Salary Range: $115,000.00 - $135,000.00 - $155,000.00 Northwest Kidney Centers seeks an Accounts Payable Manager to support the Accounting team in a full-time, hybrid position (Burien, WA). Shift: Full-time, Monday-Friday, On-site. Purpose The Accounts Payable Manager leads daily Accounts Payable operations, including invoice processing, payment execution, vendor onboarding and maintenance, employee expense reimbursement administration, AP reconciliations, AP close deliverables, AP controls, process improvement, and staff development.
This position serves as the Finance subject matter expert and functional business owner for Accounts Payable and procure-to-pay processes within Workday and related systems. Functional business ownership includes responsibility for AP business processes, functional requirements, operational outcomes, controls, data quality, and the AP-team user experience. The Accounts Payable Manager provides ongoing AP insights, functional issue analysis, testing, and improvement recommendations while partnering with the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager and Information Technology.
Duties Accounts Payable Operations
- Lead daily Accounts Payable operations, including invoice receipt, review, coding, approval routing, exception resolution, payment processing, vendor inquiries, and employee expense reimbursement administration.
- Ensure invoices and payments are processed accurately, timely, and in accordance with approved policies, contractual terms, documentation requirements, and delegated authority.
- Lead AP payment schedules and coordinate payment exceptions or urgent requests within established approval requirements.
- Monitor AP aging, unresolved invoices, vendor credits, duplicate-payment risks, returned payments, and service-performance measures.
- Coordinate with the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager and accounting staff to resolve general-ledger, coding, accrual, reconciliation, or financial-reporting issues arising from AP activity.
AP Close, Reconciliations, and Accounting Support
- Lead the Accounts Payable portion of monthly and year-end close, including AP subledger reconciliation, unresolved invoice review, payment cutoffs, vendor credits, received-not-invoiced items, corporate-card reconciliations, and AP-related accrual support.
- Perform and review AP-specific reconciliations, including AP subledger-to-general-ledger, invoice and payment clearing accounts, vendor credits, returned payments, corporate-card accounts, and other assigned AP accounts.
- Prepare or coordinate preparation of AP-related journal entries and accrual support, including expense accruals, payment adjustments, unrecorded liabilities, and vendor credits; submit complete supporting documentation for required accounting review and approval.
- Prepare AP-related reporting and supporting schedules, including AP aging, payment activity, invoice-processing metrics, outstanding liabilities, vendor activity, and AP control reports.
- Assist the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager with organization-wide close and financial-reporting activities by providing complete and timely AP schedules, explanations, and supporting documentation.
Vendor Management, Controls, and Compliance
- Lead vendor onboarding, verification, maintenance, and deactivation processes and ensure required documentation and approvals are retained.
- Implement and monitor AP-specific controls, including vendor verification, invoice approval, payment authorization, segregation of duties, duplicate-payment prevention, banking-change verification, and supporting documentation.
- Ensure AP transactions associated with grants and restricted funds use approved coding, documentation, approval, and payment requirements and escalate exceptions to the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager or Controller.
- Provide assigned vendor, payment, contractor, and disbursement information for IRS Form 990 schedules, Form 1099 reporting, audits, and other regulatory reporting.
- Develop and maintain AP procedures, vendor-management standards, payment instructions, desk guides, and AP control documentation consistent with approved accounting policy.
Audit Support
- Prepare and coordinate Accounts Payable audit materials, including vendor documentation, invoice and payment support, approval records, AP reconciliations, payment-control evidence, and responses to assigned AP audit requests.
- Assist the Accounting Operations Manager with day-to-day audit coordination by tracking assigned AP requests, reviewing completed AP support, and resolving routine AP questions.
- Escalate significant audit issues, suspected fraud, control exceptions, unusual payment requests, or material vendor concerns to the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager and Controller.
Workday, Automation, and Procure-to-Pay Systems Ownership
- Serve as the Finance subject matter expert and functional business owner for Accounts Payable, supplier, invoice, expense, payment, and related procure-to-pay processes within Workday and other assigned systems, with responsibility for AP business processes, functional requirements, controls, operational outcomes, data quality, and the AP-team user experience.
- Partner with the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager, who serves as the lead Finance accounting functional owner, and provide AP-specific requirements, user insights, risks, issue analysis, and operational recommendations for implementation, releases, optimization, and continuous improvement.
- Maintain thorough functional knowledge of Workday procure-to-pay functionality and define AP business and user requirements for supplier structures, Worktags, invoice routing, approvals, payments, expenses, exceptions, reporting, controls, and user experience. Partner with IT on technical design and configuration and validate proposed solutions from an AP perspective.
- Participate actively in requirements workshops, design reviews, demonstrations, and process decisions; provide the AP operational and user-experience perspective; and validate that proposed solutions meet AP requirements. Information Technology retains authority and responsibility for technical configuration and application administration.
- Lead AP functional testing and user-acceptance testing; define AP test scenarios and expected outcomes; validate supplier, invoice, payment, expense, control, integration, reporting, and user-experience results; document functional defects and business impacts; and provide AP-readiness recommendations. Partner with the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager and IT Project Manager on overall testing coordination, deployment readiness, cutover, and implementation schedules.
- Perform functional analysis of AP-system issues by reproducing and documenting issues, assessing workflow and transaction impacts, recording expected system behavior, and validating corrections. Participate in functional testing of integrations affecting suppliers, invoices, expenses, purchasing, banking, reconciliation, and payments. Partner with the IT Solutions Analyst on technical troubleshooting, integration support, vendor escalation, and technical resolution.
