Your First Few Weeks in Accounts Payable: A New Starter's Checklist

So you've started a new role fixing up accounts payable. It can feel a bit like being dropped in at the deep end — new systems, new faces, and a ledger full of things you didn't create but are now responsible for. Don't worry. I've put this together as a checklist of the things every AP professional should focus on in those first few weeks. Whether you're completely new to finance or simply new to the business, working through it should help you settle in faster and start making an impact from day one.

One word of advice before you begin: resist the urge to change everything at once. Your first job is to understand how things work today. The improvements will come, and they'll be far better for being built on a proper understanding of what's already in place — and why.

1. Map the invoice journey from end to end

Before anything else, follow an invoice all the way through the business. Where does it arrive — a shared inbox, the post tray, a supplier portal? Who codes it? Who approves it, and how? How does it land on the ledger and make its way into a payment run?

Ask to shadow a full cycle, from receipt to payment, and sketch it out as you go. Once you can see the whole accounts payable process on a single page, the bottlenecks and the "we've always done it this way" quirks tend to jump straight out at you.

2. Get to grips with the systems

Find out exactly what you'll be working in, and request access early — logins and permissions often take longer to come through than you'd expect. Typically you'll need to know your way around:

• The core accounting system or ERP (Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Business Central, or similar)
• Any existing invoice capture or AP automation tools
• Wherever invoices are received and stored
• The banking or payments platform used for BACS runs

Don't just learn where the buttons are. Ask why things are set up the way they are — the reasoning behind a workflow is usually more valuable than the workflow itself.

3. Learn who can approve what

Every business has a delegation of authority, whether it's written down or living in someone's head. Find out the approval limits, who signs off at each level, and how purchase orders are authorised in the first place.

While you're at it, understand how invoices are matched — whether the business runs two-way matching (invoice to purchase order) or three-way matching (invoice, purchase order and goods received). Knowing this tells you a great deal about how tight, or how loose, the current controls really are.

4. Treat supplier master data as a fraud risk

Get familiar with the supplier records: payment terms, contact details and, crucially, bank details. This is one area where a little caution goes a very long way.

Mandate fraud — where a criminal poses as a supplier and asks you to update their bank details — is one of the most common and costly scams in accounts payable. Make it an unbreakable habit from day one: never change a supplier's bank details on the strength of an email alone. Always verify the request by phoning a known, trusted contact on a number you already hold, not one supplied in the request itself. If there isn't a documented process for this, that's your first quick win right there.

5. Review the aged creditors ledger

Pull the aged creditors report and read it properly. What's outstanding, what's overdue, and what's genuinely in dispute? Keep an eye out for duplicate invoices, credit notes that were never applied, and supplier accounts that haven't moved in years.

This gives you an honest picture of the state of play — and it's far better to find the skeletons yourself than to have them surface during an audit.

6. Understand the payment cycle

Learn the rhythm of the payment runs: when they happen, what the cut-offs are, and which methods are used. Find out whether any suppliers offer early-payment discounts, as these are quietly missed all the time and represent easy savings once you know to look for them.

7. Get across month-end

Ask about the month-end close and, specifically, where AP fits into it. You'll likely be responsible for supplier statement reconciliations and accruals, so understand the timetable and your deadlines within it early. Nothing establishes you as reliable faster than hitting your first close cleanly.

8. Know your compliance obligations

You don't need to be a tax expert, but you should understand the essentials that touch AP: what makes a valid VAT invoice, the business's Making Tax Digital obligations, and how long records need to be retained. A clean, complete audit trail isn't box-ticking — it's what protects you and the business when questions get asked later.

9. Hunt for the quick wins

By now you'll have spotted where the time really goes. The usual suspects are duplicate payments, re-keying the same data across systems, chasing approvals by email, and fielding "where's my payment?" queries from suppliers.

These are exactly the tasks that accounts payable automation is built to remove. If you find the team is drowning in manual data entry, it's well worth building the case for automating the process — our guide on transitioning from a manual to an automated AP process walks through how to do exactly that, and how to get sign-off from your boss. If you're weighing up systems, it's also worth comparing the main options before you commit.

10. Build the relationships

Accounts payable sits at a busy crossroads. You'll deal with suppliers chasing payment, budget holders wanting things approved yesterday, and the wider finance team relying on your numbers being right. The sooner you put faces to names and build a bit of goodwill, the smoother every one of those conversations becomes.

Suppliers in particular remember the AP contact who actually gets back to them — and that reputation pays dividends when you need a favour, a payment deferral, or a quick answer.

Settling in

You won't tick all of this off in week one, and you shouldn't try to. Work through it steadily, ask plenty of questions, and give yourself permission not to have all the answers yet. Understand the current process first, earn a bit of trust, and then start bringing the efficiency. Do that, and you'll have made yourself indispensable well before your probation is up.

Zahara's step by step guide to setting up Zahara

The Zahara Set-up Guide explains how to configure Zahara step by step, from your business structure and users through to workflows, suppliers, invoices and finance system exports.

If you'd like to see how automation could take the manual grind out of your new role, the Zahara team is always happy to talk it through.