How do I screen Accounts Payable Specialist candidates before interviewing?

Send every applicant one link that carries 4 skills tests (Accounts Payable, Attention to Detail, Microsoft Excel, Basic Math Calculations), a personality inventory and 5 one-way video questions. springhire scores everything automatically and ranks the candidates, so you interview the top few. The free plan covers 10 candidates a month.

How long does the Accounts Payable Specialist screening take a candidate?

About 44 minutes for the tests, plus 10 to 15 minutes for the video questions. Candidates complete it on their own time, on any device.

What should a Accounts Payable Specialist job description include?

A short brief, key responsibilities, must-have and nice-to-have skills and the requirements. The JD generator writes one for this role in a minute.

Which interview questions work best for a Accounts Payable Specialist?

Questions that ask for a specific past example and a walkthrough of how the candidate thinks. This page lists 8 with sample answers, and the full bank has more.

Yes. The free plan includes every screening tool with 10 candidate credits a month and no card. Paid plans start at $39 a month.

Finance

How to hire an Accounts Payable Specialist

What the role does, the job description, the interview questions, and the 44-minute screening pack that tells you who can do the job before you book a single interview.

Screen Accounts Payable Specialist candidates free See the pack

The role

What an Accounts Payable Specialist does

A Accounts Payable Specialist sits in the Finance function. The sections below give you the job description, the interview questions and the screening pack for the role.

Screen before you interview

The Accounts Payable Specialist screening pack

AP is accuracy, controls and spreadsheets, and integrity matters when someone approves payments. Every applicant gets one link. You get one ranked report.

Skills tests · 44 minutes total

Finance & accountingAccounts Payable Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Accounts Payable Test shows you whether a candidate can actually run the payables desk: matching invoices to purchase orders and receipts, posting correct debits and credits, catching duplicates and arithmetic errors, and reconciling vendor statements. Twenty multiple-choice questions deliver a practical skill signal in ten minutes.Cognitive & aptitudeAttention to Detail Test12 min · 24 questions · IntermediateThe Attention to Detail Test shows you how carefully a candidate reads, checks, and verifies textual information, the core skill for data entry, admin, finance and QA roles. It measures four practical skills: matching strings against a reference, comparing records, checking that document fields agree, and spotting errors and omissions in text and data.Office & adminMicrosoft Excel Test12 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Microsoft Excel Test checks whether candidates can actually work in a spreadsheet: navigating worksheets, sorting and filtering tables, keeping data clean, and predicting what formulas like VLOOKUP, SUMIF, and IF return. Twenty practical questions separate genuine Excel users from resume keyword matches.Cognitive & aptitudeBasic Math Calculations Test10 min · 24 questions · Entry levelThe Basic Math Calculations Test checks whether candidates can handle the everyday numbers a job throws at them: totaling invoices, splitting stock into boxes, applying discounts, and reasoning through short word problems. It gives you a fast, fair read on practical numeracy before you invest interview time.

Personality inventory

Integrity and Reliability TestThe Integrity and Reliability Test helps hiring teams assess how entry-level candidates are likely to respond to workplace rules, deadlines and responsibilities. It is useful for roles where showing up, following process and taking ownership are essential to daily performance.

One-way video questions · answered on camera, scored by AI

1
Walk us through your invoice-to-payment process from receipt to reconciliation.
2
A vendor invoice does not match the purchase order. What do you do?
3
How do you keep month-end close on time when invoices arrive late?
4
Tell us about an error you caught before it was paid.
5
Which AP or ERP systems have you used, and which do you prefer?

Send this pack to your applicantsFree plan, 10 candidates a month, no card.

Interview questions

Accounts Payable Specialist interview questions

For the candidates who pass the pack. Each comes with a sample answer on the full page.

Ask these after the screening pack, not instead of it. A candidate who has already scored on Accounts Payable, Attention to Detail, Microsoft Excel, Basic Math Calculations has shown they can do the work, which frees the interview to do what a test cannot: find out how they think, how they explain themselves, and how they behave when something goes wrong.

Ask every Accounts Payable Specialist candidate the same questions in the same order. Comparable answers are the whole point; a different conversation with each person tells you who you liked, not who was strongest.
Look for a specific example with a result, not a description of how the candidate would approach it in principle. Follow up once with “what happened next?” and stop talking.
Score each answer before moving to the next question, and write down what was said rather than the impression it left.
At volume, record the first 4 of these instead of calling. Candidates answer on their own time, the answers are transcribed and scored, and you keep live interviews for the shortlist.

The pack takes a candidate about 44 minutes, so a Accounts Payable Specialist applicant arrives at this interview already measured on the parts you can measure without a meeting.

01
What drew you to a career in accounts payable?
02
Walk me through your day-to-day accounts payable experience.
03
What accounting or ERP systems have you used for AP?
04
How much invoice volume are you comfortable handling?
05
Explain how you perform a three-way match and what you do when it fails.
06
How do you catch and prevent duplicate payments?
07
How do you manage payment terms and early-payment discounts?
08
How do you reconcile a vendor statement that does not agree with your records?

All Accounts Payable Specialist interview questions with answers

Frequently asked questions

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