Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Jobs: What AP and AR Teams Do
Accounts payable (AP) is the team that pays the company's suppliers. Accounts receivable (AR) is the team that collects money the company's customers owe. Both sit in finance operations. AP checks invoices against purchase orders and receipts, gets approvals and schedules payments. AR raises invoices, applies incoming payments, follows up on overdue amounts and keeps the customer ledger clean. They are common entry points for commerce graduates and are hired heavily in shared services and global capability centres in India.
From outside, these jobs can look like data entry. Done well, they are about accuracy, judgment and catching problems early: a duplicate invoice, a vendor whose bank details suddenly changed, a customer who keeps paying late. That judgment is what gets people promoted.
A typical AP day
- reviewing incoming vendor invoices and matching them to the purchase order and goods receipt (often called a three-way match)
- chasing approvals when amounts or details do not match
- coding invoices to the right cost centre and general ledger account
- preparing payment runs and handling vendor queries about payment status
- checking tax details on invoices, such as GST and TDS in Indian entities
- helping with month-end: accruals for invoices not yet received, and reconciliations
A typical AR day
- creating customer invoices and credit notes
- applying payments received to the right invoices (cash application)
- following up on overdue invoices by email or phone
- preparing ageing reports that show how long amounts have been outstanding
- resolving disputes with sales or customer success teams
In global teams you may handle customers or vendors in another country, which means working partly in their time zone and dealing with their tax rules. A listing like "Payroll Specialist - USA" or "AR for EMEA" is telling you which region you will support.
Skills and tools employers ask for
Most listings ask for a commerce degree (B.Com, M.Com, BBA or MBA in finance), good Excel, and experience with an ERP. The ERPs named most often are SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and, in smaller Indian companies, Tally. Some mention AP automation tools such as Coupa or similar platforms.
Excel matters more than people expect. VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, pivot tables, and cleaning messy exported data are used every week. Our guide on Excel skills for office jobs covers what interview tests usually check. If you are applying in Indian companies, the accounts executive interview guide covers Tally, GST and TDS questions.
Interview questions you can expect
Common ones: explain three-way matching; what you do if an invoice has no PO; how you would handle a vendor asking to change bank details by email (the right answer involves verifying through a known contact, because this is a common fraud pattern); what an ageing report shows; and how you prioritise overdue accounts. Concrete answers from your own experience, even from an internship or articleship, work better than textbook definitions.
Where these roles lead
Within finance operations, a common path is executive to senior executive, then team lead or process lead, and later roles in general ledger accounting, financial reporting, controllership or financial planning. Some people move into finance systems roles because they understand both the process and the ERP. Professional qualifications such as CA, CMA or ACCA help for the reporting and control side, but many people grow on experience alone.
One thing to watch: if you stay in one narrow task, say only cash application, for years, it can be harder to move up. Ask for exposure to month-end close and reconciliations once you are confident in your daily work.
On CareerCola, look in the finance category or search "accounts payable", "accounts receivable" or "AP specialist" on the jobs page.