one.
By this you know you will be regarded as a major asset to your organization.
Yes, you are a major asset to the organization because you can be a makeshift accounting officer if there is a vacancy in that position before it is filled.
Besides, your knowledge of accounting will also help you understand some accounting operations in the organization.
15. Ability to work independently
Working independently shouldn’t be something new to you as an accounts payable specialist.
This is because you are a professional and you know what is expected of you to do.
Working independently does not portray you as a selfish individual or give the impression that the job is down to your personal abilities, but to remind you that the organization deals with you as an individual and not necessarily as a group regardless of the number of people you are working with.
No matter the level of support you get from other people in the organization, the most important factor that will be taken into account is your personal contribution.
That means that you should be able to work with your own ideas and make things happen in the organization.
Accounts Payable Specialist Skills for Resume
If you are making a resume or CV for an accounts payable specialist position, it is a good idea to highlight some of the skills and qualities presented in this post in your resume if you have them.
This can boost the effectiveness of your resume as it shows that you have the needed skills to perform the job of an accounts payable specialist successfully.
Conclusion
Accounts payable specialists have their work cut out for them.
They have to ensure that the bills of the organization are paid as at when due.
As discussed in this post, you will definitely need some cool skills to be able to do well in your job as an accounts payable specialist.
This post has provided some of the most important skills you need to develop as an accounts payable specialist to be effective in your job, as well as highlight in your resume to make it more compelling.