Accounts Payable Specialist

ZEISS Group; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Job summary

ZEISS India is seeking an Analyst to own end-to-end execution of international vendor payments and intercompany settlements. The role requires ensuring compliance with regulatory norms, accurate currency handling, and driving process improvements.

The successful candidate will split time between disciplined transaction execution and automation initiatives, interacting with global finance teams and bank partners in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Graduate or post‑graduate in Commerce, Accounting, Finance or Business (B.Com / M.Com / MBA Finance), or CA Inter / CMA Inter.
• 4–5 years of post‑qualification experience in cross‑border/foreign currency payments.
• Hands‑on experience with SAP S/4HANA and SAP ECC; strong bank portal experience.

Responsibilities

• Execute full cycle of international vendor payments in multiple currencies (wire/telegraphic transfer, SWIFT, cross-border cards).
• Process intercompany payables and settlements with ZEISS affiliates; ensure proper documentation and tax treatment.
• Operate banking systems and SWIFT connectivity; manage payment proposals and runs; monitor bank charges and FX spreads.

Skills

Cross-border payments

English communication

Process improvement

Education

Commerce/Accounting/Finance degree

Tools

SAP S/4HANA

SAP ECC

Bank portals / SWIFT

Job description

ZEISS in India

ZEISS in India is headquartered in Bengaluru and present in the fields of Industrial Quality Solutions, Research Microscopy Solutions, Medical Technology, Vision Care and Sports & Cine Optics.

ZEISS India has 3 production facilities, R&D center, Global IT services and about 40 Sales & Service offices in almost all Tier I and Tier II cities in India. With 2200+ employees and continued investments over 25 years in India, ZEISS’ success story in India is continuing at a rapid pace.

Further information at ZEISS India.

Purpose of the Role The Analyst owns the end-to-end execution of ZEISS India’s international vendor payments and intercompany settlements: from invoice validation and tax/regulatory clearance through banking execution, reconciliation and closure of regulatory reporting. Beyond flawless execution, the role is expected to benchmark ZEISS India’s cross-border payment process against world-class practice and drive measurable improvement in cycle time, straight-through processing, cost per transaction and compliance robustness. This is a hands‑on role with a visible improvement mandate. The successful candidate will spend roughly 60–65% of their time on disciplined transaction execution and control, and 35–40% on process improvement, automation, stakeholder alignment and compliance strengthening.

Key Responsibilities

International (Cross-Border) Vendor Payment Processing

• Execute the full cycle of foreign currency payments to global vendors — import of goods, import of services, royalties, licence fees, professional and technical fees, reimbursements, freight and logistics, and advance remittances.
• Validate invoices against purchase orders, goods receipts and service entry sheets (three-way / two-way match), including verification of Incoterms, currency, payment terms, bank details and supporting documentation (Bill of Entry, Bill of Lading, contracts, SOWs, tax residency certificates, Form 10F, No-PE declarations).
• Prepare, review and release payment proposals and payment runs across multiple currencies, banks and payment instruments (wire / telegraphic transfer, SWIFT, SEPA, ACH, cross-border cards where applicable).
• Determine and apply the correct value dates, FX conversion basis, correspondent bank charge instructions (OUR / SHA / BEN) and payment references so that vendors can reconcile receipts without follow‑up.
• Manage payment rejections, returns, amendments, recalls, tracers and SWIFT gpi enquiries with banks and beneficiaries; drive root‑cause closure rather than one‑off fixes.
• Own vendor payment queries end-to-end: acknowledge, investigate, resolve and communicate — with clear commitment dates and no unanswered ageing items.

Intercompany Payments and Settlement

• Process intercompany payables to ZEISS affiliates in line with Group intercompany, transfer pricing and treasury policies, including netting, in‑house cash / in‑house bank settlement, and central payment factory routing where applicable.
• Perform intercompany reconciliation: match open items against affiliate confirmations, investigate and clear mismatches, disputed items and ageing balances ahead of month-end and quarter-end deadlines.
• Coordinate with affiliate finance teams and Group Treasury on settlement calendars, netting cycles, cut-offs and currency of settlement; elevate breaks that threaten Group consolidation timelines.
• Ensure intercompany transactions carry correct documentation, agreements, and withholding tax treatment, and that intercompany balances tie out cleanly for statutory audit and transfer pricing documentation.

