Accountant - Payables

Aldar Education is seeking an Accountant Payable for our corporate office in Abu Dhabi. This is an exciting opportunity for a skilled professional to join the highly successful Aldar family of schools and to help shape the future of Abu Dhabi’s leading school group. Manage corporate accounts payable activities for Aldar Education HQ entities, ensuring accurate and timely invoice processing, appropriate matching and approvals, complete supplier reconciliations, effective resolution of exceptions, and compliance with procurement policies, tax requirements, Group controls, and the Delegation of Authority. Main Duties: Execute end-to-end corporate payables accounting, including invoice validation, purchase order and receipt matching, supplier account maintenance, payment support, AP reconciliations, accruals, month-end closing, audit documentation, and stakeholder query resolution. Specific Duties: - Receive, review, and process supplier invoices and credit notes for HQ entities, ensuring validity, completeness, correct legal entity, appropriate coding, and required supporting documentation. - Perform purchase order, goods or service receipt, and invoice matching and follow up on quantity, price, tax, coding, or approval exceptions. - Confirm that invoices and non-PO payment requests comply with procurement requirements, approved contracts, Group policies, and the Delegation of Authority before processing. - Validate VAT treatment and required tax invoice information and refer complex tax matters to the Tax team. - Prepare supplier reconciliations, investigate differences, obtain missing statements or documents, and resolve debit balances, duplicates, and long-outstanding items. - Review accounts payable ageing, unmatched invoices, blocked transactions, payment holds, GR/IR balances, and other exceptions and coordinate timely resolution. - Prepare payment proposals and supporting schedules, validate due dates and payment terms, and coordinate approved payments with Treasury. - Post and reconcile supplier payments, credit notes, advances, retention balances, and other accounts payable transactions in the ERP. - Prepare month-end accounts payable accruals, cut-off schedules, reconciliations, and closing reports in line with the approved closing calendar. - Support prepaid expense, intercompany, employee reimbursement, and other assigned payable-related accounting activities. - Respond to supplier and internal stakeholder queries professionally and maintain clear records of actions and resolutions. - Prepare supporting documents and schedules for statutory audit, internal audit, ICFR testing, and other compliance reviews. - Maintain accounts payable files and records in accordance with document-retention and audit requirements. - Support testing and implementation of ERP, workflow, e-invoicing, and Purchase-to-Pay process enhancements. - Identify duplicate payments, control gaps, recurring exceptions, and process inefficiencies and recommend corrective actions. - Provide periodic accounts payable reports and analysis to the Assistant Manager - HQ Financial Operations Qualifications: - Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Commerce, or a related discipline. - Professional accounting qualification or progress towards a relevant qualification is desirable. - Minimum 3 years of relevant accounts payable or financial accounting experience. - Practical experience in invoice processing, PO matching, supplier reconciliations, payment preparation, accruals, and month-end closing. - Experience with ERP-based Procure-to-Pay processes and multi-entity operations is desirable. - Good knowledge of accounts payable accounting, Procure-to-Pay controls, VAT fundamentals, and financial cut-off requirements. - Strong attention to detail, numerical accuracy, and document-review capability. - Good ERP and Microsoft Excel skills.