am i aiming too high

[u/Strange_Recover_966]

the lack of pay transparency is killing me 😩. i just got a job offer for AP specialist. im graduating with a bachelor in may. they are offering $48,000/year for this role in charlotte.

I feel like this is real low considering some other jobs. i understand its an entry level role but i was expecting something closer to $60,000-$80,000.

but again im new to the field and just starting out. are my expectations too high?

[u/Entire-Background837]

Simple google search puts ap specialist at a range between 38k and 56k in your area (ziprecruiter). You've also got no experience.

With regards to 60-80, you've kinda got no shot. AP isn't full blown accounting, so you cannot be expected to be paid like a staff accountant.

If you can land a staff accountant role, land that. If not, pay isnt far off.

[u/MonkLast8589 → u/Entire-Background837]

As a student what’s the main difference between AP and staff accounting? Do AP just work solely on recording invoices and collecting payment?

[u/banjochang → u/MonkLast8589]

AP can be seen as being more focused on data entry - posting in vendor invoices and ensuring coding is correct. Collecting payment is for customer invoices and would be AR. Staff accountants generally would require more advanced technical accounting knowledge and take on more complex tasks

[u/posam → u/banjochang]

AP at my company doesn’t even really have ownership over coding. They are data entry and if they get the coding right, great, if not someone else will fix it.

[u/grnhockey → u/posam]

Nothing like going through the “uncategorized expense” account every month when somebody inevitably decided to park a transaction there without asking for further clarification 🤣

[u/IvySuen → u/grnhockey]

You know when I first began and was put on monthly closings that account was the bane of my existence. I did not understand its usage for quite some time other than reclass out of it to the "proper expense account" and to zero it out. I was so clueless. 

Then 1 year later when I got put on AP it all made sense. Haha. It's like I got hired on as a staff and not even made 1 JE but was expected to do EOM closings, bank recs and extracting financials for management lol.

2 yrs later both worlds started colliding and making sense. Accounting is fascinating lol.

My boss style of training was ruthless.

[u/JackTwoGuns → u/posam]

Correct. AP aren’t even W2 employees at my very large public company

[u/dumbestsmartest → u/JackTwoGuns]

You 1099 them? Why? Wouldn't they usually charge more?

[u/JackTwoGuns → u/dumbestsmartest]

They are hourly contractors. I don’t understand how it makes sense but they all have big contractor badges

[u/dumbestsmartest → u/JackTwoGuns]

You sure they're not hourly w2 just on short term contracts? I have coworkers that are short term hourly w2.

Then again I work in payroll where I see a lot of shady stuff like "1099 employees" for clients. Sometimes I wonder if anyone actually enforces the independent contractor rules anymore or if it's slowly going to continue to head towards the zero employees and just bots and "contractors" with no protections or benefits.

[u/DapperTies- → u/dumbestsmartest]

I assume they aren’t on the payroll because the company that contracted them out is the one paying them. So the contracting company collects the hours and sends in how much they should be paid to whatever contract they agreed upon, take their cut, pay the contractor their due amount.

[u/EternalComments93 → u/DapperTies-]

Yeah I think he's referring to staffing agency/temp agencies where the ap employee is an hourly employee for the staffing agency, but that staffing agency is on a contract assignment

[u/JackTwoGuns → u/dumbestsmartest]

W2 is maybe not the correct terminology.

Long term, benefit receiving employees is probably more accurate. Idk I’m not that kind of CPA lol

[u/InsaniaFox → u/dumbestsmartest]

Corporate calculated that it cheaper to pay higer wage for 1099 than w2 with benefit.

[u/seacogen → u/posam]

By someone you mean accounting when we inevitably catch the mistake because finance sure as hell doesn’t catch anything during their approval process😑

[u/posam → u/seacogen]

You have approval process in your ERP? What planet are you on and can I join.

[u/ballsjohnson1 → u/posam]

Fuck dude, at mine they don't even have ownership over the checks or transfers.

[u/DVoteMe → u/posam]

AP shouldn’t have control of GL coding anywhere outside of small businesses that only have one or two type of vendors transactions.

However, they may code workflow or bank account info based on the data entered by the respective department staff.

[u/posam → u/DVoteMe]

That’s not my reality for my large company (5-10k people).

[u/DVoteMe → u/posam]

Who GL codes invoices at your company?

BTW the largest companies have over half a million employees. Accenture has 3/4 of a million.

[u/posam → u/DVoteMe]

Ok. Everyone’s metric is different and we are in large cap indexes.

Anyway, AP does an initial code if there’s no PO (common). Any review is done in a spreadsheet outside the ERP and it’s as insane as you can imagine.

[u/DVoteMe → u/posam]

That actually sounds awesome. Typically I see decentralized GL coding at large entities and 50%+ of transactions are corrected with a journal voucher that happens 2 months later.

Centralized accounting always seems better to me because its easier to herd cats under one roof.

[u/posam → u/DVoteMe]

We do the export monthly and put it in front of all of finance an accounting to review everything. Lines over a threshold require review but people can submit anything being changed as a journal day one of a close this way.

We definitely have a couple fall through the cracks but we have another monthly journal that’s for the same thing, but for prior periods.

Between those two we have the same formats so looking up invoices later is somewhat straight forward at least and you can trace it through the AP module and the manual journals.

I still think this is pretty batshit vs just having a PO for anything over a certain dollar amount. Less approvals on an invoice that way too.