Banking Operations and Treasury Interface

• Operate bank portals and host-to-host / SWIFT connectivity for payment initiation, authorisation workflow, status tracking and confirmation retrieval.
• Prepare and submit banking documentation for outward remittances — Form A1 / A2 equivalents, purpose codes, invoice and contract sets, tax certificates — and follow through to bank clearance and closure.
• Support daily cash positioning inputs by providing accurate, timely payment forecasts to Treasury; flag large‑value or unusual remittances in advance.
• Perform bank statement reconciliation for payment clearing accounts (electronic bank statement processing), clear open items and resolve unapplied or unidentified entries within agreed timelines.
• Track and challenge bank charges, FX spreads and correspondent deductions; provide data to Treasury for banking partner reviews and pricing negotiations.
• Support FX exposure management by supplying reliable payables exposure data by currency and expected settlement date.

Regulatory Compliance, Tax and Governance (India)

• Ensure every outward remittance complies with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), RBI Master Directions on Import of Goods and Services and Miscellaneous Remittances, and prescribed purpose codes.
• Own the withholding tax workflow on foreign payments: Section 195 determination, DTAA benefit application, collection and validity checking of Tax Residency Certificates, Form 10F and beneficial ownership / No-PE declarations; coordinate Form 15CA and Form 15CB (CA certification) issuance and filing.
• Ensure correct GST treatment on imports and import of services, including reverse charge mechanism liability, IGST on imports, and input tax credit eligibility documentation.
• Monitor and close entries in IDPMS / EDPMS and outstanding Bill of Entry positions; ensure advance remittances are regularised within regulatory timelines and that no item ages into a compliance breach.
• Maintain audit‑ready documentation packs for every remittance and support statutory audit, internal audit, tax assessments, transfer pricing reviews and Group internal control testing.
• Operate and evidence internal controls over payments: segregation of duties, maker‑checker, delegation of authority limits, dual authorisation and payment release controls.
• Apply and strengthen fraud‑prevention controls — independent call‑back verification of vendor bank detail changes, protection against business email compromise, sanctions and denied‑party screening, and duplicate or ghost‑vendor detection.

SAP S/4HANA and Systems

• Execute the payables and payment cycle in SAP S/4HANA — invoice verification (MIRO), vendor and GL postings, payment proposals and runs (F110), payment media and bank file generation (DMEE / DMEEX), Bank Communication Management, and electronic bank statement clearing.
• Work with master data and procurement teams on vendor master integrity: bank details, tax registrations, withholding tax codes, payment terms, blocked and duplicate vendor management.
• Use and improve supporting platforms — invoice capture / OCR and workflow (e.g. OpenText VIM or equivalent), procurement and expense systems (e.g. SAP Ariba, Concur), treasury and reporting tools.
• Partner with Finance Systems / IT on defect resolution, testing, and enhancement requests; participate as a business tester in upgrades, release cycles and new rollouts, including preparation of test scripts and sign‑off documentation.
• Build and maintain accurate payment and ageing reporting from SAP and BI tools; automate recurring reporting wherever a manual report is being rebuilt each cycle.