- Identify, research, and evaluate automation and AI opportunities across invoice processing, data extraction, exception management, routing, payments, reporting, and fraud prevention; define AP requirements and expected outcomes; assess operational, control, data, and user impacts; participate in implementation and testing; and monitor effectiveness after deployment. Information Technology retains responsibility for technical design, development, configuration, administration, integration, and deployment.
- Own the AP-team functional user experience by defining user needs, developing AP process documentation and job aids, providing AP-process training, gathering feedback, and supporting adoption. Partner with the IT Project Manager on coordinated change management, training plans, communications, readiness, and adoption tracking, and with the IT Solutions Analyst on technical guidance and application support.
- Lead Finance identification, prioritization, and validation of AP and procure-to-pay optimization opportunities. Maintain an AP functional improvement backlog and recommend priorities through the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager and governance channels. Partner with the IT Project Manager on project-based delivery and with the IT Solutions Analyst on technical solution design and support; AP does not own the enterprise technology roadmap or technical delivery plan.
- Monitor AP-process effectiveness and AP-user feedback after implementation; identify recurring functional issues, control gaps, reporting needs, and manual workarounds; document business impacts and desired outcomes; partner with Finance systems leadership and IT on resolution; and validate that delivered changes meet AP requirements.
Team Leadership and Collaboration
- Directly lead and supervise Accounts Payable staff; establish priorities, productivity and quality expectations, service standards, cross-training, and continuity plans.
- Provide coaching, training, feedback, and performance management and promote a culture of accountability, customer service, control awareness, and continuous improvement.
- Collaborate with the Accounting Operations and Financial Systems Manager on close, general-ledger, reporting, audit, controls, and ERP Workday requirements while retaining responsibility for AP staff and daily AP operations.
- Partner with Procurement, Finance, Information Technology, department approvers, vendors, and other stakeholders to improve end-to-end procure-to-pay processes.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
- Five or more years of progressively responsible accounts payable or financial operations experience, including at least three years of supervisory or team leadership experience.
- Strong knowledge of invoice processing, payment operations, vendor management, AP reconciliations, accrual support, and accounts payable internal controls.
- Demonstrated advanced, hands-on experience using and supporting enterprise financial systems such as Workday, Oracle, Infor, Lawson, NetSuite, or a comparable ERP platform; Workday procure-to-pay experience strongly preferred.
- Experience serving as an AP or procure-to-pay functional lead or business owner by translating operational and user requirements into workflows, testing scenarios, reporting needs, control expectations, issue resolution, and ongoing enhancements.
- Experience researching, implementing, troubleshooting, monitoring, or maintaining workflow automation, AI-enabled tools, data-extraction solutions, or other procure-to-pay technologies.
- Intermediate to advanced Excel skills.
- Nonprofit and/or healthcare experience preferred.
Learn more about us, NKC on YouTube Benefit offerings for eligible employees (.6-1.0 FTE):
- Choice of 3 medical insurance plans: Premera Blue Cross (HDHP, Low Option PPO, High Option PPO)
- Delta Dental & Vision Services Plan
- 401 Retirement Plan, Employer Match dollar for dollar up to 4% of your wages and an additional 1% Discretionary Match
- Disability benefits: Short-term & Long-term Plans
- Life & AD&D Plans
- Tuition Reimbursement of up to $4,000 annually
- Employee Assistance Program
- Employee Scholarship Program
- Flexible Spending & Health Savings Accounts
- 100% employer subsidized Commute/Transit Benefits available
- Paid Time Off (PTO) includes personal time off and holidays. Employees may earn up to 192 hours of PTO in their first year.
- Paid Sick Time (PST) - Employees will earn 1 hour for every 30 eligible hours of work.
Founded in 1962 as the world’s first outpatient dialysis provider, Northwest Kidney Centers operates 19 dialysis clinics across the Puget Sound region in addition to hospital-based services and a large home-based dialysis program. We are a not-for-profit, community-based organization and consistently rank among the top dialysis providers in the United States in quality of care, patient outcomes and transplant rates.
At Northwest Kidney Centers, teamwork, integrity, respect, excellence and stewardship guide our approach to how we work. We differentiate ourselves by our patient centered approach and active commitment to advancing kidney research and dialysis innovation. Key to our success is the compassion and expertise of our dedicated team of staff that care for those we serve. Equal Employment Opportunity Northwest Kidney Center is an equal employment opportunity employer. Every employee has the right to work in surroundings that are free from all forms of unlawful discrimination. NKC will not engage in or tolerate any discrimination in the workplace prohibited by local, state, or federal law. Specifically, no employee will be discriminated against on the basis of their race (including physical characteristics historically associated with race, such as hairstyle or hair type), sex/gender, religion/creed, pregnancy, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, national origin, citizenship, immigration status, genetics/genetic markers, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, including gender expression or identity, actual or perceived victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law. Preboarding Requirements: At Northwest Kidney Centers, we are committed to maintaining a safe work environment for all employees and patients. As part of our hiring process, we conduct pre-employment background checks, drug screenings (we do not test for THC), employment verification and references, which are contingent to be hired on with NKC. These checks ensure we are in compliance with regulatory requirements and uphold our standards of safety, excellence, stewardship, and integrity. We value transparency and respect your privacy; any information obtained during these screenings will be handled with the utmost confidentiality. Should you have any questions regarding this process, please feel free to reach out to our People Team. Please note: To protect our vulnerable patient population and our workforce, NKC strongly encourages all staff to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.