Account Payable Specialist - Sanofi

Job Purpose:

The purpose of the position is to manage accounting activities within Purchase To Pay organization for Sanofi Business Services in Egypt.

He/she will handle accounting administrative & operational processes and all activities of his/her perimeter in compliance with global P2P procedures and policies and P2P operating model.

He/she will manage the invoicing process from receipt of invoice (NCoGs, CoGS, Capex) to payment and contribute to drive process standardization/simplification and deliver best-in class service in terms of performance and end-user/supplier satisfaction.

Also, he/she will manage some key financial closing tasks related to AP (Accrual monitoring, GR/IR review & clearing, ICO Product flow, AP overdue analysis…)

Service Delivery

• Create a culture of cooperation, collaboration and teamwork within Egypt and ensure a smooth interface & communication with all internal stakeholders .
•  
• With the support of the Head of AP Egypt, drive the refocusing and harmonization of the Account Payables activities, taking into account the specificities of the different types of expense.

• Support the Head of AP Egypt in the streamlining, optimization and reduction of the administrative workload by a continuous implementation of automation solutions and simplification of processes.

• In line with the Global and regional SBS operating model, responsible for the calculation of monthly/quarterly service KPIs and elaboration of dashboards to measure and improve performance (cost, efficiency, quality/ compliance, customer service).

• Ensure Compliance and Internal Control/ SOX standards are met. Systematically self-assess the level of risk for the domain of responsibility and highlight risks to the direct manager in a timely manner.

Transformation Management

• Propose continuous improvement initiatives and or Quick Wins action plans to solve main pain points in the Account Payable perimeter.
• Ensure full & sustainable alignment with the P2P Core Model by systematically applying the process standardization & harmonization as defined by Global Process Owners.

Operational activities

• Transfers paper invoices to scanning tool for OCR and ensures they are properly recognized and stored
• Defines management rules for invoice rejection in collaboration with Procurement
• Performs the cockpit entry for received invoices and completes information where necessary
• Checks the documentation attached to the invoice for GL accounts subject to documentation check
• Manages specific invoice instructions (e.g. down-payment)
• PO invoices: Resolves invoice discrepancies which can be handled by Accounts Payable directly, e.g. line item mismatches, VAT, extra cost, supplier information
• PO invoices: Ensures that adequate workflows are launched to resolve invoice mismatches which cannot be handled by Accounts Payable, e.g. price or quantity discrepancies
• PO invoices: Applies 3-way match (PO, GR, Invoice)
• FI invoices: Parks invoices without PO reference for special treatment, i.e. detection of requester or rejection to supplier
• Ensures that approved invoices are unblocked and thus declared as « ok to pay »
• If blocking errors come up, the A/P Specialist is responsible to initiate action to solve them
• Reconciles and clears the GR/IR balance in case of discrepancies between goods receipt and invoice receipt
• Prepares “ok to pay” invoices file
• Manages closing activities: A/P accruals, A/P open items, vendor accounts with open balances, vendor accounts with debit balances, reconciliation of subledger to GL/justify AP balances…
• Handles transactional enquiries related to invoice and payment
• Handles and resolves exceptional invoice cases
• Is responsible for contacting the supplier to request a credit note when needed
• Performs legal / VAT compliance checks and tax calculations if relevant
• For 3rd party payment, the A/P clerk prepares & submits payment proposal, reviews exception log and creates payment file
• Is responsible for clearing of transitory accounts as well as payment rejections and returns
• Creates input for urgent payment requests
• Takes proactive actions to ensure prompt progress and execution of invoice validation with all the actors of the invoice approval process
• Manages all the intercompany invoices flow related to P2P
• Calculation of a global set of performance KPIs on a monthly/quarterly basis (DPO, POT, Invoice/FTE…)

Geographic scope

• Coverage of all Sanofi sites, entities and businesses located in Egypt/Sudan

Key “MUST HAVE” competencies, skills & experiences

• Minimum 3 years of experience in Finance and Accounting fields
• Experience of working within multinational companies is required
• International background with exposure to multicultural environments is a plus
• Good understanding of the overall end-to-end P2P process value chain and articulations of sub processes: procurement techniques / account payable processes / T&E processes / tactical supplier relationship management / contract management principles & processes / Master data management & Support tools and systems.
• Good understanding of Sanofi’s Business Model as well its Supply- and Value Chain
• Good understanding of common Information System (IS) solutions used within P2P: SAP FI-MM extensive knowledge mandatory
• Personality with good level delivery skills and focused on results
• Very good communicator
• Fluent in English mandatory
• Performance Rating (5,6,8,9) for the last 2 years.