Continuous Improvement and Benchmarking

• Map the current international and intercompany payment process end-to-end, quantify handoffs, rework loops, touch points and cycle time, and maintain the process documentation as a living asset (SOPs, process maps, control matrices, desktop procedures).
• Benchmark ZEISS India’s payment process against external best practice — peer multinationals, shared service and GBS benchmarks, banking partner practice, and published process benchmarks (e.g. APQC-type metrics) — and translate findings into a prioritised, costed improvement roadmap.
• Deliver measurable improvement against defined baselines: touchless / straight‑through processing rate, first‑pass yield, invoice-to-pay cycle time, cost per payment, exception and rework rate, and payment accuracy on first attempt.
• Identify and implement automation opportunities — workflow redesign, rules‑based validation, RPA, AI‑assisted document extraction, bank file standardisation and ISO 20022 migration readiness — working with the Finance transformation and IT teams.
• Apply structured problem‑solving (root cause analysis, Lean / Six Sigma techniques, standard work) rather than adding checks and reconciliations on top of existing complexity.
• Contribute to Group‑level harmonisation: adopt global standards where they exist, and put forward India practices that deserve to become the global standard.

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Stakeholder Management

• Work seamlessly with a wide stakeholder set: global and domestic vendors; ZEISS affiliate finance teams and Group Treasury in Germany; local Finance, Tax, Controlling and Statutory Reporting; Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Procurement; Logistics and Customs; Legal; Shared Services; IT; and banking partners and tax consultants.
• Act as the reliable single point of contact for international payment matters — translating regulatory and banking complexity into plain, actionable guidance for non-finance stakeholders.
• Partner with Manufacturing and Supply Chain to protect continuity of critical imports: anticipate payment dependencies, advance payment requirements and documentation gaps before they become a supply risk.
• Communicate with clarity and confidence in writing and in meetings with senior and global stakeholders; elevate early, with facts, options and a recommendation.
• Build vendor and affiliate trust through predictable, transparent payment behaviour and disciplined follow‑through.

Reporting, Analytics and Month-End

• Deliver month‑end and quarter‑end close activities for payables and payments: accruals, GR/IR and open item analysis, intercompany confirmations, unclaimed and ageing items, FX revaluation support and account reconciliations.
• Produce management reporting on payment performance, ageing, exceptions, compliance status and improvement programme progress; make the numbers tell a clear story rather than presenting raw data.
• Provide analysis to support decisions on payment terms, banking routing, currency of settlement and working capital optimisation.

Candidate Profile

Essential (must-have)

• Graduate or post‑graduate in Commerce, Accounting, Finance or Business (B.Com / M.Com / MBA Finance), or CA Inter / CMA Inter.
• 4–5 years of post‑qualification experience in accounts payable with direct, hands‑on ownership of cross‑border / foreign currency payments — not limited to domestic payables or a single narrow sub‑step.
• Demonstrated working knowledge of SAP (S/4HANA strongly preferred; ECC acceptable with S/4 exposure) across invoice verification, vendor accounting, automatic payment programme and bank clearing.
• Practical familiarity with Indian regulatory requirements for outward remittance: FEMA and RBI Master Directions, purpose codes, Section 195 withholding, DTAA and TRC / Form 10F, and Form 15CA / 15CB workflow.
• Hands‑on experience with bank portals, payment file formats and end‑to‑end banking transaction processing, including exception handling with banks.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication; able to hold their own with global stakeholders, vendors and banks.
• Strong Excel capability (lookups, pivots, reconciliation logic, large‑data handling) and comfort with structured data analysis.
• Evidence of at least one process improvement the candidate personally designed and implemented, with a before‑and‑after metric they can defend.

Desirable

• Experience in a multinational captive, GCC, shared services or global business services environment with European headquarters interaction.
• Exposure to manufacturing and import‑intensive supply chains (Bill of Entry, IDPMS, customs documentation).
• Experience with intercompany netting, in‑house cash / in‑house bank, or a central payment factory model.
• Exposure to ISO 20022 (pain.001 / camt.053) migration, SWIFT gpi, or host-to-host bank integration projects.
• Lean / Six Sigma training (Yellow or Green Belt) or equivalent structured process improvement credential.
• Working knowledge of RPA, Power Platform, Power BI, SQL or AI‑assisted document processing tools.
• Exposure to internal control frameworks and audit evidencing in a listed‑parent environment.

Your ZEISS Recruiting Team:

Manoj Badaik